After 40+ years of shooting all manner of rifles, and exclusivley rifles, I developed an unexpected urge to get a pistol !!
I can't be bothered with the hassle of refilling PCPs or CO2 guns so its springs or single/multi stroke pneumatics only for me. I also fancied something with a bit of a challenge. A .22 Weihrauch HW45 seemed to fit the bill in all aspects !
With my recently acquired fledgling skills at actually opening up and working on air weapons, my plan was to buy a new HW45 (blackline edition) and to instantly open it up, deburr it, and fit a TBT spring and guides kit and fit a new Ozzy piston seal. With a new HW 45's propensity for dieseling like a truck engine for hundreds of shots, I wanted to clean out all the factory lube and tame it a little with the TBT kit. The original seals are also reputedly always ripped up from new, due to the burrs on the cocking slots.
So bravely (stupidly) I set about opening up a nearly £400 gun without even firing a shot with it, and also to invalidate its warranty (no doubt). There's a couple of decent stripdown videos of the HW45 on Youtube and other writeups, which I will not add to apart from fully endorsing getting some sort of sash clamp or similar to decompress the spring - its a tricksy little job. With the right tools it works well though. Also a high quality hex key set is worth having as there is one 2mm and one 2.5 hex screw underneath the barrel which need removal, and these can be really tight, and easy to strip. A very well fitting hex wrench is useful to avoid a disastrous screw stripping scenario. The Bondhus 7 piece fold up hex wrench set is excellent and also cheap.
I was so keen to take the thing apart that I completely forgot the vital first step of securing the beartrap mechanism in the gun handle area with a safety pin (or similar). Those who have take these apart will know what I'm talking about. Well this idiot forgot it !
I launched into taking the barrel off, then took the compesion tube out. All was going brilliantly, I smugly thought to myself. And then noticed my absolute cock up of forgetting the beartrap securing step. Disaster - I envisaged all my trigger sears now rattling around in a random mess within the pistol, and the painful hours/days/weeks of trying to reassemble them. I instantly stopped and put the comp tube back on (which makes things a bit more"safe" again), got a safety pin into the bar trap mechanism to secure it properly, and paused to assess the damage.
Miraculously I seem to have got away with it. It seems I noticed my mistake soon enough, without turning the pistol upside down etc. The trigger all seems to work as it should. Phewwww !. Huge, huge relief.
Anyway, the spring decompression step worked really well with my brand new sash clamp, the comp tube was deburred, thoroughly cleaned and delubed and the TBT kit was fitted, along with a new Ozzy parachute type piston seal. Bumslide Moly grease was fairly cautiosly applied to critical areas and it was all reassembled. The barrel was cleaned and all was ready to go. I then fitted a Vector Frenzy Red Dot sight as I really struggle with open sights due to my eyesight. I had already got the 13mm to Picatinny adaptor needed for the HW45's weird sized dovetail.
Step forward one day to today and its time to actually fire a pellet through this rand new gun. Unbelievably at the age of 58, my first ever experience of firing an air pistol.
Recoil definitely didn't feel terrible and I soon got it zeroed in at 10m. It's definitley a bit hold-sensitive, but its a springer and I assume that will always be the case. However, I can already see that I'm going to be able to use this thing quite well eventually. I'm really not very good yet but already able to get roughly 2" groupings with a 2 handed hold, standing at 10m. I' think with a bit of practice I should hopefully improve to a satisfactory standard.
Chrono results give 404fps with RWS Superdomes, giving around 5.2 ft lbs. Very pleasing all round. Not a cheap pistol, but it has a heft and a feeling of quality that you cannot ignore. Theres a couple of things that do seem to benefit from attention -mainly the cocking slots in the compression tube, which do ideally need deburring. The cylinder is also just full of grease from the factotry and will greatly benefit from a good clean out and more conservative relube straight away. The original spring and guide combo are also a bit of a handful apparently (although I cannot confirm this as I took them straight out before shooting with it). I will keep them, and will consider trying them out at some point in the future, now that the cyclinder has an appropriate lube job and once I have learned to shoot it a bit better.
I would also like to be able to fit a moderator as there is a bit of a crack to it on firing. Its not a deal-breaker but it is noisier than my rifle (yes, I only have one !) However, the HW45 has no 1/2" thread to accept a silencer or adaptor, so some machining would be necessary. Its probably not something I will prioritise TBH.
Many, many thanks to all those who have posted info, videos, stripdown guides etc about the HW45 online over the years. I could not have done the stripdown or these improvements without your hard work and selfless information sharing. I stand on the shoulders of giants !!
