Bottom drawer oddities. Number 1: The El Gamo Falcon 20R pistol.

[ccdjg]

I have just been making a long overdue sort out of my airgun collection and paraphernalia and came across a few pistols that had found their way to the back of a drawer and long forgotten about. Usually these are things that have needed a bit of repair, have bits missing or are duplicates, but sometimes they are unusual items that I couldn’t find an immediate place for in my main collection and which then got misplaced. One such “find” which deserves to be brought out into the light of day is an example of the rarely seen Gamo Falcon 20R repeater. These are so rare there isn’t a picture of one in Danny’s Gallery (at the present time) or in the Encyclopedia of Spring Air Pistols, although it does get a mention there.

The Gamo repeater is one of those guns which I can never understand didn’t become more commercial. The design involves a very simple modification of the Gamo single shot Falcon that converts it to a very effective 20-shot repeater for ball ammo. The magazine is just a tube along the left side of the barrel which holds the ball shot under spring pressure. These pictures show how it compares with the standard Falcon.







When the loading gate is swung open manually in the usual way for the single shot Falcon, a ball is automatically fed into the gate. The gate then is then returned manually. Not a true automatic repeater of course, but pleasant to use and the feed mechanism is extremely reliable as there is virtually nothing that can go wrong. As the feeder mechanism is restricted to round shot only, the pistol could never aspire to being a serious target pistol which is probably why El Gamo only made the Falcon version rather than a more upmarket Center version.

I have never seen any advertising literature for the Falcon 20R and can’t date it accurately, so if anyone can provide any additional information I would be very grateful.

This one is definitely coming out of the drawer into my main collection and is going to get some use as well.

[ptdunk]

That would make such a fun plinking Pistol!
Big fan of the Centre and the target version with the anatomical grip and decent adjustable trigger.
I think the linear recoil and fixed barrel makes these surprisingly accurate.

I’d love to find one of these though....

Thanks for sharing

Matt.

[the logun-ator]

i just pulled a gamo single stroke pistol out the draw last weekend,been there for 4 years buggered,instantly vented
but now for some reason its working
yea i can recall that pistol
looking forward to the next number 2 instalment of your lost treasures from the ''draws of plenty''

[Garvin]

Thanks for that, John. Pics now in the gallery.

This is a new one on me. Very simple. In fact, I imagine a similar design would work well as a 'semi-auto' for pellets too, with the magazine tube running along the cylinder instead of the barrel and loading as normal from the other (ie. rear) side of the loading gate.

[Shed tuner]

I i started out shooting as a kid with a Centre pistol (same as a Falcon, different grip).. they are excellet for the modest cost.

That repeating option does look great. I can't see why with an appropriate length pellet it wouldn't work with pellets too, unless they can't be loaed into the mag ?

[MDriskill]

That’s extremely interesting! Have never seen or heard of that model before.

I always thought the Center and Falcon looked like nice pistols, but have never managed to own one.

[gingernut]

I enjoyed my Center but again never heard of repeater.

Are these the only under lever pistols?

The under lever is easier to operate than the side FWB 65.

[eyebull]

I enjoyed my Center but again never heard of repeater.

Are these the only under lever pistols?

The under lever is easier to operate than the side FWB 65.

The Chinese QS35 springs to mind, it's a rather agricultural old lump though.

[gingernut]

Will look it up!

[eyebull]

Will look it up!

Not many pictures out there that I could see, but I do have one if you'd like to see some detailed pics.

[ccdjg]

Are these the only under lever pistols?

Actually there are quite a few underlever pistols that closely or approximately follow the design of the Centre. Some of these are shown in the following picture.


(A) Czech JBH54, a ball firing repeater. The gravity top-feeding magazine is integral with the cylinder. Earliest versions date to 1947, this version mid 1950’s. Probably inspired the design of the Relum Hurricane pistol.
(B) The single shot Relum Hurricane. Hungarian, from about 1957. Loads from the left. Presumably El Gamo copied this.
(C) The single shot BBM Bruni CF92. Italian, about Loading gate rises vertically. Dating probably from 1992, only available briefly.
(D) The El Gamo Centre, from 1973. Like its Target and Falcon versions it loads from the left.
(E) The single shot Chinese QS35, introduced about 1996. Loads from the right.
(F) Daisy 188. Repeater (steel BB’s only in the later model). Magazine loading bay on right side. Introduced 1979.

This type of pistol makes a nice theme to collect, but some are going to be hard to find these days.