Webley Omega carbine

[macmerc]

I bought an Omega .177 recently from Kempton , it was in nice condition and I just fancied one at the time didn’t check it over much just bought it and took it home , seller said “yea it really powerful that is “!
Got it home tested over chrono .... 4ftIbs 😳 so after stripping discovered it has been fitted with a gas ram !
Ordered new mainspring and piston seal from Chambers , fitted parts with new guide ....... 9ftIbs 😳
stripped again and discovered I over sized the piston seal basically cocked it up !
Fitted original PTFE seal and buffer plus added 4 preload washers 11.99 ftlbs 😀
Bit too close for comfort so stripped again ! ( getting good at stripping the trigger unit now )
Removed 1 power washer 11.2 ftibs ...... that will do and shooting very well indeed .
Ordered another parachute seal and will strip and fit when arrives as I I’ve read they are more efficient than PTFE ?
Tested at the local range and extremely impressed with accuracy and performance, love the barrel lock up and safety works lovely, I would say the Omega is as good if not better than my FWB sport 124 I’m surprised the Omega doesn’t get more recognition than it did . Love mine . I’ve learnt a lot stripping and reassembling the Omega so if anybody wants any tips or advice on this fine rifle give me a shout I will more than happy to help .

[Gareth W-B]

Really interesting thread my friend. I am an out and out devotee of the Omega in all its guises, and know you have yourself a great rifle there. Webley did actually make a couple of prototype Omegas with gas rams, one of which (believed to be the only one left in existence) is owned by our I. J. on here, so before you ditch the knackered gas ram out of your Omega, do double check that it's not one of the original Webley prototypes. Keep us posted. Atb: GWB.

[macmerc]

It was a theoben gas ram , not sure if it’s knackered but think it was fitted incorrectly into the trigger block and just decided to return it to a springer .

[Gareth W-B]

It was a theoben gas ram , not sure if it’s knackered but think it was fitted incorrectly into the trigger block and just decided to return it to a springer .

Gotcha - an after market conversion then, so imho you have done the right thing putting it back to spring. 👍

[macmerc]

Just to add I fitted a delrin spring guide which is sunk into trigger block by about an inch and held in tight with a cross pin , it fits nice and snug in mainspring, I was also going to fit a piston sleeve to the piston but the tolerances are such close fit of standard mainspring left no room whatsoever for even the thinnest PTFE sheet so left it without , as it turned out there is absolutely no twang at all and the gun gun shoots with a satisfying thud !
The trigger is not bad at all once adjusted......not as good as a Weihrauch record unit but I think better than a FWB sport trigger , it’s perfectly good enough for achieving tight groups at 35 to 40 yards as I discovered after a bit of practice .
The cocking effort is a little on the heavy side probably harder because of the short carbine barrel I would imagine it must be a lot easier with a full length barrel ...... but you get used to it and it’s not excessive .

[I. J.]

Really interesting thread my friend. I am an out and out devotee of the Omega in all its guises, and know you have yourself a great rifle there. Webley did actually make a couple of prototype Omegas with gas rams, one of which (believed to be the only one left in existence) is owned by our I. J. on here, so before you ditch the knackered gas ram out of your Omega, do double check that it's not one of the original Webley prototypes. Keep us posted. Atb: GWB.

The obvious difference between the adjustable (Theoben type) gas ram and the nonadjustable gas strut is that the adjustable ram loses the safety catch.



Then there's the Omega prototype which also came from the W & W auction.

[macmerc]

The obvious difference between the adjustable (Theoben type) gas ram and the nonadjustable gas strut is that the adjustable ram loses the safety catch.



Then there's the Omega prototype which also came from the W & W auction.

That’s interesting thanks , what does it shoot like ? say in comparison to a theoben Scirocco which I also have in pre HE form , that’s shoots lovely and is extremely consistent, it’s a .22 which is obviously not as harsh as some .177s .
Incidentally the Chambers Omega standard mainspring is 32 coils long but I’ve read online that 34 coils is standard for Omegas and Vulcans .....hence why I had to add some preload washers .... actually to be honest they weren’t preload washers as such but 1 pence coins which fitted perfectly into the piston end in front of spring this added a tiny bit of weight also which helped raise power with some extra momentum, it worked for me anyway and added another 3 pence to the value of the gun 😂😂

[I. J.]

That’s interesting thanks , what does it shoot like ? say in comparison to a theoben Scirocco which I also have in pre HE form , that’s shoots lovely and is extremely consistent, it’s a .22 which is obviously not as harsh as some .177s .

Everyone who shoots it notices the reduced recoil and smooth action. I lent to rifle to John Milewski who wrote an article about it in an issue of Airgun World.
He wrote, quote:
'When the gas rammed Omega goes off, there is less appreciable recoil than with a springer and this results
in consistent performance down range. It has been a while since I used a telescopic sighted rifle and I
must admit I enjoyed using this one.
The accuracy that resulted from each shot made using this rifle a pleasure. Knockdown targets placed 25 yards away were easy to hit from the standing position consistently, as were bottle tops placed at 20 yards.
Whilst not recoilless, the shooting experience was smoother than a springer and most enjoyable. The gas ram was therefore definitely a practical option.'

HTH
Ian

[Shed tuner]

Omega a good guns, but they just came along too late, and whilst the triggers are "OK", they are not Rekord/CD

[Thegreg]

( getting good at stripping the trigger unit now )

Just to save you the faff of stripping the trigger unit down each time, you don’t have to. When you take the back black off and pull out the mainspring, all you need to remove from the trigger assembly is the cocking dog. Take out the pin which it pivots on and remove it out of the back of the compression tube. That then allows the piston to be extracted. All the other trigger gubbins stays in place.

Cheers
Greg

[macmerc]

Just to save you the faff of stripping the trigger unit down each time, you don’t have to. When you take the back black off and pull out the mainspring, all you need to remove from the trigger assembly is the cocking dog. Take out the pin which it pivots on and remove it out of the back of the compression tube. That then allows the piston to be extracted. All the other trigger gubbins stays in place.

Cheers
Greg

Excellent thanks will try that next time hopefully will speed up the process. 👍

[macmerc]

I’m still undecided about changing piston seal from the current PTFE to a parachute seal which I have ordered again after messing up the last new seal by oversizing !
but the parachute seal from new was such a tight fit was a job to get it into the cylinder, should I just push it in without sizing ? and let it bed in naturally? or do I stick with the original PTFE and buffer which seems to work okay at the moment.

[Shed tuner]

I’m still undecided about changing piston seal from the current PTFE to a parachute seal which I have ordered again after messing up the last new seal by oversizing !
but the parachute seal from new was such a tight fit was a job to get it into the cylinder, should I just push it in without sizing ? and let it bed in naturally? or do I stick with the original PTFE and buffer which seems to work okay at the moment.

size the parachute seal, but easy does it - it will wear in qickly immediately post sizing, much faster than an unsized seal would. So go for a tight but not stupidly tight fit this time.

[Dunk1302]

Another Omega fan here...... 2 in my collection. I'm not sure if it's true, but I always got the feeling Webley killed off the Omega to release the Eclipse so that they could jump on the HW77 under-lever bandwagon as it was so popular at the time?

Sadly the Eclipse was a looooong way short of the HW77

Dunk