Weihrauch HW100 T has become completely inaccurate

[Geezer]

Most guns of good quality shoot a wide variety of good quality ammunition adequately well.

Sometimes, you will find a belter that shoots a significant number of good projectiles very well. You keep those ones.

Sometimes, you find a gun that shoots very well with only one or two types. Those are “pellet fussy”.

It happens. It isn’t always down to the barrel, other factors are involved: bedding, harmonics, start pressures, etc, etc.

But quite often, it does appear to be the barrel. You isolate or modify as many as possible of the other factors, and nothing changes.

Jepho: your points are well taken, but I fear you overrate the consistency of barrel production in airguns. Or most firearms for that matter. The vast majority of civilian guns are built down to a price.

There’s no doubt that (e.g.) LW make good barrels, but most airgun barrels are not at that level, and HW100s have definitely in the recent past had issues with poor quality ones. A near-perfect barrel (e.g. for CF benchrest or military sniping) costs anything from £200-300. No air gun maker will spend that. Well, maybe for really high-end Olympic match stuff, but not for anything less.

Bottom line: sometimes you get a lemon.

[Lavant_Lad]

Most guns of good quality shoot a wide variety of good quality ammunition adequately well.

Sometimes, you will find a belter that shoots a significant number of good projectiles very well. You keep those ones.

Sometimes, you find a gun that shoots very well with only one or two types. Those are “pellet fussy”.

It happens. It isn’t always down to the barrel, other factors are involved: bedding, harmonics, start pressures, etc, etc.

But quite often, it does appear to be the barrel. You isolate or modify as many as possible of the other factors, and nothing changes.

Jepho: your points are well taken, but I fear you overrate the consistency of barrel production in airguns. Or most firearms for that matter. The vast majority of civilian guns are built down to a price.

There’s no doubt that (e.g.) LW make good barrels, but most airgun barrels are not at that level, and HW100s have definitely in the recent past had issues with poor quality ones. A near-perfect barrel (e.g. for CF benchrest or military sniping) costs anything from £200-300. No air gun maker will spend that. Well, maybe for really high-end Olympic match stuff, but not for anything less.

Bottom line: sometimes you get a lemon.

Im with Geezer on this one !!!!!!!!!

[jepho]

Im with Geezer on this one !!!!!!!!!

i have yet to be convinced. 😁

[Lavant_Lad]

Have you got a friend you can swap barrels with for 1/2 hour?

[Rapidnick]

I will admit to not having read every single post on this thread so I may well be repeating advice already given. As a general rule a deterioration in performance from a quality air rifle like the HW100 means either 1)the barrel needs cleaning 2) the barrel is loose 3) the moderator is causing the pellet to clip so test without the moderator or 4) try different pellets. In addition as a specific issue with the HW100, the 'figure of eight' barrel clamp may be causing a problem so try a test with the clamp removed.

[jepho]

I will admit to not having read every single post on this thread so I may well be repeating advice already given. As a general rule a deterioration in performance from a quality air rifle like the HW100 means either 1)the barrel needs cleaning 2) the barrel is loose 3) the moderator is causing the pellet to clip so test without the moderator or 4) try different pellets. In addition as a specific issue with the HW100, the 'figure of eight' barrel clamp may be causing a problem so try a test with the clamp removed.

Thank you for your response: 1) done 2) done 3) done 4) done

The barrel band does not appear to be restricting the barrel and it serves to hold the barrelled action into the stock at the front end. It may be possible to nip it up far tighter than is desirable and bend the barrel and hold it bent. I guess the torque required to do that would be significant. Until I removed the barrelled action, there was no previous removal of the barrel band and no obvious reason for its retaining bolt to have tightened itself. I will let my gunsmith know that this is a thought that requires some investigation.

[Rapidnick]

Thank you for your response: 1) done 2) done 3) done 4) done

The barrel band does not appear to be restricting the barrel and it serves to hold the barrelled action into the stock at the front end. It may be possible to nip it up far tighter than is desirable and bend the barrel and hold it bent. I guess the torque required to do that would be significant. Until I removed the barrelled action, there was no previous removal of the barrel band and no obvious reason for its retaining bolt to have tightened itself. I will let my gunsmith know that this is a thought that requires some investigation.

