The slagged off Webley Hawk Mk3

[evert]

I put leather washers in my Ospreys, I can get 9-9.5 ft lbs in .177 from a Meteor spring. Lovely to shoot and very accurate. I had one .22 Osprey that would do over 11 ft lbs off a leather washer. I think it's still kicking around in bits, I never bothered much with it as finding 5.6mm pellets it liked was never easy. It shot Defiants well but they're all gone now.

Another solution is to machine the piston for a Hw seal, and sleeve down the port.

I've used RWS .22 superdome and hobby pellets with good results in both the Osprey and later Webleys.

[career707lover]

The Webley Hawk Mk3 is one of the guns that is commonly slagged off. I am not saying it is a brilliant gun , but think some of the criticism is unfair OR is it?
The Hawk Mk1 had the cam release interchangable barrels, a stupid rearsight that would break if you tried to adjust it, a terrible trigger and a DANGEROUS safety.

The Hawk Mk2 had the screw in barrel and a better rearsight, but from memory, an automatic safety?

The Hawk Mk3 has a non changable barrel, the same rearsight and (I think) a manual safety.

All the safetys are made from something appoaching biscuit tin and tend to break.

The trigger housings are spot welded onto the cylinder and can break (theme here )

The rear stock screw is a tri lobal something or other self tapping screw that goes into a hole that is punched (I think) into the bottom of the trigger housings and only catches on a few threads. The front stock screws are the same sort but have a decent amount of metal to go into.

Hawk Mk3's can be made better by fitting an O ring into the front groove of the piston, fitting a Meteor mainspring, sorting a guide, doing away with the safety and using a sear spring from a Victor.

But the thing that gets me, is that people sing the praises of the Vulcan, when it is more or less a Hawk Mk3 with a bigger diameter cylinder and a mainspring guide? So apart form being a full power gun, why do people praise the |Vulcan and slag off the Hawk Mk3?

I'm sure my Hawk Mk3 had an auto safety? Nevertheless I didn't think it was a bad gun for the money. A little low on power but reasonably accurate (not that I'm a great shot).