Huben Hammerless K1

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I don't buy the old "they did loads of R&D so it's worth more money" thing. There is no reason why any of us should care about how much time and money they spent on R&D. We should only care about if the air gun is worth the money compared to other guns on the market. If it's not accurate then the answer is no. 

While the valve system is unique, it's not the only semi auto pcp gun in the market and it's not even the best. FX and Evanix both have respectable semi auto offerings. 

Air ordnance released a unique full auto air gun than uses 100 round drum mags and comes with 2 of them for less than $600 with a large tank and speed loader. They did a bunch of R&D but they don't expect early adopters to fund all of it. That thing is also a lot of fun to use if you don't care about world class accuracy. 






 
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Not sure what you are trying to say here? I agree the Monsoon is more accurate but no where close on power and is hard to load. The AO was super fun, but was like shooting a shotgun, got tired of loading the belts even with the mass loader. Lets stick apples with apples. Not Apples with Lemons, you can decide what gun is what, all the same to me ! But, lets keep it fair. On another note, lots of people are spending equal money on other high end airguns, (think Wildcat, Colibri as example) that have tons of issues also. This gun is mechanically solid and shoots pretty good at mid ranges. 
 
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"wlbryce"Not sure what you are trying to say here? I agree the Monsoon is more accurate but no where close on power and is hard to load. The AO was super fun, but was like shooting a shotgun, got tired of loading the belts even with the mass loader. Lets stick apples with apples. Not Apples with Lemons, you can decide what gun is what, all the same to me ! But, lets keep it fair. On another note, lots of people are spending equal money on other high end airguns, (think Wildcat, Colibri as example) that have tons of issues also. This gun is mechanically solid and shoots pretty good at mid ranges.
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I agree that other expensive guns have issues. My point is only that the manufacturers R&D costs are not our problem and I don't think early adopters should have to pay more than the gun is worth to cover them. 

If you plan on being a successful business that is around for many years, you amortize your upfront investment over five years (or longer) to achieve a competitive unit cost. 

It is worth noting that the Colibri was canned (so not the one you want to be compared to) and the Wildcat has become a fan favorite. It's accurate, light, good looking and ergonomic. It's issues were minor and were just teething problems vs a design issue. The one thing expensive guns don't recover from is not being accurate. 

Imo, the only thing that justifies a higher price is a higher quality air gun. Great accuracy is the hallmark of a great airgun above all else.
 
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I've been reading this thread with interest since I'm intrigued by the Huben. I have a question that I haven't seen answered though....
So it sounds like the barrel is a LW air rifle barrel. I have several in Airforce guns and they are accurate but I do not shoot 30 grain (22cal) pellets.
For a lighter pellet (for example a Polymag at 16g), at say 900 fps, is there any reason to expect worse accuracy with the Huben with that pellet/velocity than another gun using a LW barrel?
And I mean beyond 50 yards - say 70 or 80... Mostly the accuracy issue that's been discussed is >50 yards with high ballistic coefficient pellets/slugs that are too long to be stabilized at the barrel's twist rate. What about shorter/lighter pellets at >50 yards under sonic speeds?
 
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"Tony.R"There are different quality LW barrels. If you want a good one you need to pay up.

Like german schott glass, the good stuff is on the german scopes and the "left overs" are on the chineese tac Vector scopes.
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I don't see different quality barrel blanks for airguns on the LW website - just ones with choke and ones with polygon profile but they are both priced the same.

Not sure what scopes have to do with it but I'd spend money on precise internal components for repeatability vs glass.
 
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Have any others received their Huben K1s? There has not been any activity on this thread for a while and I would like to know if any others have received theirs.

I have seen the fantastic reviews and work done by Gregor Kamensek and I appreciate it VERY much! I would have expected that Huben's representatives or dealer MRODAIR would have been out front and more forthcoming with the problems and the steps being taken to rectify them. People just want to know what is going on. They owe Gregor a great deal of gratitude for answering the questions and fielding a solution for the accuracy issues.

