I was just reading Gizwaz's thread about his restoration of an old 77 - Many congratulations, Gizwaz; you've done a fantastic piece of work there and turned what looked like a piece of scrap iron into a beautiful gun.
By a strange coincidence I bought an old HW77 from a friend yesterday. He is hoping to move house soon and wanted to get rid of his rifle. At first I was doubtful, it looked pretty old and had some nasty rust on the barrel and underlever( I have a few other Weihrauchs and really my house is getting a bit crammed.) but when he said if I didn't want it he was going to turn it over to the bin men - well what can you do?
So a deal was struck and after some excellent advice from Sandwell Field Sports about how to deal with the rust (good gun oil and very fine wire wool) I managed to get the outside looking reasonably presentable. I now plan to turn it over to someone far more skilled than me to do a service and get it running smoothly.
The gun, like Gizwaz's seems to be an early 77 with the really difficult underlever latch. The number is 10453700 so could anyone give me an idea when it was made?
Haven't had a long barrelled 77 before but gather from Jim Tyler's articles that they are something of an icon. Just wish mine was a .177 since my shooting is solely at targets. Still, guess I'll just have to put up with another gun in .22.....
Would be grateful if any of you experts could date the gun for me. Thanks in advance.
Lafayette.