I can't be bothered with the hassle of refilling PCPs or CO2 guns so its springs or single/multi stroke pneumatics only for me. I also fancied something with a bit of a challenge. A .22 Weihrauch HW45 seemed to fit the bill in all aspects !
With my recently acquired fledgling skills at actually opening up and working on air weapons, my plan was to buy a new HW45 (blackline edition) and to instantly open it up, deburr it, and fit a TBT spring and guides kit and fit a new Ozzy piston seal. With a new HW 45's propensity for dieseling like a truck engine for hundreds of shots, I wanted to clean out all the factory lube and tame it a little with the TBT kit. The original seals are also reputedly always ripped up from new, due to the burrs on the cocking slots.
So bravely (stupidly) I set about opening up a nearly £400 gun without even firing a shot with it, and also to invalidate its warranty (no doubt). There's a couple of decent stripdown videos of the HW45 on Youtube and other writeups, which I will not add to apart from fully endorsing getting some sort of sash clamp or similar to decompress the spring - its a tricksy little job. With the right tools it works well though. Also a high quality hex key set is worth having as there is one 2mm and one 2.5 hex screw underneath the barrel which need removal, and these can be really tight, and easy to strip. A very well fitting hex wrench is useful to avoid a disastrous screw stripping scenario. The Bondhus 7 piece fold up hex wrench set is excellent and also cheap.
I was so keen to take the thing apart that I completely forgot the vital first step of securing the beartrap mechanism in the gun handle area with a safety pin (or similar). Those who have take these apart will know what I'm talking about. Well this idiot forgot it !
I launched into taking the barrel off, then took the compesion tube out. All was going brilliantly, I smugly thought to myself. And then noticed my absolute cock up of forgetting the beartrap securing step. Disaster - I envisaged all my trigger sears now rattling around in a random mess within the pistol, and the painful hours/days/weeks of trying to reassemble them. I instantly stopped and put the comp tube back on (which makes things a bit more"safe" again), got a safety pin into the bar trap mechanism to secure it properly, and paused to assess the damage.
Miraculously I seem to have got away with it. It seems I noticed my mistake soon enough, without turning the pistol upside down etc. The trigger all seems to work as it should. Phewwww !. Huge, huge relief.
Anyway, the spring decompression step worked really well with my brand new sash clamp, the comp tube was deburred, thoroughly cleaned and delubed and the TBT kit was fitted, along with a new Ozzy parachute type piston seal. Bumslide Moly grease was fairly cautiosly applied to critical areas and it was all reassembled. The barrel was cleaned and all was ready to go. I then fitted a Vector Frenzy Red Dot sight as I really struggle with open sights due to my eyesight. I had already got the 13mm to Picatinny adaptor needed for the HW45's weird sized dovetail.
Step forward one day to today and its time to actually fire a pellet through this rand new gun. Unbelievably at the age of 58, my first ever experience of firing an air pistol.
Recoil definitely didn't feel terrible and I soon got it zeroed in at 10m. It's definitley a bit hold-sensitive, but its a springer and I assume that will always be the case. However, I can already see that I'm going to be able to use this thing quite well eventually. I'm really not very good yet but already able to get roughly 2" groupings with a 2 handed hold, standing at 10m. I' think with a bit of practice I should hopefully improve to a satisfactory standard.
Chrono results give 404fps with RWS Superdomes, giving around 5.2 ft lbs. Very pleasing all round. Not a cheap pistol, but it has a heft and a feeling of quality that you cannot ignore. Theres a couple of things that do seem to benefit from attention -mainly the cocking slots in the compression tube, which do ideally need deburring. The cylinder is also just full of grease from the factotry and will greatly benefit from a good clean out and more conservative relube straight away. The original spring and guide combo are also a bit of a handful apparently (although I cannot confirm this as I took them straight out before shooting with it). I will keep them, and will consider trying them out at some point in the future, now that the cyclinder has an appropriate lube job and once I have learned to shoot it a bit better.
I would also like to be able to fit a moderator as there is a bit of a crack to it on firing. Its not a deal-breaker but it is noisier than my rifle (yes, I only have one !) However, the HW45 has no 1/2" thread to accept a silencer or adaptor, so some machining would be necessary. Its probably not something I will prioritise TBH.
Many, many thanks to all those who have posted info, videos, stripdown guides etc about the HW45 online over the years. I could not have done the stripdown or these improvements without your hard work and selfless information sharing. I stand on the shoulders of giants !!
