This morning's allotted airgun time went to checking out the .177 HW97KT Blackline nickel plated rifle in my vault. This rifle was also acquired during COVID and I repowered it in November of 2021. I installed a Vortek PG4 Steel HO Kit, removing a coil or two (don't remember now how many) to get it to where it was shooting in the +/- 15 fpe range.
This rifle shows a strong preference for the Predator GTO 6.79 Gr lead free pellets, and shoots them very well considering they are moving +1000 fps. The big surprise for me in this year's maintenance checks, is the amount of fouling that occurs with these pellets. They seem so hard and don't leave any real residue on one's hands when handling, but it sure leaves it in the rifling. See the attached photo of the first cleaning patch pass. I ran a dozen patches through it using my Patch Worm and even then, they weren't coming out perfectly spotless. I doubled up a couple of felt cleaning patches and shot them out to finish the job.
As I use blue Loctite on all of the stock screws when I set a new rifle up, they were still solidly in position, as were all of the scope screws. I did loosen the scope ring screws and retorqued them using my Wheeler digital torque wrench. This necessitated me making a few adjustments to the 18 yard zero point, but gave me an excuse to shoot a few extra pellets....
About the 18 yard zero, as I have mentioned in other posts, I use 18 yards as it is the maximum length of my indoor range, giving me the opportunity to work on any rifle, in any weather, and rezero it at any time day or night, in a constant temperature and humidity environment, knowing that my down range dope charts will remain dead on. The other reason I use 18 yards, is that my winter time indoor sanity is maintained by shooting springers. I had David Bitowski at RX targets build me custom size face plates, with the one on the left as shown featuring three 10 mm holes and two 15 mm holes in the face plates. The PCPs will shoot through these accurately 96 out of a 100 times. It takes skill and patience to consistently put a springer pellet through these small targets, even at only 18 yards. - Great practice in the winter.
Once I finished the site in verification, I removed the turret caps and repositioned them to zero, as all of my rifles are set to shoot click adjustments. I have verified the click adjustments required on all of the springers out to 70 yards or so, PCPS out to 100+.
As you can attest, this rifle is smooth and performs exactly as one would expect a Weihrauch to perform. BTW, given all of the springers in my collection, and I love them all, I personally consider the Weihrauch 97 to be the most stable of all of the platforms.
Thanks for reviewing.
This rifle shows a strong preference for the Predator GTO 6.79 Gr lead free pellets, and shoots them very well considering they are moving +1000 fps. The big surprise for me in this year's maintenance checks, is the amount of fouling that occurs with these pellets. They seem so hard and don't leave any real residue on one's hands when handling, but it sure leaves it in the rifling. See the attached photo of the first cleaning patch pass. I ran a dozen patches through it using my Patch Worm and even then, they weren't coming out perfectly spotless. I doubled up a couple of felt cleaning patches and shot them out to finish the job.
As I use blue Loctite on all of the stock screws when I set a new rifle up, they were still solidly in position, as were all of the scope screws. I did loosen the scope ring screws and retorqued them using my Wheeler digital torque wrench. This necessitated me making a few adjustments to the 18 yard zero point, but gave me an excuse to shoot a few extra pellets....
About the 18 yard zero, as I have mentioned in other posts, I use 18 yards as it is the maximum length of my indoor range, giving me the opportunity to work on any rifle, in any weather, and rezero it at any time day or night, in a constant temperature and humidity environment, knowing that my down range dope charts will remain dead on. The other reason I use 18 yards, is that my winter time indoor sanity is maintained by shooting springers. I had David Bitowski at RX targets build me custom size face plates, with the one on the left as shown featuring three 10 mm holes and two 15 mm holes in the face plates. The PCPs will shoot through these accurately 96 out of a 100 times. It takes skill and patience to consistently put a springer pellet through these small targets, even at only 18 yards. - Great practice in the winter.
Once I finished the site in verification, I removed the turret caps and repositioned them to zero, as all of my rifles are set to shoot click adjustments. I have verified the click adjustments required on all of the springers out to 70 yards or so, PCPS out to 100+.
As you can attest, this rifle is smooth and performs exactly as one would expect a Weihrauch to perform. BTW, given all of the springers in my collection, and I love them all, I personally consider the Weihrauch 97 to be the most stable of all of the platforms.
Thanks for reviewing.
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