The Tale of a Long Lost Air Pistol - and the MPL.

[zooma]

I have a lovely example of the early type .177 Weihrauch HW70 spring powered air pistol, and it was the first "brand new" air pistol that I ever bought.

These "first type" HW70 air pistols had a really nice brown tortoiseshell patterned moulded grip that was much better looking than the later plain black plastic type (with safety) that you can buy these days IMHO - and of course these early types never had a safety device fitted !

I remember saving my meagre apprenticeship wages to buy this from a big gun shop called Crudgingtons (now long gone) that used to be in Green Street, Bath, sometime around 1969 - 1970 not long before we got married and moved to Exmouth.

During the move to Exmouth the cardboard box got a bit damaged and I remember putting some black gaffer tape around the edges to keep it in shape, which seemed a shame because since I bought it the pistol had only ever had a few shots in the back garden - and that was not "approved of" by the neighbours and so it traveled down to Devon with only having had 20 -30 pellets put through the barrel.

I later shot the pistol in the 6 yard NARPA air pistol competitions when my shooting range in my new home in Exmouth consisted on me standing outside and shooting it into the garage where the targets were held with masking tape against a cardboard box stuffed with rags!

The pistol was part-exchanged soon after in a sports shop in Exeter against a new Original Model 6 when I started the Exmouth Air Pistol and Rifle Club in 1971 as I liked the idea of having a recoilless air pistol to use for target work - despite hardly ever shooting the HW70 since I bought it new!

Being newly married I could not afford to keep it and buy a new Model 6 so the last time I saw my HW70 was in its tatty box on the counter in this sports shop in 1971.

I thought that would be the last time I would ever see this modest little HW70, but it turned up for sale here on the BBS just a few years ago - still in the original repaired cardboard box - and still in superb condition. What were the chances of that happening after 45 years or more?

It turns out that this little air pistol had (at some stage) followed me up to Lancashire from Devon and was being offered for sale by a well known local gunsmith! When I saw the pictures I recognised my "not so clever" but very recognisable box repair and so I could not resist buying it back.

It looks like none of the previous owners (I guess it must have had more than one?) had shot the pistol any more than I did, but it seems to have had a recent service sometime along the way as it shoots superbly well (with good power) and has a really nice smooth light weight trigger release.

Its an interesting tale of a nice (comparatively inexpensive) little .177 air pistol that is still more than capable of shooting well in the MPL - despite being over 50 years old.

I was going to list it this evening and offer it for sale along with a couple of other inexpensive air pistols that could be used in the MPL air pistol competition, but in the end I changed my mind from writing the listing to sell this little HW70 to writing this instead.

Perhaps after 50 years I should actually give this little air pistol some use - so I have entered the MPL 6 yard Air Pistol postal competition and this is the air pistol that I will be using.