Webley Longbow .177

[JonnyReb]

  After a year or so considering the purchase of one of the turkish webly's from our own Rane Douglas, he ran a Christmas special and i couldn't resist buying one of these rifles for $140.00 shipped. For another $40.00, he did a lube tune, ported the exhaust and shimmed the trigger. I received my $180.00 rifle yesterday and thought i'd do a write up on it.

  The Webley was always known as one of the U.K's iconic manufacturers, there have been some changes in the line once it moved to Turkey but i was pleased to pull a beautiful rifle out of the box, not as finely finished as a german gun, but similar to the upper end china guns, so plenty good enough. The wood appears to be some form of nicely grained walnut, although i thought it was to be beech, it's an upper end stock that only needs checkering to completely set it off. The metal is also very nicely finished, although there is so much cosmoline/rust from the blueing salts,  that i spent a good hour or more throwing away one red(rust?) rag after another, until it finally came clean and a beautiful blue job was underneath. The metalwork itself was also decent, with some machine marks visable underneath but nicely done on the topside. The one eyesore was the seagull poop welds done on the trigger group but as it's not seen and plenty strong, it should be of no issue. Overall, this gun looks like a $500 gun from 5 feet away. Only from very close inspection would any small flaws be found.


 The barrel is supposed to be a walther, although i'm assuming there are different grades.  This one has ragged and rough rifling the first couple inches of the barrel, then it smoothed out nicely and i'm thinking, ends in a choke. It felt like it anyways. I spent an hour or so polishing the barrel with JB paste, until it finally seemed smooth. Lots of gunk came out of the barrel but i'm assuming it was preservative. The muzzlebreak on this gun is pretty sweet and adds an inch or so to the short 13" barrel. I have not shot her much yet, so i'm not sure how it will group, i'll post on that as i can.

  The trigger is as creepy and spongy as any could be, i think that is just something i hope to get used to. Rane ran a chrony on the gun after the lube and said it was pushing 850fps w/ lead, which is fantastic out of such a short and handy gun. I'll be doing a good bit of testing on this gun, it has a good smooth shot cycle with not near as much vibration as i would have thought, it's a pleasant gun to shoot and i hope the trigger smooths out some after 500 or so shots. I'll post more on this gun as i get a chance to break it in.  J

[Jonesin]

Looks sweet, J. I almost pushed the button on his specials as well.

[Korak-again]

Looks sweet, J. I almost pushed the button on his specials as well.

  I pushed it and glad I did.

[JonnyReb]

 Yup i'm glad i did too, i had a chance to shoot a couple dozen rounds tonight and i'm VERY impressed at how it was throwing JSB exacts, around an inch at 20 yards with several different 5 shot groups and NOT ONE FLYER!!! .   Now this is just sitting on my back steps, shooting off my knee at a pizza box with a gun that has only been fired a few dozen times, surely it has some breaking in to do.  I'd say it can only get better from here. I'll post when i get some nice groups on paper but i do want to mention how impressed i am with the firing characteristics of this gun, it shoots very "softly" with not much recoil and definitely no twisting.  If i can just get used to the trigger i think we'll have a winner.  J

  I thought i'd show ya'll folks a picture of the other side ofthe gun, it's got a beautiful fiddleback grain i think , i've always admired a nice piece of wood. Blackiejack the cat is usually lured out of pictures with treats but i let him stand in tonight..

[Jonesin]

That grain is awesome.

[JonnyReb]

 That grain IS awesome! Thank you paul for sending it to me and thank you Jonesin for saying so.

 I spent another half hour running some lead down the tube and i want to state for the record that:

  "This is the most accurate out of the box spring or ram gun i've ever had the pleasure of shooting"

 Paul, feel free to quote me on that. The gun has zero droop and the bkl mounts are holding great. The little 4x leapers is to small to really focus in on my groups and i'm going to mount a 3x9 on her tonight. In spite of that, the gun was almost sighted in and it took only a few clicks to get on target. Once on target the jsb's were shooting with absolute precision and there are no flyers with this gun. I was just messing around, shooting at my holes from previous shots and quite a few times had 3 shot groups of 1/4" at 20 yards. I don't even have 200 shots through the gun yet but am really surprised by it's potential. It is more accurate out of the box than any rws, gamo, crosman.. even my hw 30 is pushed to do the same. And at 30 yards i've got a feeling it would leave the little HW30 with it's head hanging.
The only gripe would be that in spite of the loctite i used, the stock screws unscrew themselves at a rate of a 1/4 turn per shot. I can literally tighten them noticably after every shot. This affects accuracy of course and when they start to loosen it is quickly obvious. I wasted some shots figuring this out but will replace the 3rd world looking, roughly machined phillips head screws with some good quality stainless steel allens or hex with locwashers. Luckily the stock already has steel inserts in the stock to give good support for the screws.


