In praise of Webley air pistols

[Gerard]

You're not kidding. My 7 year old boy has taken to climbing into our bed about 3 in the morning lately, afraid to sleep by himself. He has a very vivid imagination, especially as concerns monsters. Last night he was not only between my wife and myself, but in an extra-insecure demonstration he insisted on pressing up against me the rest of the night. I had about 10 inches at the edge of the bed to sleep on. Little bugger's strong as heck. So I couldn't really toss and turn and spent at least 4 hours on my right shoulder. Feels now like someone hit me with a baseball bat. Deep pain all the way through the shoulder 'spring'. Dammit. Got to resolve this nightmare nonsense somehow. I need that shoulder for air pistol competitions!

The Wobbly pistols are indeed entertaining, all the more so when they're hitting hard with new springs and properly fitted breech seals. But the majority of my shooting time goes to formal 10 metre training. Got a new Pardini K12 arriving within the next week and I'm REALLY excited about the new trigger design, which by many accounts is one of the best triggers ever made. At least a couple of high scoring shooters have declared it to be superior in action to that of the electronic Morini. And the absorber is a bonus; lately my 'good day' groups have been inner 9's and strings of 10's, but my 'bad day' groups have shown a distinct upward flipping when I can't quite control the grip. The recoilless design might just be the ticket to eliminate some of those upper 9's and even some 8's... though really I can't blame the 8's on my K10.

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With new springs in the Tempest and Senior .22" pistols and a new homemade leather seal in the Junior bringing up the velocities on all three I thought to have a comparison shoot today. Not very formal, just shooting from 5 yards. Here's the result. The Junior and Tempest fought me the least. The Senior is shooting somewhat harshly. I'm hoping it'll settle in. Took 10 shots with each pistol but lost track with the Tempest and think I stopped at 16. The last is a baseline with my competition pistol, the Pardini, and at that range the group is a bit big for me so I must be having a bad day.
http://www.luthier.ca/other/forum/comparing_Webleys.jpg
Have to say the Junior is currently the most fun to shoot. It's just so light! I'm off the Pardini. Too much like work, and as I'm anticipating the K12 it's starting to feel like it's not my pistol any more... be selling this one soon.

[zooma]

It's good to see some support for the more recent alloy pistols as well as the established steel favourites

...and not just the Tempest either !

[Gerard]

Matter of taste I suppose, but it's always seemed to me (since lusting after a Tempest in 1979 but deciding to spend my limited student resources on a Leica M2 instead) that the Hurricane's longer sight radius isn't really relevant in a pistol with a profound 'recoil' - the jumping downwards and slightly sideways which both the Tempest and Hurricane share. Putting a scope on a Tempest (after all, the Hurricane and the Tempest are the same pistol with only part of the frame and the rear sight adjustments being different) seemed then and seems still to be an absurdity. You can point as accurately as you like, but these things just aren't capable of one hole accuracy at 10 metres or more the way a proper match pistol is. So the longer sight radius of the Hurricane is a bit misleading in my opinion. There's enough sight radius with the Tempest and with the previous steel pistols to match the potential of the pistol's action, which is inherently limiting. I'm not saying that this dismisses the Hurricane, only that it seems reduced to a matter of taste - does one want a longer looking pistol or a shorter one. It's more a visual, tactile decision than a functional one.

[zooma]

An Interesting but Wobbly Observation indeed !

In the first round of the 10 metre Summer 2013 MPL series I noticed that Paul Wrey scored a measly 177 with his technically superior WEBLEY PREMIER, whilst Ian Jones ( President of the Webley Air Pistol Fan Club) actually beat him with his very modest Steyr LP10 by scoring a superb 178.

Pauls WEBLEY PREMIER has also had the advantage of being nicely run-in as it has been around since the 1970's, whereas Ian's Steyr LP10 is almost brand new, so he had very little chance of competing in this David v Goliath competition - but still managed to achieve this crushing victory.

Well done Ian - great result

[I. J.]

Thank you.
Actually I used a FWB65 which, as we all know, is a German built SPRING pistol with a good trigger and superbly engineered unlike some (no names).

You would have thought that the originator of this competitions rules would have realised that a Steyr would not be eligible for this type of competition and that my opponent, in this case Paul 'Hippo' Wray could out shoot most people with a Gat! Its sickening.

Lets see if his 'Wobbly' pistol has survived until the next round of the competition which starts on Sunday 25th Aug.

ATB
'Wobbly killer Jones.'

[zooma]

Thank you.
Actually I used a FWB65 which, as we all know, is a German built SPRING pistol with a good trigger and superbly engineered unlike some (no names).

You would have thought that the originator of this competitions rules would have realised that a Steyr would not be eligible for this type of competition and that my opponent, in this case Paul 'Hippo' Wray could out shoot most people with a Gat! Its sickening.

Lets see if his 'Wobbly' pistol has survived until the next round of the competition which starts on Sunday 25th Aug.

ATB
'Wobbly killer Jones.'

Ha Ha.....sorry I woke you up!

[I. J.]

Ha Ha.....sorry I woke you up!

Im always up at the crack of dinner. Countdown is breakfast T V for me.