HW95 / 98 MK1 barrel Myth or Fact?

[Mach 1.5]

I've heard a few times that the MK1 95 / 98 barrels are the best HW did. I know a few shooters who use 95 barrels on HW80's as they have a goodun. Surely HW just run off 16mm barrels for 95, 98, 80 etc and not hand pick them for 95 & 98 back then. A good friend and tuner also told me this but I thought if was April 1st and his great sence of humour? Mach 1.5

[PCPShooter]

I definitely had a dodgy 22 early star nut barrel

I reckon that there was a golden era of quality where modern cnc met old fashioned 'make it the best we can' values

I have new star nut barrels and older barrels that are spot on, and had some older barrels are are not as 'pin point' as HW CAN be. I have an 85 (bought action only off here, with a 95 piston in it from someone who should have known better) where it took ages to find a matched 85 barrel. That barrel which needed a re blue, and was shimmed in V Mach era, is very pellet fussy for an HW. Thankfully it's like a laser with .......Superfield. As well as was there a golden age, how many folk really (really really) put in pellet testing legwork ? Most barrels will be excellent with something.

IMO the best HW barrels love FTT, Shoot all the JSB derivatives, and will also shoot RWS great.

So, no I think that pinning it down to 'MK 1 95's were as good a sit got' is too general / not true

The 16 inch barrel MK1 95's, which at that time came with well finished internals, springs too, had the barrel weight as we all know. 'Pre internet' - no one I knew had a problem with them being tricky to shoot. I had a MK1 95 at that time, it was great. I wish I'd kept it !

[prosport.177]

I think usually when a company launches a new product line they would use the best quality in all the components,
I mean why on launching a new line would they want it to fail.

I have always suspected the mk1s on any production gun has the best .. usually on the second and third and nxt generation guns the quality slips, could slip..

I am guessing the early 95s had good quality barrel blanks..

I know I have had this conversation time and time again at the boinger bashes

[tinbum]

I have a 16" .22 HW95 with muzzle weight. It's properly good gun, and very accurate with FTT and AA fields.
To be fair I haven't done direct comparison testing with newer guns, but the time could be right.


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[prosport.177]

Nice looking rifle Nick, 0)

[TonyL]

Yep; 'tis a beaut.

[premierpistol]

I am completely in the camp of the earlier the better, maybe not so much of a 95 barrel from one era is better than a 80 barrel from the same era. if that makes sense?
my logic behind this is the ealier barrels (none star nut type) would shoot well with most ammo and offer good grouping.
my old one, now owned by Rapidresponse1, would quickly condidtion to most brands and head sizes fed to it.
a newer version of the same rifle I had from around 2010/2012, would be as fussy as hell, only favouring 5.53 H&N FTT and requiring regular cleaning to get the best from it.
out of sheer curiosity, I once swapped over the barrels to see if it was the state of tune. Both barrels were just the same performance in regards to accuracy as before, on the other actions. I swapped them back and ended up making a .20 barrel fit for the newer rifle before swapping it for some tooling.

I also had the mispleasure of trying to tune a mates .177 95k and that was the same, would not group well at all. in the endm we tried to shorten it to remove the choke and it completely transformed the gun. It ruined it indefinately

Strangely, the 99S barrels with the starnut were all okay?

I put it down to a cheapening of the barrel manufacturing and maybe a bad batch, could be something like the barrel fit into the block was crimping the rifling? poor or too tight crowning or similar but one thing I have noticed is that all of the barrels in the 95 and 80 that pre dated the star nut, all shot well.

I have not owned a really fresh one so cant comment on really recent examples.

[PCPShooter]

My early 77k is one of my more pellet fussy HW's ........again right pellet in - laser

[evert]

Just a single observation, but the barrel on my 1988/89 HW85 does not seem to have any tight spots at the breech.
A a surprising number of my more recent HW breakbarrels have tight areas in the breech.

I guess slugging a large variety of HW barrels may give you some clue?