This is a 1998 Weihrauch HW55, sporting a vintage Anschutz diopter sight in alloy.
It’s been an informative adventure for me, since I’ve acquired this phenomenal rifle about half an year ago. I came across this lovely looking thing while hunting in my local classifieds. As soon as I first held it, something felt off- the lockup was loose. After cocking and locking the latch, there was an unacceptable amount of play on the barrel, and accuracy was absolutely terrible vertically. I took to a forum I was familiar with where some folk explained to me how to go about adjusting the lockup screw under the loading breech. The result? Perfect lockup. I mounted it with a scope, and took to the range to see just how accurate this thing can be. Let me tell you, this is the most insanely accurate airgun I’ve ever held. It out-performs my HW97K and every other high end springer I’ve had. A literal 1 hole (not ragged hole, an actual clean hole) out of 5 shots at 20 meters. I was speechless.
I decided to pamper it. It had never been apart before, and the spring inside was severely crooked, causing it to rattle loudly when returning the barrel after cocking. Not only that, the spring had lost elasticity, or it never had it to begin with. It was producing just above 8J despite being nearly as lengthy as a standard Weihrauch 16J spring. This resulted in a relatively rough shot cycle. I order a 7.5J HW50 spring and it fitted perfectly. The cocking effort became nearly nonexistent and the shot cycle, smooth as can be. Better yet, the rattling was gone. My HW55’s piston is not a typical one, from what I understand. It came fitted with a typical white piston seal from factory, and it needed no adapter. It’s meant to take synthetic seals as standard. This appears to be pretty rare when it comes to the 55, but let me know if I’m mistaken in this claim.
After a couple of months, it was clear there was more to this rifle than the limiting 7.5J it was shooting at. This will certainly never shoot hot, nor would I want it to. The HW55 is meant to be a smooth shooter. More importantly, I wouldn’t want to mess with the accuracy. I ordered a 16J spring, and since I was at it, I also bought a piston seal from CustomAirSeals to replace the tired standard one. The 16J spring would add far too much precompression to such a sophisticated rifle IMO. I removed a couple of coils, collapsing the last one and grinding it to make a perfect base (gotta tell you, it looks better than the factory ends!) ,and oil-blued the grinded bit at the end. The result is about 12J with the perfect fit of the new piston seal. I cleaned all the innards thoroughly with Ballistol and lubed it nicely. Moly paste around the piston seal (carefully, as to not get any of it on the face of the seal), and around the rear of the piston, which is enlarged, meant to be the only area of the piston that touches the walls of the compression chamber. Finally, a fair amount of moly paste was also applied to the spring itself. Some silicone oil was also used on the leather breech seal, just to breath some life back into it. It certainly does not need to be replaced. Again, fitted with a scope, and taken to the range. That’s it! I’m no longer limited to 20 meters. It’ll maintain one hole groups up to nearly 30 meters, and up to 35-37 meters it’ll still produce ragged-hole groups. Not only that, at 12J it has plenty of power for some close quarters pest control. Honestly, I’m just glad I managed to keep its phenomenal accuracy as well as the incredibly smooth shot cycle. It’s truly perfect now, to me that is.
The diopter sight recommendation as well as a lot of help throughout this whole process which helped me make informed decisions was given by Mike Driskill. Always ready to help and truly an unrivaled source of knowledge when it comes to this incredible piece of German engineering. I’m sure he’d like to add this beauty to his ever growing collection, LOL. My thanks to you!
Lastly, many thanks to my good friend Chris, who’s also been incredibly helpful and who shares the same passion as I do for fine target rifles. It was thanks to them that I was able to turn this into such an enjoyable airgun, which will surely provide me with many years of happiness.
A better look at the great piece of beech on this one.