Over the last 3 weeks I sent 3 emails and a message on the comment web page of MRODAIR asking some very basic pre-purchase questions and have not received any reply at all. It should not take more then a few days for a company to respond and it is unacceptable to not reply at all.
 
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I'm also interested in a K1 and emailed mrodair. I did get a reply saying there would be more arriving in Dec. In a return email I mentioned some of the reviews out there talking about barrel rifling twist rate negatively affecting high bc pellet flight and the reply was that their barrels are "different" than the rest of the world. In another return email I asked in what way were they different - were they a faster twist. (I wanted a bit more description of "different" for putting down that kind of money).

And there the correspondence ended. You can draw your own conclusions. I did.
 
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kidcurrie,
Perhaps I did not get a response at all because I asked which barrel and twist rate were on their 'updated' version as mentioned on the mrodair website. They seem to have a great product other than long distance accuracy. It isn't fixed by ignoring customers, but by working together to resolve it. It is a shame they seem to have forgotten this most important aspect of Customer Service.
 
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I was interested in the new updated K1, but hard to get any information about it. If the importer is not available to answer questions they can take a hike no matter how good the product they are importing is. That's my main beef with the exclusive importer of Swedish airguns in the US too.

Such "customer service" is not only expected with a close to $2,000 rifle, but mandatory if you want to attract and retain clients. With K1's less then stellar prior version history one would think that a sober minded importer pays extra attention to potential customers. If you believe in your product then you are available to answer questions....if you respect your customers....then you are available to answer questions. Air gunning knowledge alone on the part of the seller is not a guarantee of business success....if you are lacking or neglecting the most basic people skills.
 
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As I have said many times before in other posts. According to Huben there is only one barrel and unless MRODAIR is replacing the barrel once it enters the US, it is the same barrel that everyone else has gotten from the beginning. The only one that I know who is replacing barrels is Gregor Kamensek.

I probably have shot more rounds through a K1 and owned one longer than anyone, and it still impresses me. It has it issues as most do, but the operation has been flawless. 
The customer service from Huben has been outstanding, with them sending me production parts to switch out and update my Beta gun free of charge.

I have stoped posting because of the drama this gun seem to get. But overall it is a fantastic gun that gets shot weekly at somthing.
That is my take once again, for what it is worth.
 
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I haven't posted on this thread in awhile, either - had busy weekends.


So far I think there are 4 known barrels that were fitted in Huben.


Wlbryce, I think you have earliest black one, let's call it mk1. Gregor & me got Huben with what's believed to be LW 1:17 twist barrel - I posted pics. I think on other thread on this site earlier.


Gregor made or ordered 1:16 barrel. I haven't seen pics of it. I just made one from 1:10 .22 match subsonic stainless blank. Here are pics of things to come and to keep this thread informative, aside from mass crying and drama.

more to come ....




breech end:



​
60deg muzzle flare:


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forcing cone:


​
Finale:




 
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MR. Wlbryce, I have received same response from Huben directly as well and they have always been very responsive and very open. The only difference I have found in my barrel is that mine is choked and I have contact a friend from USA that also confirmed that he has a choked barrel on his huben. This is a standard LW air gun barrel for PCPs. If I recall correctly you have mention that yours is not choked?

Peole, I cannot tell you how happy I am that someone else is also experimenting with other barrels. The problem in Europe is that the only easy accessible barrel is form LW and they cost more than 120 eur, so it is an expensive process and when you fit it in, if it does not preform well you waste a lot of money...

I have another barrel prepared for test with 14.4 twist, but in my opinion (as others have mentioned as well), the twist of the stock barrel is not the only problem, barrel thickness is also an issue.. That is why I took a 17 mm barrel for my gun and only thicken it in the back side and left the front (form the front clamp to the muzzle) 17 mm thick. This immediate brought me better accuracy. Therefore I intend to fit in the 14.4 twist barrel in its full thickness the whole length. This will of course required some modification to the fun to be able to fit it in...

Of course with these barrels pellets will not shoot well anymore. Too fast twist is not good for pellets (nonuniform pellets start to spiral). That is why I also intend to try to put some weights on the stock barrel to eliminate the vibrations and test with regular pellets... I would be very interested if anyone has already tried this...
 
