Originally Posted by
Josie & John
On the face of it, the ability to interchange barrels has always been one of the most attractive features of the Webley Service air rifle. However, I understand why Sterling are reluctant to offer this after speaking with the rifle's 'reverse engineer' at the British Shooting Show. Sterling want to offer power levels up to the legal limit and in order to do this, they would have to set up a multi barrelled set for a heavy .25 pellet, which is more efficient ballistically than a lighter .177. Therefore a rifle set up to shoot a .25 or even a .22 would be less efficient in .177 and therefore high power could not be offered in the smaller calibre. I am a huge fan of the original and if I am completely honest with myself, I do not regularly swap barrels/calibres unless I am experimenting for a review. Doing so results in different trajectories anyway, so having just one barrel but consistently high power kind of works for me.
Agreed about open sights though. The rifle needs a quality peep sight in keeping with the original. It just so happens my friend Paul O'Donnell makes excellent replacement sights for the Service, so I'll speak to him when I next see him about this interesting project.
John
Two options ref removable barrel power issue...
- make the larger cal barrels shorter to reduce ME.. can be counterbored if needed to preserve aeshetics
- make the barels removable but not swappable - so you buy a gun with a .177 keyway barrel carrier, the keyway of the .177 only fits the .177 carrier. So long as the .22 key is larger in size, so it can't be fitted to the .177 carrier, you are fine. Least you preserve the takedown function
Always looking for any cheap, interesting, knackered "project" guns. Thanks, JB.
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