The HW 30S I am testing seems to be a new version.
This report covers:
- Setup
- The tune
- Takes a mainspring compressor
- After the lube
- Time to settle down
- Worth it?
- Summary
Today I’m going to lubricate the powerplant of the HW 30S to remove the slight vibration it has when it fires. And I’m going to do it in a special way that should please several of you.
Setup
Before the lube tune I tested the velocity of the rifle once more. Several readers felt it wasn’t up to par in the first velocity test that was done in Part 2. Well, since then the rifle has been fired 40-50 more times, so it should be a little more broken in today. I noted that at the end of the test in Part 2 it was already speeding up.
I decided to test with only a single pellet, as all I’m interested in is a baseline that I can test against after the lube tune. So I shot ten Air Arms Falcon pellets. In Part 2 they averaged 601 f.p.s. with a velocity spread of 20 f.p.s.
Today another ten Falcon domes averaged 645 f.p.s. with a spread that went from 610 to 662 f.p.s. — a difference of 52 f.p.s. It is now 44 f.p.s. faster than in the previous test. Yes, I would say this 30S is breaking in.
The tune
After what happened with Michael’s rifle when I lubed it with Almagard 3752 grease from my grease gun with the needle probe, I was curious if that approach could be made to work well. His rifle slowed down a lot. So I vowed to try it again with this rifle.
The HW 30S comes apart more like an R9 than like other HW rifles. The end cap that many call the end block is not threaded. It is a separate inner block for holding the Rekord trigger that fits inside the spring tube. This can throw off people who are used to Weihrauch rifles with threaded end caps. I don’t need to remove it today for what I’m going to do, but I suspect you will want to see a full disassembly. So after the rest of the testing that’s to come I will return and take the rifle completely apart for you.
That screw (arrow) holds the inner base block in the spring tube. Be sure to use a mainspring compressor if you plan to remove that screw.
You can see the inner base block that holds the trigger.
Takes a mainspring compressor
If you do plan a complete disassembly you need a mainspring compressor, because the mainspring is under preload. I will show you that when I take it completely apart. I have read several reports where people took their rifles apart while pressing down on the spring tube and afterward they highly advised against it!
All I needed to do for today’s test was remove the barreled action from the stock. That was easy. Just three screws and out it came. Then the mainspring was exposed through the cocking slot and I could see that it was lubricated with a light grease from the factory.
We can see the mainspring through the cocking slot and it is greased.
The cocking slot is all the access that’s needed to lube the spring with Tune in a Tube, which is the same as the Almagard 3752 grease I am using. But when I lubed Michael’s rifle this way last week I used too much grease and the rifle slowed by 150 f.p.s. Without giving away what I did to Michael’s rifle afterward, I knew I had to use much less grease on this HW 30S. So I lubed it very lightly. You could do the same with the Tune in a Tube applicator.
After the lube
Then the barreled action went back into the stock and I was ready to test the rifle again. This time I fired three shots first to start spreading the grease around. The light lube I did took the rifle right up to to the cusp of vibration — cancelling it with no sluggishness in the action. It was time to test the velocity again.
Time to settle down
I fired ten Falcons and noted that the rifle needed to settle down as the grease moved around to all the parts. I got an average velocity of 647 f.p.s. that was 2 f.p.s. faster than the baseline test before the lubrication. The stability was off though. This time the velocity across the 10 shots varied by 47 f.p.s.
So I shot a second string of ten Falcon domes that averaged 652 f.p.s. That is a gain of 51 f.p.s. over the test done in Part 2 and a 7 f.p.s. gain over today’s pre-lube baseline test. The spread for this string went from a low of 631 to a high of 657 f.p.s., which is a difference of 26 f.p.s. The rifle is still settling down after the lubrication but no velocity has been lost. In fact if anything there has been a slight gain after the lubrication. It’s probably all due to break-in. And the velocity variation has been cut in half (52 f.p.s. in today’s baseline test before the lubrication to 26 f.p.s. now).
Worth it?
Is it worth it to lube a buzzy rifle with Tune in a Tube? I think it is. Just go very sparingly, because you can always add more but taking some away requires powerplant disassembly. Of course we still want to see what has happened with Michael’s Walther LGV that I have retuned, and that report will be coming soon.
Summary
The HW 30S is now ready for more accuracy testing. The trigger is adjusted fine and now all the buzz is gone. And the rifle’s power is right where it’s supposed to be. The next test will be with a scope and after that I will test it with a peep sight. Then I will disassemble it farther for you. There is a lot more to come!
B.B.,
So in this case you were not too enthusiastic with the application. How small of a bead of TIAT did you apply this time compared to Michael’s rifle? Half?