Sorry for my late response to your post replying to mine. I'm not convinced that the barrel clamp isn't responsible so I strongly recommend you remove the barrel clamp entirely and run the gun with a free floating barrel. It is odd to think that a barrel can deteriorate without explanation to the extent you have experienced. Certainly any idea that the power plant is at fault can be confidently discarded.
Good luck-it must be very frustrating for you.

[jepho]

Have you got a friend you can swap barrels with for 1/2 hour?

Sadly, No. Where the barrel is mated to a specific action at the factory, is this pathway likely to encourage inaccuracy? I cannot be sure what test this provides and what the outcome would tell you.

[rockdrill]

Where the barrel is mated to a specific action at the factory, is this pathway likely to encourage inaccuracy? I cannot be sure what test this provides and what the outcome would tell you.

I would hardly call an HW100 barrel 'mated' to the action, these are 'assembly line' guns not hand built specials. A barrel will be taken from the rack and inserted to an action and the grub screws tightened to lock in in place.

By changing barrels it could well indicate whether your barrel has developed a fault or whether it is a power plant issue.

[jepho]

I would hardly call an HW100 barrel 'mated' to the action, these are 'assembly line' guns not hand built specials. A barrel will be taken from the rack and inserted to an action and the grub screws tightened to lock in in place.

By changing barrels it could well indicate whether your barrel has developed a fault or whether it is a power plant issue.

Thanks for the helpful response.

I don't have a barrel to exchange. All guns must be tested to some degree at the factory and signed off as a collection of parts that can be sold as a whole gun, which meets the company's QA standards for that model. For my purposes, that is mated to the action.

Where the barrels can vary widely, as is suggested by many of the posts here, a change to another barrel may not reveal the issue because of the inherent variability in manufacture. For now, I have not received any explanations which can tell me why the gun is no longer able to group pellets. There have been many suggestions but not all of them have considered all of the circumstances which were posted. We are not talking about a millimetre or two away from the expected point of impact.

The behaviour I wish to have explained is this: I can hold the gun on a sandbag and point at the target centre through a reasonable scope, that was exchanged for two others without making any difference. I don't shoot drunk or drugged. The cross hairs of the sight are on the dead centre of the target and the pellet may land within a few millimetres of the centre of the cross hairs. The next pellet may land 2 inches below that one and be at the extreme edge of the target. I was used to having every shot land where I pointed the gun.

It may be that the pellet goes right, up, down or left. The following pellet will also hit the target randomly. The gun is not moved and the scope cross hairs are not positioned differently. Ten shots in ten different places is not about the large group made by covering 6.5 inches of the target face. There is no group at all. The gun has not been abused, nor dropped. The scope is not at fault.

The gun appears to have no damage to the bore or crown of the barrel and all of the working parts work without giving any hint of obstruction or damage. The magazines appear to feed the pellets cleanly and on axis. To all intents and purposes, the gun appears to be working correctly except in the single respect that the pellet point of impact cannot be adequately guided or predicted.

My knowledge is insufficient to draw any adequate conclusions from what has been said here and from the gun's behaviour and my limited inspection of it. If you tell me what faults a barrel can develop just by being used as intended, then I am reasonably sure that I could devise a test to reveal that developing fault.

[old goat]

Welcome to the world of airguns, a far from perfect world as you are finding

Geezer sums up my findings over the years shooting airguns

Pellet fussy, for what ever reason is a well know fact,this was the issue with my gun not saying it is the problem with yours

As for expecting higher cost guns to be without faults I feel you may be disappointed, a good comparison could be made with cars

Good debate keep us informed

[jepho]

Welcome to the world of airguns, a far from perfect world as you are finding

Geezer sums up my findings over the years shooting airguns

Pellet fussy, for what ever reason is a well know fact,this was the issue with my gun not saying it is the problem with yours

As for expecting higher cost guns to be without faults I feel you may be disappointed, a good comparison could be made with cars

Good debate keep us informed

If the gun had misbehaved from day one, when it was first purchased, I could accept the concept of a Friday night object. Because it has behaved well and shot perfectly for the 18 months during which I have owned it, then the issue is not clear cut. I don't necessarily expect a manufactured product to exhibit no faults. I do expect higher costs to be reflected in materials and care in manufacturer; with a percentage of those costs being reflected in quality assurance.

