Weihrauch HW35 .22

[TonyL]

An excellent review of this superb, classic rifle. A rifle that compares so favourably to many modern guns after all these years. Its ensuring design and sturdy build quality will, I hope, see it winning many more fans for years to come.

[riskybizz]

these rifles seem to be increasing in price and even thought of buying one myself which until now had no interest in.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

If you could keep only one Dave,which would it be: the 35 or the. Challenger?

[DJP]

If you could keep only one Dave,which would it be: the 35 or the. Challenger?

Arthur, it's the Walther Century that I also have.

To be fair, that's a very difficult question to answer. The HW35 is old school HW but comparing them makes me realise what a fantastic rifle the Century really is. It is much (and I mean much) better designed and built than the HW35 (or indeed any current HW springer).

But, but...

The 35 is a classic. And it has a Rekord trigger... Which is the best spring gun trigger ever IMVHO.

So, modern design and build versus archaic quirkiness.

That is the question.

But if you must have an answer, it would be Walther.

(And put a Rekord trigger on a Umarex Walther, any Umarex Walther, and it woud be the best springer... #Jeremy Clarkson voice# in the world. )

[DJP]

Update

Well, the HW35 didn't take long to blot it's copy book: The piston seal failed after approx. 50 shots.

The rifle suddenly became very slammy and a strip down revealed that the piston could easily be pushed down the cylinder with a finger over the transfer port.

On closer inspection there appears to be a small deformation on the edge of the seal. It's not burnt or damaged and appears to be a manufacturing defect.

Fortunately, I had a spare piston seal from another project in my box of bits. Fitting this resulted in normal, smooth service being resumed.

Unfortunately, the rifle then turned out to be making an easy (and very smooth) 14fpe!

The spares box again came to the rescue with an old style HW80 spring. This had the same dimensions, wire gauge etc. as the the standard HW35 mainspring apart from being considerably longer. I chopped it down until it was 2 coils shorter than the standard item (and still with about 15mm of preload).

This is currently giving a lovely smooth 11.8 fpe and very easy cocking. It's a little close to the limit for my liking, but I'll leave it as is for a while a see where it settles.

And, as an aside, HW build quality really does seem to have gone to rats these days.

[Arthur John Smithsplease]

Sorry to hear about that Dave.

Must have reinforced your view that the . Century would be the more natural choice as a keeper.

Thanks for the reply by the way.

[DJP]

Well, more examples of poor build quality have surfaced. Having finally got the 35 shooting nicely, I noticed that the action was moving around in the stock with every shot. A 2mm gap would open up between the rear of the action and the stock regardless of how tightly the stock screws were fastened. On inspection, the issue appeared to be with the locating lug on the action. The lug is about 8mm in diameter and sits in a recess approximately 12mm in diameter.

Unfortunately, with a single front stock screw, the HW35 is totally reliant on an accurate fit of this lug to properly secure the action in the stock, which is never going to happen with 4mm of slop.

My solution was to machine up a spacer which fits closely over the lug and also firmly within the stock recess. The net result is that the action is now firmly secured in the stock. Indeed, it's so much better that I'm now wondering if there's meant to be a factory fit spacer in there that's simply missing from my rifle?

pics here

However, fixing this highlighted another issue: With everything properly located the 2mm gap between the rear of the action and the stock is now permanent. The stock simply does not fit properly. To add insult to injury, Weihrauch have placed a Quality Control sticker inside the stock right at that point!

How Weihrauch get away with turning out such dross while charging top dollar is beyond me. I've bought 3 new Weihrauchs over the last 5 years and every one has had issues. Don't get me wrong: I like the HW35 and it is a stupendously accurate rifle (thank the barrel and trigger for that) but I remain distinctly unimpressed by the overall build quality.