Airgunning

     Weihrauch HW97K .177      

I always liked the look of the HW97K.  Especially the HW97K Mark III with its nice shaped stock is very beautiful.  Build quality and finish are superb.

At over 4 kg, the HW97K is a heavy gun, but the balance is perfect so you don't notice the weight that much when shooting.  But it's not a gun that you want to carry around whole day.  Right out the box, the HW97K performs very well.  Although there's considerable "twang" when shooting the gun, the recoil is minor and you can see the pellet hitting the target through the scope.  

Right out the box the gun shoots at around 13 fpe.  The gun likes domed pellets such as H&N Field Target Trophy's, certainly when shooting past 25 m. Accuracy is very good. Groups of 5 shots often give 1 ragged hole at 25 m.

The HW97K is fitted with the famous rekord trigger. It is one of the best two-stage triggers I have ever used.  Right out the box the second stage has some creep and feels a bit spongy, but it can be easily adjusted to a very light and crisp trigger that breaks as glass when fired.

As in every untuned springer, the spring will break at a certain moment.  Mine broke after about 3000 rounds.  I was using heavy H&N Baracuda's (Beeman Kodiaks) for the first 1500 round, so this has probably shortened the life time of the spring.  The spring was broken in 3 pieces but the gun was still shooting very accurate.  Power was down to about 10.5 fpe.

I ordered a new factory spring but the importer sent me a spring which had about 8 coils too much (45 instead of 37).  Asking the reason for this, I was told that they only provide one spring for all Weihrauch rifles (???) and that I had to shorten the spring myself.  Needless to say that I wasn't impressed with this kind of service.

So I ordered a Venom kit for the HW97K.  This kit included a F1 Powerlok spring, a rear and front spring guide, a new piston seal, a insulator to fit inside the plunger to avoid contact between spring and underlever when cocking, some washers to adjust to power and some moly grease.  Installation of the kit is not too difficult if you are a little bit technical minded and are able to service your gun yourself.  

The result of this "Venomisation" is unbelievable, changing the characteristics of the HW97K completely.  The gun is no longer "twangy" and has a very short lock time.  It feels like the gun is really "biting", it gives a very dampened "tswjok" on firing.  The gun is very smooth now, no more vibrations of a twangy spring.  Not that it's that bad right out the box, on the contrary I never noticed the vibrations before as they are hardly present.  It's just that the effect of the Venom kit is so pronounced that you have to notice the difference.

Allthough I ordered the FAC Venom kit, I actually got the 12 fpe kit.  With the 5 washers in place, the gun is still doing 14 fpe.  I made a new front spring guide in with a thicker front end (13 mm) to give more preload to the spring.  In this configuration I got 15.3 fpe with FTT's.  In this set-up the gun was still shooting very smooth with little recoil and no twang. At this power level I shot a magpie at 75 m; it dropped like a rock.  This just shows that this is serious power.  Another example: with the gun set to 14 fpe, it shot through is both sides of a tin can, filled with water, at 75 m.  

However at the moment I have set the gun back to 12 fpe so I can use it in FT shoots.  Personally I like this 12 fpe power level for .177 calibre airguns.  Although the Venom kit is a 12 fpe kit, I have problems keeping the gun under 12 fpe with medium weight pellets (FTT, Superdomes AA Fields).  I removed all washers (despite Venom's advice to install at least one) in front of the front spring guide but still the gun is over 12 fpe. That's not really a problem since we don't have a legal power limit but ennoying since it can't be used with medium weight pellets for shooting FT limited to 12 fpe guns.  In that case I have to use heavy Baracuda's to bring it under 12 fpe.

Accuracy is even better now with the Venom kit.  One ragged hole at 30 m is not an exception and I can hit the bottom of a tin can every time at 75 m.  More than enough for me.

December 25, 2002 by Mario Severi