Good to know that it was the over application that was throttling the speed. Did you have to tear down the rifle to remove it or did you flush the inside with Naptha or some other mineral spirit?
Siraniko
Siraniko,
No, no no! Friday. 😉
BB
BB-
So, as in many things in life, a lube tune for our air rifles sends us scurrying for the Goldilocks solution. I fear I would have difficulty arriving at a just right equilibrium. Have been a strict adherent of More’s Law far too many times in the past- ‘If More is good, then too much is just right.’ Ah well, that is why I and others arrive here, to learn at the feet of the master……
Obi-Wan-BB!
Paco,
I used More’s Law on my Webley/Hatsan Tomahawk. I have no idea how much velocity I lost as I did not have a chrony then, but it quieted down that compression tube full of angry hornets. Now all I have is a solid THUK! One of my next projects is to turn that into a thuk. I am going to try to slowly calm that power down some and hopefully increase accuracy.
Pacoinohio
Me too on More’s law. But BB warned us sufficiently early on about applying too much TIAT. A tube lasts long enough to do several steel spring guns. I ordered a second TIAT but I’m still on the first. New readers be aware it is for steel springers not air/gas springers. Unless you’re an airgun smith or do tests like BB I don’t see the need for bigger applicators. Now long nozzles for reaching spring coils may be handy for a few steel springers that have finicky stocks. I use TIAT on the tip of a long thin screwdriver on my Hatsun 95 converted from air spring to steel spring. The forward stock screw told me to leave it alone so I apply TIAT without removing the stock.
TIAT can be applied in layers, a little at a time, until the sound and feel is where you want it. It lasts but I don’t know how long. It may last longer than me.
Deck
Deck, I have a Hatsan 125 with gas ram that I would like to convert to spring. May I ask where did you get the parts?
Henry
Henry
HatsunUSA in Arkansas did the conversion for under a $100. The air spring had died after 4 years and they said they would replace with a new one or convert to steel spring (same price). My barrel was accurate so it was worth it to me to get the rifle to work. I prefer steel springs as they can be easily tuned with TIAT. You can go to their website and click on “contact us”. Next click on “customer repair form”. Or you can call them at 1-877-278-4448.
This was before the pandemic. Hope you get satisfaction.
Deck
Thanks Deck, I am involved in other projects at this time, but I will keep your notes until I get to it. From the factory, it was more powerful and violent than what I enjoy in an airgun, so a spring that could be de-tuned if needed is more applicable. Besides, I haven’t seen steel springs die after four years of light use.
Thanks again!
Henry
I don’t know if the Hatsun 125 has a steel spring version like the Hatsun 95. It won’t hurt to ask.
Deck
BB,
Now I am going to have to make me one of those grease gun nozzles. I have a bunch of ladies who would like a little TIAT with their tea. 😉
I recommend the Plews 05-037 Grease Injection Needle
RR,
I just looked and the needle I’m using is from Innovant.
BB
The Plews branded one got my recommendation because that is the last one I purchased after my ‘grease fittings, specialty tips and such’ tool box grew legs and walked out of the shop. Evidently hitched a ride over to the home farm. I swear ‘I’ didn’t take it there.
BB,
please stop it with the HW 30 reports. Otherwise I can’t promise I can resist the temptation to buy one of those things 🙂
Some of you were curious about my “backlit” targets. Ok, you asked for it… Prepare to see the ugliest 10 meter shooting range in the world. I could probably build a nicer one, but it does the job
(The hits are easier to see in real life than they are on my camera).
Kind regards,
stephan
Stephan,
I see how this works. Thanks for the pic. But I still don’t know how I would react to seeing it. Probably just like you. 🙂
BB
The comments, tips, examples and suggestions from contributors FM finds very enlightening!
BB,
If plastic spring guides are the new norm (you mentioned in a previous comment), the TIAT may in fact have to be used sparingly. On the other hand,.. a cheaper rifle with less/no guides,.. may benefit from a heavier application. Just speculation on my part.
Chris
Chris,
I appreciate your message. No doubt you are correct. I will have a little more to say about this tomorrow when we look at Michael’s LGV again.
BB
BB,
Ok. Not like I am in the loop or anything,.. but I was not aware that plastic guides were being used at all in newer rifles. (If) it is something relatively new,.. then it would seem that they have ripped a page out of the Vortek spring kit book and doing their own versions.
Chris
B.B.,
This report series is turning out very well; but what I’m really curious to see, when it’s all said and done is this: “How much do you love your HW30S?” (as in, I’ll be shocked if you let this rifle, this little gem, leave your stable…’cause I’ve got high hopes for her accuracy!). =>
Take care & God bless,
dave
B.B.