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"kidcurrie"Perhaps they figure there are enough people out there who do not read these forums before they purchase. Personally I over-research everything and trust fellow airgunners opinions more than marketing bs. You could always try calling I suppose.

I'm guessing that due to BigTinBoat's response that our experience is typical.

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Yep - just do an internet search. One guy on the yellow had accuracy problems with his and MRodAir told him to return it. He did and then (after posting negative in the yellow dealer section) 2 months later finally got a refund. Same for the guys who bought the HPA compressors from him. Bum product and he was charging 15% restocking fee, on what should have been a warranty return. Kina shady if you ask me. I have nothing against the Huben (even though it's not a gun I would buy) it's the dealer mentioned.
 
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"Gregor"Peole, I cannot tell you how happy I am that someone else is also experimenting with other barrels. The problem in Europe is that the only easy accessible barrel is form LW and they cost more than 120 eur, so it is an expensive process and when you fit it in, if it does not preform well you waste a lot of money...
...
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Gregor not machined barrel blank for 1:10 was more than $300. I'm not in business of reselling, so I do not really care, as long as I have fun doing it
barrel thickness is also an issue.
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Yes you are right. Here's how much LW barrel gets bent under 500g load alied to muzzl - 1.19mm
No load:

500g weight:


Thats about 0.05" for 1.7ftunder 1.1lb load.

70lb/ft of energy from Huben will give this barrel serious harmonics amplitudes.

I ordered much thicker blank because I wanted to rebore barrel supports:



Here's visual comparison of .22 and LW




I emailed Huben to order spare barrel support parts, they kept asking me why I need spares?
"Cause I paid $1800 for your product" was my reply. They dragged time and after 2 weeks said that they are out of stock for barrel supports.
After I said that I'm doing another barrel - reply was to kindly report my results. Yeah.

Given that.

I decided to machine barrel to exact fit to barrel supports. LW barrel has about 1mm play which makes harmonics problem even worse cause barrel has to bounce in mounts instead of free moving. Shroud hanging on the front is not making it better also.

This is how much I machined off .22 barrel to fit Huben barrel mounts.



When barrel is hard fixed no harmonics or vibration problems. PB barrels heat up and expand, so hard fixing PB barrel creates bending and lots of repeatable accuracy problems. For airguns there's no heat, so most of free floating barrel talk for airguns is just PB wannabee talk.
 
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"Gregor"MR. Wlbryce, I have received same response from Huben directly as well and they have always been very responsive and very open. The only difference I have found in my barrel is that mine is choked and I have contact a friend from USA that also confirmed that he has a choked barrel on his huben. This is a standard LW air gun barrel for PCPs. If I recall correctly you have mention that yours is not choked?

Peole, I cannot tell you how happy I am that someone else is also experimenting with other barrels. The problem in Europe is that the only easy accessible barrel is form LW and they cost more than 120 eur, so it is an expensive process and when you fit it in, if it does not preform well you waste a lot of money...

I have another barrel prepared for test with 14.4 twist, but in my opinion (as others have mentioned as well), the twist of the stock barrel is not the only problem, barrel thickness is also an issue.. That is why I took a 17 mm barrel for my gun and only thicken it in the back side and left the front (form the front clamp to the muzzle) 17 mm thick. This immediate brought me better accuracy. Therefore I intend to fit in the 14.4 twist barrel in its full thickness the whole length. This will of course required some modification to the fun to be able to fit it in...

Of course with these barrels pellets will not shoot well anymore. Too fast twist is not good for pellets (nonuniform pellets start to spiral). That is why I also intend to try to put some weights on the stock barrel to eliminate the vibrations and test with regular pellets... I would be very interested if anyone has already tried this...
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Gregor, If you are looking for alternative barrels try SILCO in UK. They supply Weirauch barrels by mail order. I recently bought a 24 inch 12mm unchoked .22 barrel from them for £60. I think that it is the one used in the FAC Weirauch PCPs.
Tony
 
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