My Take on The FX Wildcat .22

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plinker

plinker

Member
May 28, 2015
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Georgia, United States
Yes, I may be late to the party, but I thought I would share my impressions relative to what I have owned. I have experience with a marauder Gen2 in .22 that was very quiet and accurate, and an FX verminator in .25 that was laser accurate with bells and whistles. The wildcat .22 is very compact and light and that is one of the main features I wanted. You cannot describe that in words and pictures, you just have to hold it. It shoulders very well for me at 6'2" and I had no problem with target acquisition in the scope. I do however, prefer small guns. The second feature I wanted was silence! I compare it to my marauder .22 and my verminator .25 on the lowest of three power wheel settings with a 6 piece FX modular moderator. Stock the Wildcat .22 is loudest(I do not say back yard friendly, but I am very picky on this issue), the marauder quieter, and the Verminator.25 with moderator on low power wheel setting the quietest. The Verminator on medium is the same as the marauder. On high power, and remember this is comparing a .25 against the .22 marauder, the moderated verminator .25 is louder. Having said that with the addition of a 6 3/4 inch Huggett the wildcat .22 is stinking quiet. In fact strong stink might be louder. With the Hugget the wildcat .22 is much quieter than the marauder .22 and the moderated Verminator .25 on lowest setting. In the woods, with the Huggett on the .22 wildcat, I only hear the sound of a dime being dropped flat on another dime by my ear. With three brick walls around me at 8ft I hear only a light puff of air. That is what I was hoping for. Now for the interesting part. When I placed the FX stackable modular moderator on my Verminator .25 I had pellet clipping and resolved it by opening up each piece by 1/32 on a drill press. The advantage was It could be disassembled to do that. It did not affect the sound suppression. When I purchased the Huggett for the Wildcat .22 from Precision Air, I bought a .25 Huggett. That's right, a .25 Huggett on a .22 wildcat. The threads are the same so it screwed on directly with the end cap of the wildcat.22 removed. I did this so I knew I wouldn't have a clipping issue and so that if I decided to pick up a wildcat .25 later the Huggett could serve both. Remember, even with a .25 Huggett the wildcat.22 was dead quiet. The clip on the wildcat.22 is much easier to load than the Verminator and marauder clips. The later both require the operator to rotate and load through a plastic top plate. The marauder and verminator hold more pellets compared to the eight count wildcat.22 clip, but I can load the wildcat.22 twice as fast so I like it better. The wildcat .22 clip indexes very smoothly with no scoring. The cocking lever on the verminator .25 was slightly smoother than the wildcat.22, but I believe after 500 Pellets they will be equal. The butter smooth Fx lever is another feature I really like. The marauder required a good stiff pull. It is very comfortable to carry the wildcat in the woods upside down holding the bottom of the stock. I really like the smooth touch Fx stock. It has a much better finish and feel than the synthetic marauder. I prefer the marauder and Verminator foster fitting to the fill probe of the wildcat. Over time there will be marks on the wildcat fill cover using the probe. There was ample room to mount a 50mm 12x scope with more than adequate eye relief and cheek placement for me. The FX trigger is great. I cant mine slightly right for comfort. The advantage is you can. Plus raise or lower and adjust ounces. The metal trigger guard is knurled beneath. I have read some comments on the safety, which were hotley debated and I can tell you on my Wildcat.22 the safety only engages with the gun cocked. Not a problem for me. Whether or not the trigger adjustment affects that I cannot say. Now for the most important part. The gun is laser accurate on level with my verminator .25 at 25 and 50 yards. I'm talking pellet on pellet at 25 yards and less than 1/2 inch at 50 yards. Sweeet. I have not tested it at 100 because that is not my intended use for it. I did however plug a lilly pad (think pie plate) at 250 yards at will. Holdover for sure, but consistent. My last test will require the gun to sit dormant for several days and evaluate for leaks. So far so good. I love the FX wildcat .22. I also thoroughly enjoyed my accurate Gen 2 marauder .22 and the incredible Verminator .25 with unbelievable shot count. In the pictures I tried to show the Wildcat relative to my 6'2" 210 lb frame with the 6 3/4 Huggett in place. And I have no idea what the little 1/64 hole in the side of the air cylinder is for. It is not deep and I see it on pictures of other wildcats or I would have been concerned.

