Barrel Droop? To Bend or not to Bend! “REVISED”

[Bear-of-Grayling]

Been working with my HW95 Tyrolean and as suspected when I ordered it, my big head did not drop perfectly into the saddle. I needed to cock my head a bit and rock it on my cheek bone to get a clear sight picture. At this point, I had three options.

1. Bend the barrel.

2. Sand the saddle to fit.

3. Raise the front sight.

After thinking it over I decided to try and make a front sight elevator/riser. (Can’t find one) I needed about 3/8 of an inch and then the saddle would fit perfectly. That’s a lot a sanding on the saddle or bending of the barrel. Plus this HW95/.22 caliber has literally perfect barrel-to-receiver alignment and no barrel droop at all. So, when rummaging in my parts bin I came across this “Weaver” dovetail-to-picatinny mount. Plenty of meat on it to grind and leave a 8mm dovetail needed for the front sight. The mount worked perfectly. Now the saddle fits me good and is sooooooo comfortable. This simple sight riser made this 95 is a true pleasure to shoot.

Grind and file down the picatinny rails (dotted/yellow line) leaving/matching the same 8mm dovetail that’s on the barrel. This may be an option for those nervous to “bend the barrel”. Like me!

 

[abslayer]

WHAT . Bend the barrel I think long a hard on that option 

 

[dasman]

Looking forward to pics Dan. Sounds like an elegant solution.

 

[BryanH]

If it has no droop whatsoever, I for sure would NOT bend the barrel at all. One day you may decide to scope hers. I’m sure if you hunt hard enough you can find a taller sight.

 

[phillip]

I think you chose the right option. It’s what I would have done as well.

 

[Gunnertrones]

Sanding the saddle.

 

[jps2486]

I think barrel "droop" is a myth. People interpret the loopy trajectory of a lower powered airgun as having barrel droop. You can adjust your scope angle with adjustable mounts or in the case of diopter sights, use a riser block. Bending the barrel is an extreme idea which could ruin a nice gun.

 

[BryanH]

I think barrel "droop" is a myth. People interpret the loopy trajectory of a lower powered airgun as having barrel droop. You can adjust your scope angle with adjustable mounts or in the case of diopter sights, use a riser block. Bending the barrel is an extreme idea which could ruin a nice gun.

Except, droop was originally engineered into these guns and even the D48, a fixed barrel gun capable of 1100 fps in .177, has droop. Or had droop, they may have stopped building them that way. But it was definitely engineered into the guns.



Also, a .22 cal premier with 600 fps muzzle velocity drops less than ten inches at 40 yards. That does not account for droop that can amount to more than 10 inches at 25 yards.

Droop can be bad enough to prevent you from even zeroing your scope at 25 yards. It’s a thing, I assure you.

Bending a barrel is a fairly common solution for droop. And it works. But it’s harder to bend it back down than it is to bend it up with a breakbarrel.

 

[thumper]

I think barrel "droop" is a myth. People interpret the loopy trajectory of a lower powered airgun as having barrel droop. You can adjust your scope angle with adjustable mounts or in the case of diopter sights, use a riser block. Bending the barrel is an extreme idea which could ruin a nice gun.

Barrel misalignment is not a myth.... 

"Bending the barrel is an extreme idea which could ruin a nice gun." - hasn't been the case in any instance I've ever seen, and certainly not in any I've ever done. Do you have an example of a ruined gun? 

I have fixed a couple by bending that WERE ruined however. 

 

[thumper]

Barrel droop is the relationship of the barrel to the receiver being misaligned, the barrel pointing downward of the receiver. 

Some say this was "engineered in", but I'm not buying that and have seen not a single stitch of actual information backing it up. If that's the case, why did the frequency and severity of droop seem to decline lately in recent years and the growth of internet forums and better CNC machinery? 

My opinion: droop is caused by tolerance stackup in the manufacturing process. They err on the "droop" side of things because if the breech block was angled up too much (opposite of droop) it would make the lockup weaker on break barrels and risk the breech face hitting the receiver at worst, or at the least, chewing up breech seals quicker. 

Bending a barrel upwards is a quick and easy solution. If I handed any of you a gun that I bent the barrel on, you'd never notice by shooting it, and all but a slight few couldn't even be noticed by the naked eye. I've done it on break barrels of all the big brands including FWB/HW/Diana, HW77K/97K, and even on FWB150/300 series (they are STIFF, btw) and not a single damn one shot anything but better afterwards. 

 

[Bear-of-Grayling]

Pictures are in. Thank you AGN!

 

[Mycapt65]

That's a brilliant solution. There's plenty of 11mm dovetail risers but I could never find a matching front sight riser for the Weihrauchs. Kudos to you.
Ron

 

[JayJay]

Weihrauch can certainly manufacture guns without droop. My fairly new HW30 Urban Hunter and HW95 Field Pro from AoA have zero barrel droop. They are dead nuts on. But they are clearly intended for scope use only. Maybe Weihrauch puts extra care into them.

On the other hand, I also have two fairly new HW90 rifles, a spare HW95 carbine barrel, and an old HW80 barrel. After swapping all the barrels I found that the HW90's all had 0.5 degrees of droop, regardless of the barrel. Whereas the HW95 had zero droop, regardless of the barrel. The problem is in the HW90 receivers, not the barrels.

But why is droop always 0.5 degrees? if it was an accuracy problem, you should see some variation. Weihrauch's other dimensions are extremely consistent. Why would they screw up on just the position of the barrel lock pin. Modern CNC equipment should have no problem placing holes within 0.001".

I don't like droop at all. But my inner gunsmith squirms in discomfort when it comes to bending a barrel. OUCH! So I leave it alone.

We may never know the truth.

 

[Dan25]

I think barrel "droop" is a myth. People interpret the loopy trajectory of a lower powered airgun as having barrel droop. You can adjust your scope angle with adjustable mounts or in the case of diopter sights, use a riser block. Bending the barrel is an extreme idea which could ruin a nice gun.

Barrel droop is a fact that I discovered when I attempted to scope my RWS M34. I mounted it using 22 rimfire dove tail type rings I had on hand already and ran out of elevation and couldn't get the thing sighted in. I had to get UTG droop compensating mount that gave 27 inches of correction at 30 yards and easily got it zeroed.