Derrick managed to find me a suitably inexpensive and rough HW50S .177 caliber spring piston rifle at the Findlay airgun show. He thinks I need more German springers in my life and I agree.
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Derrick shipped me the rifle, some extra seals and an extra mainspring.
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The slot of the cocking lever is chewed up. I lost the pic, but the buttpad is loose and there's a big wallowed out hole for a rear sling screw that needs fixing as well.
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Rust pitting that was improved by horrific scraping by the previous owner.
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Thankfully the worst of it will be hidden by the stock.
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Just minor pitting, freckles and dings on the top of the tube.
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The barrel has a patina. An uneven patina.
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It’s a Beeman import.
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I always like German rifles.
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The Rekord trigger unit.
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Spares and the trigger guard.
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Put it in the spring compressor.
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Unscrewing…
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There was no tension on it at all.
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That spring looks somewhat canted…
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I don’t like the look of the welds but they seem original.
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This one is slightly better.
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Yes, the spring is that canted.
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Derrick had sent a synthetic seal that mounted via dovetail, but clearly this is an older gun. I like leather seals and will probably keep it original.
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The seal is in good shape.
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Some more pitting and scratches.
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The pivot bolt.
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I love the nut. The “lock washer” seems to have been scavenged from a coil spring. That will probably get replaced as I don’t think it’s original.
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The new spring Derrick sent is longer.
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It does have two more coils so I’m unsure if it will fit, but I’ll try it as is. We’ll see.
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I formed a piece of aluminum around the tube, I’ll use this as a sanding block as I slowly sand all (most) of the pits out. It won’t be fun and will probably take a long while. I’ll then use a cold blue (probably Oxpho blue, limited testing on the gun showed it worked better than the Van’s blue, for this particular gun).
5 comments:
Years ago, I used to have a HW50S with an earlier serial number and my gun had a synthetic piston seal. How odd.
The lock "washer" is original.
Thanks Evert! I guess I'll keep it.
Nick-
Derrick wondered how the fore end slot could have gotten so ground out. His picture in the earlier post showing a top view of the breech block shows what might be the rusty footprint of a clamp-on swing swivel mount just in front of the block, in which case the damage might have been done by cocking with a sling swivel mounted too far to the rear of the barrel. This would also fit with the hole in the butt for a sling stud.
Lance, I bet that's it. I've had that happen on other guns. Good catch!
Nick
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