Quote Originally Posted by Josie & John View Post
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.

John
I can understand Stirling's thinking on this, John.

Webley themselves finally dropped the interchangeable barrel system on the Hawk MK2 as so few people bought the gun with both barrels.
When the Hawk MK3 came out with its fixed barrel it must have save Webley quite a bit of money in machining costs.




All the best Mick