EDIT: No Leaks. Bangarang! One happy camper. : )

EDIT: I'm learning to really like the safety. If I pause or just forget in the excitement, I know I can always check the safety to indicate if I already cycled the cocking lever or not. If the safety doesn't engage I know I haven't cycled the lever, if it engages I know I already loaded a pellet. Nice.

https://imgur.com/4tKPl

 
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Thanks for the input. I love my .22 Wildcat, but I went with the FX stackable moderator pack. It too takes the Wildcat from not so backyard friendly to very quiet. The BP Cricket is pretty quiet and my Wildcat by comparison is about 1/2 the report. The only area my Wildcat is still lacking is stackable accuracy, at least compared to my AirWolf and Cricket. With that being said, it might be me due to the fact that the Wildcat is by far lighter than anything else I own. FX did a great job.
 
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Scott, how many stackable sections does it take to make a sizable difference? For clarification, there's an initial section (connection to gun), some number of tackable moderators, and an end section. Question is where is the biggest bang for the buck and for that matter length when it comes to moderator sections? I like that my WC (.22 cal) is short and compact but don't like the idea of adding another 6" or so to make it quite. WC is only about 27", so adding 6" is increasing the gun by more than 20%. If one or two sections don't make a sizable (say noise reduction of 50% or more) then I'll just shoot without. 
 
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"nvelkhunter" ...I like that my WC (.22 cal) is short and compact but don't like the idea of adding another 6" or so to make it quite. WC is only about 27", so adding 6" is increasing the gun by more than 20%.
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I took a slightly different approach. I knew that to get a gun as quiet as I wanted it would have to have an additional moderator up to maximum 7 inches. So I looked for a gun that was small and light to begin with and understood that I would be adding length. That is because silent is my #2 priority. Accuracy was #1 and light #3. If a gun is already long then where do you go from there. 
 
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"Verve"It's interesting that you've gone for the full length Huggett mod because the shroud is shorter. WC22 I have came with a 4.5inches longer shroud than what you have. Odd that!
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That is interesting on the shroud length. I would like to see a picture to compare the different shrouds. What country? That may be a difference. That would put me at plus 3" which is ok. I don't mind the length given the absolutely great effect on the guns report. If I added length with little effect I would have been disappointed. When I first fired it with the Huggett in place I said out loud you've got to be kidding me, that is amazing. I may have to purchase some FX stackable sections and do a comparison review. 
 
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There are at least two different schroud lenghts out there for the .22 WC. 
My WC (for the Norwegian market) has a longer shroud, no doubt about that. Also without the moderator it is very quiet. I therefore went for the shorter moderator, and it is now absolute dead quiet. Just the click you talk about Plinker. And we do not have any restrictions on power in my country either, so the velocity is the same as for the US market. So why the differences I do not know.





 
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The minimal length increase, mine is still less than 33", is well worth the silence. As a hunter, if I can take out several critters instead of startling them all on the first shot, then it is well worth the few extra inches. That's why I bought a really short gun to start with. I took two squirrels last evening and the second one just looked at the dead one like, what are you doing napping at a time like this. Then it took a dirt nap too. 😜
 
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Hi Plinker,
​don't know what others have found but on mine I notice it likes to be lightly oiled every now and then in terms of the cocking lever.
I hit the round bar where it slides and put the gun on it's butt for some places and hang it for others as the oil needs to travel both ways to coat the rod on either end.
I can feel it getting a bit more clunky when it starts to dry out.
​When I lube it goes back to silky smooth!
 
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I pretty much never use the safety.

​If I put a full mag in I fire the first pellet if I don't find my target/animal.
​There is always a pine cone just asking for it.
​Once that is done I will only load a round if I have a target in my sights as part of pre fire.
​I am so much in the habit I know if I pick up my gun it is sitting on an empty chamber.
​Sometimes the target leaves and I just kill another pine cone if I don't think another pest will present very shortly.
​Horses for courses I guess.
 
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You most certainly can and I have a couple of times when I first got it.
​I would see game and forget if I had chambered or not and flick another in.
That's part why I never leave one in the breach if I don't plan to shoot pretty quick.
​Its a nice feature of the wildcat that you can go as far as sighting your target and easily work the action while staying on target. Works great for misses or animals that are close and don't spook to quick when the guy next door falls off his perch...
​Others may have better methods?
 
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