HW/Weihrauch HW50 , the challenge continues

[crowski]

I put the trigger in. The original when received had crushed parts inside. I posted it. Got this one in the UK. Crow

 

[MDriskill]

...carefully remove the breech seal, you'll have a leak if you shoot the gun, but see if the lockup is OK?...incidentially, this was originally a "HW50", and not a "HW50S"?
Mike will tell us if any HW50 came with a Rekord trigger?

Looking at old Weihrauch catalogs...it's amazing how many changes these guns saw over the years, and HW swapped designations around at the drop of a hat. The "S" could mean other stuff.

1959 catalog, for example: "50" = plain model, "50 M" = adjustable trigger, "50 S" = M + better sights and scope grooves, "50 SD" = S + diopter sight. Note upgrade checkered stock with buttplate described in block at bottom of page. (The HW 35 and 55 had Rekords in '59, but it was still a couple years away for the 50.)

Case in point: my 1958 HW 50 - stripper base model with deluxe stock! Weird.

For more confusion, Air Rifle Headquarters in WV imported many HW 50's in the 60's and 70's, with their own designations for various upgrade features. These are quite unrelated to any factory nomenclature.

BUT I DEGRESS...the point is, don't get too hung up on names and details of pre-Beeman-era Weihrauchs! Most recently, the "S" did indicate the Rekord trigger, which may or may not show up on the breech block stamping. And any gun made for either the Rekord or Perfekt can swap out these units with no problems.

 

[Mycapt65]

First impression is that the chisel detent in the breech appears to be clocked a few degrees off of the horizontal plane. This issue was mentioned earlier in the thread, and may bear some looking into.

Yeah it was me. I've seen that before. It's the corner of the fixed detent is holding the gun open. You can see the witness mark from the high corner under the breech The witness mark should be even and the full chisel width because it's supposed to sit flat on top of the detent.

It's a difficult fix. I believe the fixed detent is brazed in place, as is the forks in the tube. If you heat the detent to melt the braze and rotate it there's a good chance you'll melt fork braze and probably ruin the comp tube. You could reduce the height of the offending corner of the fixed chisel. This is hard to do without machinery. The other option is remove some metal under the breech at the witness mark. You'd have to be sure there's enough space between the top of the comp tube and the breech to rotate the breech further.

In either case if you remove too much metal the gun won't lock up on metal parts. The breech seal will set the lock up, not good. Personally I'd skip all that mess and put the right rear sight on it and ignore the droop. Save the gun as a beater for visiting kids.

 

[gdc999]

This is definitely an older HW (pre saftey), but did anyone else notice that the barrel is marked "Made in German", and not "Made in West Germany". Like was mentioned earlier, I don't think this barrel is original to the rest of the rifle. And as stated previously the supposedly newer barrel would have to be fitted to the compression tube for proper fitment. All goes back to "is it worth it to make it work?" since it doesn't appear to be in its original state. These oddities are interesting to work on if you have the time, equipment, and knowledge. Otherwise they can make you pull your hair out

 

[Bear-of-Grayling]

Probably been mentioned before but in the first picture posted it’s clear that the barrel isn’t even closing tight to the receiver. This old model most likely had a flush mounted leather breech seal. The seal shown later is the new version far from flush. May not remove all the droop but certainly some. Just remove the seal and see if the droop improves. If mentioned before please forgive me. I miss things.