Interesting comments because I never considered my home tuned .177 HW95 shooting at bit over 12.5fpe (7.9 grain dome at 850fps) ft/lbs to be "harsh". Here are a couple 50 yard groups shot while sitting on a bucket resting the gun on cross sticks.......
My normal groups aren't exactly "PCP quality groups" but accurate enough for my purposes.................
15 out of 20 CPLs through a 3/4" killzone at 50 yards using my home tuned .177 R9 (rebadged HW95) at 14fpe........
During a field target national match in 2010 I used my HW77k (sold a few years ago) that was tuned to almost 15 fpe (7.9 grain dome at 920fps) and took 4th place at the match.......
That was the first year that the "hunter class" was added to the national venue and as such that class was combined PCP and piston. There were 17 entries in the hunter class and of the 17 all but 5 were shooting PCPs so I was pleased to get 4th place after the scores were tabulated.
Basically, it does seem that "harsh is in the eyes of the beholder" and I agree that more gun motion requires a more consistent shooting form, however I don't consider my HW95 to be "harsh" and certainly not the "couple pound heavier" HW77k I used to own that was used at the 2010 National match.........
Out of curosity, what size groups are you able to shoot at say 50 yards (bit under 46 meters) with your HW77k. Does the "harsh shot cycle" seem to mess up your accuracy? I ask because I check the accuracy of any new springer I buy "in factory twang mode" before detuning. The last HW95 I bought a couple years ago shot 7.9 grain pellets at 880fps (about 13.5fpe) an the accuracy pre-home tune was similar to every HW springer I've owned straight from the box after a bore clean and a couple dozen fouling shots, about 1/2"ctc at 30 yards shot "bucket Y sticks" like this.......
Unless the shot cycle of your HW77k is excessively annoying, perhaps it's already accurate enough for "target and hunting".
