Haenel 55R pistol project now finished at last

[45flint]

Question you say you can recycle the round balls several times if you have a soft target. I never thought about that, thinking of my Haenel 28-R. But hard for me to see that given rifling and the Haenel is a little over 300 FPS? Ball ammo is very difficult get get anymore.

[ccdjg]

Question you say you can recycle the round balls several times if you have a soft target. I never thought about that, thinking of my Haenel 28-R. But hard for me to see that given rifling and the Haenel is a little over 300 FPS? Ball ammo is very difficult get get anymore.

I can appreciate that the rifling might cause too much damage to the ball for recycling and the lack of rifling on my repro' pistol is an advantage. I think the 28R will be more forgiving of a bit of distortion than the LP55R because of the nature of the magazine. The Schmeisser detachable magazines rely on the ball shot being within a narrow diameter range and even a slight broadening can stop the ball leaving the magazine and cause a jam. On the other hand there seems to be more room inside the feed tube of the 28R. Still it is worth trying a soft target to catch the pellets (I use a cardboard box stuffed with an old towel) and checking out the reusability of the lead balls.

[Dutch]

Amazing effort, this is stuff for dreams! True craftsmanship and the result might possibly be better than the original because of the materials used (original being potmetal). Chapeau to you!

[ccdjg]

Many thanks to you, and everyone else, for the kind endorsements of my efforts. Not fully deserved, as my projects are always more about patience overcoming adversity than craftmanship, and if I had to do it for a living I would certainly starve.

The choice of aluminium for the frame was the nearest I could reasonably get to the “Leichtmetall Druckguss” that Ernst Dieter in his book said was used for the original pistols. This is usually translated as “Die cast light alloy” so would almost certainly have been an aluminium-based alloy. This would be better than the usual “monkey metal” zinc alloys used on cheap guns. While it might not have been as resilient as soft aluminium, it would have been more resistant to scratching and dents.

Anodising the aluminium was the right way to go for me, as I have been disassembling and re-assembling the gun many times while experimenting with springs and air transfer tubes and I have had a few dings, which thanks to the anodising haven’t left any permanent marks.

[pjbingham]

What an enjoyable read and a fantastic end result,thanks for sharing

[lightning22]

Question you say you can recycle the round balls several times if you have a soft target. I never thought about that, thinking of my Haenel 28-R. But hard for me to see that given rifling and the Haenel is a little over 300 FPS? Ball ammo is very difficult get get anymore.

From memory BB shot is 4.4mm, I know I have split cartridges in the past to supply some for members to try in their gallery rifles.