Is TIAT compatible with Krytox?
Please do a long, maybe 50 yards or so, accuracy test of the HW 30. I would like to know what the maximum plinking range is.
Thanks,
Yogi
Yogi,
What do you mean by compatible with?
A 50-yard test! I hadn’t thought to do one with this rifle, but we’ll see.
BB,
I once did a 50 yard test on mine, with peep sights no less. I printed a scaled up bull to use that would appear just like a 10M bull does in the sight at 10M, and allowed the pellets drop where they would naturally land (no sight change, so about 5″ low). I did it on a VERY calm day and was amazed that the results (if I recall correctly) were well under 2 inches for ten shots, with many clustered inside about an inch. Not bad for JSB RS pellets launched at about 680 fps. It was surreal in a sense, as at 10 M you really don’t hear the pellet impact much over the gun sounds by your ear, but here there was over a half a second for the impact sound to come back. Not something I’ve done since, as the impact of any wind would be horrendous, but I was interested in how it would do.
BB,
Enjoying this series! Like these sort of details 🙂
All my guns (and other equipment) gets a through going over before use – been doing that forever. Amazing how often I find hardware that is loose, things that need to be fitted and parts lacking properly lubrication. Case in point, I just got a new drillpress that needed quite a bit of attention, it’s always good to do a “walk around”.
As a (teenage) gunsmith I would prep a new pellet gun by flushing out the factory grease and apply a light coat of regular petroleum grease for the (minimum) 500 pellet break-in. I found that it took a couple of hundred shots to let parts lap themselves in and have the power plant stabilize.
After the break-in period I (completely) disassemble and clean the rifle then inspect, deburr, shim (if needed), relub and upgrade hardware while reassembling.
Always found that spending a bit of time and effort on a new airgun was well worth it. Though I do admit to being a compulsive tinkerer 🙂
Hank
Off topic: This is from Pyramyd AIR. Obviously a typo
Ton
I seen that. I think it’s a mis print too.
I think it should be FPE not FPS.
Yep. It says at the bottom of that email that PA is not responsible for typographical errors lol!
Ton
Of course it would say that. 🙂
BB,
Still no galling? If this one does not gall, then I’m buying one.
Fish.
Fish,
I won’t know about galling until I take it apart.
BB
BB and pals,
I had a tinker with my FEG yesterday to reduce the trigger weight. The trigger is interesting as it is a two part affair with some interesting angles. Soooooo, I took out the mainspring preload ( lightens the trigger ), cleaned off the mess of grease between the piston and the main spring tube ( what was I thinking ) and reassembled. Then took to the sear engagement screw and experimented. I decided to load the rifle, pointing it at pellet stop, adjusted the sear engagment screw until the rifle went off, then backed it off 1/2 a turn. Next step was to do that again but feel the trigger as it goes off. The sweet spot was about 1/4 turn less than the “it went off” point. One point to bear in mind: If the trigger sear engagement is too short it can slip off and fire. What is worse is it can do this after you have charged it. You lever the barrel, insert the pellet, and while you are presenting the rifle to the target it fires. BAD ! Dangerous etc. How do I know this? I shot the floor. I guess you could call this “runaway trigger creep”. It’s very bad. So to avoid this I need to have positive engagement between the sear and the piston hold back wedge thing stamped into the piston ( which by the way is a very nice chromium steel alloy). Phew.
How does it feel now? Much better. The main spring is not pushing so hard on the sear, and the engagement is shorter. The pellets are flying slower ( I have no idea by how much ). Overall it is much easier to get smaller groups ( though at times they vary where they want to be… ). It is much nicer to shoot now. I think the too much grease between piston and main spring tube was slowing the piston down. Gulp. …so couple that with the removal of the preload and it sort of balances out.
In the diagram below which I borrowed from here :
https://www.gunspares.co.uk/categories/23960/Airgun+spares
You can see the main parts which I looked at: the piston red, trigger and sear orange, sear engagment screw blue. main spring tube is green. If you look at the sear and the piston you can imagine why the sear can “runaway trigger creep”, and I think that polishing the mating surfaces actually makes this worse, as the rough surface would hang up and prevent creep ( making the trigger heavy as well ) .
So learned a lesson about this type of trigger and trigger creep.
Last thing: When I decided I liked the trigger pull I did a drop test to see if it would fire and it passed. Still, I would not trust it 100% and you never can really. Nothing is 100% certain. Unless it is… PS. I took the inner spring out. and used the thicker wire spring from my spring collection. and used H&N FTT with a dose of ramming to get them to work. They seem to shoot ok. Robert.
