I was planning to write this for those who may be interested in my experience of buying from an overseas shop. I've procrastinated for a while, so here goes...
Spring guns are still interesting to me, and I like classic designs-- in airguns as well as other stuff like houses, cars, wristwatches, etc-- so I've been wanting to buy a Weirauch HW35 for a while now. I just don't like the $625 price tag for the only version that's imported for sale in the US, the walnut stocked HW35e.
So, I was really pleased when I saw a certain US air gun retailer located in Arizona advertising a "sale" price of $495 for the HW35e. I called them as soon as I became aware of it only to be told that it was not in stock in .177 and they did not know when they would get more.
As many here know, there's a shooting sports shop in the Netherlands that's named for the owner, Gerrit Krale, and I recently stumbled on their web site. They sell the HW35 standard version with a beech stock, like the stocks on many of the other Weirauch break barrel models, for 270 euro. At the time of purchase that amount exchanged for about $298 US. Payment was via bank transfer for which my bank charged $35 and shipping was about $27, so total cost for my new HW35 standard was about $360.
There were two issues with shipping. Gerrit discovered that an agreement with UPS allowing him to ship airguns to the US had expired. After a few weeks of red-tape, UPS renewed the agreement and he was able to ship. It was briefly held up in the import process in the US but after some email exchange providing a more detailed description of the contents it was released and arrived at my home about 10 days after it left the Netherlands. Gerrit was up front about these issues and communicated regularly via email as things progressed so I was always informed and confident that he was doing everything he could to get the matters resolved.
It's fired about 500 rounds so far, mostly H&N 8.12 gr wadcutters (one of my favorites). A 10 round string averages about 725 fps for about 9.5 fpe or so. It wears an aperture sight set up that I've used for several years on my Rob Hawkins tuned HW30S-- an AirForce universal rear site with a Merit Master Target Iris and the front tunnel site that comes with the HW35. With this arrangement I can produce dime sized groups at 30 yards from a casual rest. Not too hard to cock for a long session and very pleasant to shoot. Surprisingly, it seems to like a firm hold better than the artillery hold. The stock is very similar to my HW30 but with the typical finger grooves of the HW35 and no checkering.
I like the rifle and will most likely ask Rob to work his tuning magic on this one as well. The walnut stock on the 'e' version looks very nice but I decided that, for me, it's not necessary to the enjoyment of the gun. This one I plan to pass along to a future grandchild.
The purchase and shipping process took a bit longer than buying from a shop in the US but it allowed me to save about $265. That'll go a ways toward funding my next airgun related purchase-- that nice scope I've had my eye on! On balance, I'm pleased with the purchase and will very likely buy from Krale again in the future.
Matt
Spring guns are still interesting to me, and I like classic designs-- in airguns as well as other stuff like houses, cars, wristwatches, etc-- so I've been wanting to buy a Weirauch HW35 for a while now. I just don't like the $625 price tag for the only version that's imported for sale in the US, the walnut stocked HW35e.
So, I was really pleased when I saw a certain US air gun retailer located in Arizona advertising a "sale" price of $495 for the HW35e. I called them as soon as I became aware of it only to be told that it was not in stock in .177 and they did not know when they would get more.
As many here know, there's a shooting sports shop in the Netherlands that's named for the owner, Gerrit Krale, and I recently stumbled on their web site. They sell the HW35 standard version with a beech stock, like the stocks on many of the other Weirauch break barrel models, for 270 euro. At the time of purchase that amount exchanged for about $298 US. Payment was via bank transfer for which my bank charged $35 and shipping was about $27, so total cost for my new HW35 standard was about $360.
There were two issues with shipping. Gerrit discovered that an agreement with UPS allowing him to ship airguns to the US had expired. After a few weeks of red-tape, UPS renewed the agreement and he was able to ship. It was briefly held up in the import process in the US but after some email exchange providing a more detailed description of the contents it was released and arrived at my home about 10 days after it left the Netherlands. Gerrit was up front about these issues and communicated regularly via email as things progressed so I was always informed and confident that he was doing everything he could to get the matters resolved.
It's fired about 500 rounds so far, mostly H&N 8.12 gr wadcutters (one of my favorites). A 10 round string averages about 725 fps for about 9.5 fpe or so. It wears an aperture sight set up that I've used for several years on my Rob Hawkins tuned HW30S-- an AirForce universal rear site with a Merit Master Target Iris and the front tunnel site that comes with the HW35. With this arrangement I can produce dime sized groups at 30 yards from a casual rest. Not too hard to cock for a long session and very pleasant to shoot. Surprisingly, it seems to like a firm hold better than the artillery hold. The stock is very similar to my HW30 but with the typical finger grooves of the HW35 and no checkering.
I like the rifle and will most likely ask Rob to work his tuning magic on this one as well. The walnut stock on the 'e' version looks very nice but I decided that, for me, it's not necessary to the enjoyment of the gun. This one I plan to pass along to a future grandchild.
The purchase and shipping process took a bit longer than buying from a shop in the US but it allowed me to save about $265. That'll go a ways toward funding my next airgun related purchase-- that nice scope I've had my eye on! On balance, I'm pleased with the purchase and will very likely buy from Krale again in the future.
Matt