For example; the trigger mechanism of the Anschütz 9015 (which I had held recently) was so light that I kept missing the slight break before the ultra quiet release. Compared to the Weihrauch Rekord, which is known to be a good trigger unit, the Anschütz was a whole world away in terms of its quality and predictability and an absolute revelation to me once I had learned to use it. Can a £200 gun with a plastic trigger replicate that very sweet release? No! Can a gunsmith make a cheap trigger feel like the Anschütz? No! There has to be a reason to charge what manufacturers set their prices at and almost certainly it will be reflected in material choices, manufacturing techniques, tolerances and QA.

I shoot an Air Arms Alfa Pro J pistol. It is as accurate as I required. However, some kind person lent me their Feinwerkbau pistol to shoot with and it was a very different experience. It felt far more accurate and designed to assist the shooter in every way. I wont be replacing my Alfa Pro J anytime soon but I could see and feel where the extra cost is buried in the Feinwerkbau.

I will report back all transactions with my gunsmith.

[jepho]

Most guns of good quality shoot a wide variety of good quality ammunition adequately well.

Sometimes, you will find a belter that shoots a significant number of good projectiles very well. You keep those ones.

Sometimes, you find a gun that shoots very well with only one or two types. Those are “pellet fussy”.

It happens. It isn’t always down to the barrel, other factors are involved: bedding, harmonics, start pressures, etc, etc.

But quite often, it does appear to be the barrel. You isolate or modify as many as possible of the other factors, and nothing changes.

Jepho: your points are well taken, but I fear you overrate the consistency of barrel production in airguns. Or most firearms for that matter. The vast majority of civilian guns are built down to a price.

There’s no doubt that (e.g.) LW make good barrels, but most airgun barrels are not at that level, and HW100s have definitely in the recent past had issues with poor quality ones. A near-perfect barrel (e.g. for CF benchrest or military sniping) costs anything from £200-300. No air gun maker will spend that. Well, maybe for really high-end Olympic match stuff, but not for anything less.

Bottom line: sometimes you get a lemon.

Thank you for your helpful response. In relation to my own situation; my gun would shoot accurately with many different types of pellets. The recent loss of accuracy is baffling. The rifle is stored in a hard case and it has never been dropped or mistreated. The accuracy loss up to the point where no pellet POI can be predicted and the pellets can end up anywhere on a 6.5 inch target face despite the same point of aim and a rock steady hold, is difficult to explain. The pellet direction on leaving the barrel would be north, south, east or west and all points in between. I had thought that there was some accidental damage to the crown but nothing can be seen on close inspection. I don't see how the concept of the barrel being pellet fussy applies in this particular case. Before the deterioration of accuracy, I could use any pellet and produce reasonable groups.

I take your point about the production of barrels and the likelihood of getting a good one. My intention is not to concern myself with what sounds as if it may be a dark art of tuning for specific manufacturer created barrel faults. I will soon be buying an Anschütz 9015 for ten metre work and then I would like to buy another for longer distance work. I don't want to be bothered with ironing out deliberate faults (compromises) in gun manufacture. Life is too short and I want to be able to shoot without trying to correct bad decisions made at the design stage of a gun. I suspect this the principle rationale behind the often high cost of olympic standard guns.

As for lemons... my gun was not a lemon on purchase 18 months ago and there is no obvious reason for it to have become a lemon now. I would prefer to have it working well and if that cannot be done, then it will be handed on to someone who is prepared to work with it. To me, a gun that cannot place the projectile where it is pointed is useless... it is not a gun in any sense of the word which I can trust and understand.