RobertA,
Did you remove all the preload or leave some in the spring? Seems like you can afford to increase the power a little (with washers maybe?) to increase the tension on the sear. That way you can get your cake and eat it. A little more power and a safer (more reliable) trigger.
Siraniko
Siraniko,
More spring/shims may get a heavier sear/trigger,… but it is no guarantee of more fps. I am reminded of GF1 who cut a TX200 spring to zero preload and lost no fps. As I had one apart, there was about 1″ – 1 1/2″ of preload.
Only a guess, but I would bet that 90% of springers are over-sprung.
Chris
Siraniko,
All preload removed ( tipped out washers ). The trigger has always been heavy when it has full sear engagement ( screw backed right out ). For my 5m indoor range using the H&N wadcutters the spring is adequate. What is weird though is the H&N FTT actually fire above the POI of the wadcutters. ??? I am thinking that there is something going on here. The wadcutters seat and fire with no ramming, the FTT need ramming. So the rifle is blowing the Wadcutters out at low pressure but the FTT’s are getting full pressure as they resist being blown out. The fit of the pellet in the bore is one part of the equation. and the FTT is a heavier pellet too.
Imagine this: The spring piston compresses the air in the pressure tube. ( this all happens very quickly by the way ) when the pressure is at maximum a gate opens and transfers the highly compressed air to the bore. There are several ways one could do this, if you were so minded you could do it electrically with electric air valves and a controller. A piezo pressure detector could log the pressure changes during the stroke, so you could actually dial in the valve opening looking a the log history . OR you could go fully mechanical: a connector rod trips the valve. You can adjust the rod timing. All of this has been looked at with various machine over the centuries that require timing so it’s no biggie. ask a sewing machine…
The real question is: are we wasting our time with non valved spring guns? A HPA/CO2 PCP/Pump up rifle all use this stored gas pressure with a valve.
A hybrid spring gun with a valve…. just seems like a better way to use all that high pressure gas. I mean what is the pressure in a spring gun if you were to block the transfer port? I should imagine it’s pretty high. Heck… there is quite a lot of strange idea percolating in my brian. It’s all hydrodynamics which may not act as rationally as one might expect….. a heavier pellet that flies faster? ; – ) Robert.
RobertA,
We are dealing with a spring piston power plant. There is a fixed volume of air that will be moved by the combined power of the weight of the piston and the force of the spring. So the Force? of a pellet is determined by how resistant the property is from moving in the barrel from the breech and the amount of pressure that builds up behind it. The additional preload will give some additional velocity but with a steep diminishing return. Gas springs have the possibility of high velocity with minimal pressure due to lower resistance (less parts moving) I believe. Unfortunately most manufacturers are still applying Steel spring ideas to gas springs (which is why they are over pressured). You are going to add pre load to increase the pressure of sear engagement primarily. Any increase in velocity is secondary.
Siraniko
Siraniko,
I think that there is untapped energy in the spring piston system which is not being used. In fact you could do the mathematics. How much kinetic energy does a spring powered piston generate, and how much kinetic energy does a pellet generate. The difference is the lost energy. Where is it? I suspect it’s compressed air that is not actually being used. And this is a crying shame. If I had a proper machine shop and laboratory it would be very interesting to do some experiments. Essentially holding the pellet until the air pressure is at it’s maximum then letting it go. Which is what all valved systems do. The higher the pressure the faster the pellet moves until there is some hydrodynamic issue and it never goes much faster. It’s all very interesting. Poppet valves etc. That is what the valves are… of course. It all makes sense now. What expands faster: burning chemicals or expanding compressed air? I need to hold my wagging tongue. : – ) Robert.
BB,
I wanted to ask this after you lube tuned Michael’s gun the other day, but I forgot, so I’ll ask here. Did you remove the old grease from either gun before applying the new grease? In industry, it is generally advised not to mix lubricants because of compatibility issues, but I tend to think that those issues don’t really come into play in this airgun application. But I would still like to know what you chose to do, because if you left the factory grease on Micheal’s spring, that might account for the extreme lose of velocity either because of the combined volume of the two greases or because I’m wrong about greases reacting adversely when combined.
Man, do I ever hate proof reading my posts in this new box!!!
Half
Halfstep,
When you mean proof reading in the new box do you mean: because you can’t make the box bigger, so you can see your whole post? If so I totally agree! Robert.
RobetA,
Exactonundo !!!
Half
It would be nice if Pyramyd AIR sold HW30s air rifles… why don’t they, and who does ?