For the attention of Wiggers! (Wonky HW95 tune)

[look no hands]

Hi Chris,

I spent ages typing out a reply to your PM and then your inbox was full when I tried to send it to you, so I didn't want to waste what I had written, anyway here's my reply.

I'd say yes, Wonky does a complete rebuild of the internals, I can't say how well it shoots now as I went all anti Weihrauch shortly after having it done (it's an age and "don't mention the war" sort of thing) and sold it on, it certainly made a hell of a difference from what it was like before (I swapped a rifle for the 95 and it came with a V-mach kit in it), the thing is for me is I don't like V-mach kits either as I feel they are overpriced and the kit I had for my first Prosport made it harder to cock and kept going over the legal limit, even after several spring exchanges with Steve, I ended up putting a SFS spring in and had no problems after that but I do have to admit that my 95 did shoot pretty nice with the V-mach kit in it but comparing it to the Chinese XS20 I had before it, then there was no contest really.

Now here's the thing, a Wonky tune was £160 (about 2 years ago) plus postage there and back (another £40-50), fair enough the tune will have the transfer port sorted out and it will be short stroked and a special piston seal used blah blah blah, the tune made a lot of difference but I wouldn't say it was streets ahead but I didn't run it in properly so it could have only got better and then I'd probably have been blown away, people often ask about tuning and at the end of the day it all depends on what you like from the rifle, if yours is shooting well, with top notch accuracy and little recoil and no annoying twang, then either leave it as is or I'd recommend putting a Tinbum short stroke head in it and getting rid of any heavy top hat or washers in the piston (if it has any of those fitted) and just putting a Delrin top hat in with slip washers but we also don't know what else the Airgun Dr who tuned yours also done or did he just drop the kit in and that was it?

At the end of the day, do you think spending £200 on the gun will make it any better than it already is, yes we all want perfection but if the pellets are going where you want them to go, then that's all that matters, you could spend £200 on a decent stock that would improve your shooting and enjoyment ten fold.

I'd ask some of the HW nutters like TonyL etc and they will help you out more than I can really as I'm just a lowly BSA lover, but I'm sure they will be along soon and chime up about what to do.

Cheers

Pete

[flyingfish]

Imho with tuning you come up against a "law of diminishing return"
I have fired rifles that are far more highly tuned than my short stroked guns. They feel good but not an extra £200 good (with a couple of exceptions)

[Telephonepete]

Very good and promising thread. i agree diminishing returns indeed. Get youselves a tinbum kit and get stuck in. Now, its a matter of pride that i tune my own springers. Its really rather simple. considering the result that you can get yourself very easily, is it worth up to a couple of hundred pounds. to get a totaly silent cocking stroke. Having spent this kind of money on a tune i supposed people are in the mood to enthuse about the result.

[eyebull]

Very good and promising thread. i agree diminishing returns indeed. Get youselves a tinbum kit and get stuck in. Now, its a matter of pride that i tune my own springers.

The main reason I now do all my own 'tuning' (well alright just fettling and tidying up really) is that I once paid someone to sort my Lightning out for me. At that point I had never opened up a spring rifle.
Got it back and after a week or two still wasn't happy. Followed some online instructions and opened it up, and it was pretty clear that it was the first time the gun had been disassembled. Meaning that this person had taken my money for nothing.

For similar reasons I won't send kit off to be modified if I can help it, after Nick from Magic 9 disappeared off the face of the earth with my 586 sight assembly.

[look no hands]

The short of it is, if I had a bog standard out of the box 95 that had a twang on shooting and was harsh and was a bit graunchy on cocking, then sending it off to Wonky and having his wonder tune WOULD blow your mind when you received it back and put a load of pellets through it but considering mine had had some tinkering done and a good tuners kit fitted and had been run in, then the difference wasn't overly noticeable at first, if I could have compared two rifles side by side, one Wonky tuned and one V-mach kitted then you'd probably tell the difference, when it was V-mach kitted it was smooth and twang free but it had a strange "Ting" on cocking (probably the piston rod touching the metal piston guide) and there was a tuning fork type of resonance upon firing which could be cured with a Delrin spring guide, to be honest it was perfectly usable but the "Ting" and resonance would have eventually got the better of me and would have had to had been sorted.

Pete

[Bad Beagle]

I have a .177 95k that was short stroked by Dave Price (WW). It was done in 2015 and is the only rifle I wouldn’t ever part with, super accurate with a very fast firing cycle.

It had originally been bought by me from SFS with a stage 1 tune but within 6 months began to creep over 12 Fpe. Dave transformed it and it is a joy to shoot. Nowhere near £200 iirc.