 I'm going to keep shooting this gun and get it broken in good. I also need to try some different pellets to see if anything could be any better, which i doubt. What i would like to see though, is if the gun will throw most pellets just as accurate, proving that a quality choke is in place on this barrel. Although this gun does have a few quirks, they all do and for the money this one seems a steal, i'll continue to report on my experience with it.   Jeff

[renowntwo]

Mr. JonnyReb, great looking AG, has the trigger smoothing out more? Is the lube tune,port job and trigger shim worth the extra 40.00? I'm thinking of getting an other AG and I've narrowed it down to a few and this is one

[Joshua A.]

man that really seems like a good deal at that price man! I thought about buying one a few times too, but there are just so many ags that I want already, i just can't buy them all! another one that he has is that puma sharp innova ("high velocity pumper")for like 70-80 bucks. I am a big fan of the pumpers and there really aren't many companies making one anymore, and if they do, it's not a "high velocity" gun lol (excluding the benjis). Paul seems like he has some really good deals at times and I have heard all good things from people that buy from him. I'm happy for you bro! glad you recieved such a good quality rifle for a great price. it's deals like that that will always keep me wanting more and more airguns...lol

Joshua A.

[JonnyReb]

 Thanks guys,   

  In answer to your question yes, the trigger is getting better,  much better in fact after i lubed it and watch it in action so i could tell when the sear is engaging. Now i know it is really just one LONG , light pull, and an equally light engagement. I am definitely getting used to it, and if it wasn't for the long pull, i would actually say i like it.

 I do think it's worth the extra $40.00 for a buyer to have paul do a tune unless the buyer is going to pull it apart themselves. Not only did he get the brown/sand/lube mix out and some quality lube in its place, but he also opened the air port a bit, giving me over 800 unverified fps over Toms (korak-again) 675ish. Thats over a 100fps gain. Well worth $40 in my opinion. He also shims the trigger to stop any side to side play, truly a good deal i think.

  I also want to mention that i found some M6x30mm inner hex screws to replace the phillips head stock screws that were giving me trouble. I wanted to let the loctite cure so i have not shot it since i've replaced them but i hope it stops the problem with them loosening up so much. The allen head bolts surely look better too.

  Thanks for the comment Joshua and renowntwo i would highly recommend this gun so long as you are willing to put a little extra elbow grease into it, which is what i've found with all airguns except the german ones. More and more i think this is one of the best deals out there, i'll post more as i chrony her and shoot it through break in.   J

[Korak-again]

  As Jonnyreb says, this gun is a great buy. As stated the trigger is a little lighter but the pull length is very long. While my gun's stock is not as nice as Jonnyreb's but IMHO this is still one good looking gun.  So far it seems to shoot really well. I'm letting some Loctite set up as I type this.  The screws just did not want to stay put with out it.
  I'm using a 4min reddot on it. So far after some early sighting in, I'm hitting a 3ins swinging plate at 25 yards offhand without difficulty. It has been too windy here for anything more precise.

[MountainMan126]

Nice looking rifle , I really thought it was a much more expensive AG from the pics . I too am a big fan of nice looking wood grain and finish . I prefer the nice clean look without checkering on a lot of rifles . A lot of the mass production stamped checkering just not worth it .
Got a link to where you ordered this from ?
Ethan 

[Korak-again]

http://raneair.webs.com/

[JonnyReb]

  Thanks Tom for putting Raneair's site up. I should have done that in the beginning.

  I got out this afternoon and put about 100 shots through the gun. I was really just shooting to see if the forearm screws would loosen up again since replacement. The action is breaking in a bit and the barrel is breaking easier and with less vibration and noise. The chisel style detent is still tough to snap the barrel closed on though, in spite of 200-300 rounds and plenty of moly. Maybe it will break in a bit more as time goes on. The stock screws held well, requiring only about 1/4 turn apiece to be fully tight. They had moved some but very little. I really hope that issue goes away now, but looking through the webley owners manual, it says to expect the screws to loosen themselves through the break in period. Maybe this would have solved itself whether i replaced those screws or not but i'm glad i swapped them out.

[pindog2000]

i may end up getting one from paul or may get a jag instead sweet gun nice stock.

[JonnyReb]

 Alright fellas... and ladies, gather round. I was able to get out this afternoon and run another 50 or so shots down the tube, this gun has now had maybe 350 pellets through it and is DEFINITELY getting smooth. It's cocking much smoother and the trigger is getting better and better, long travel or not. The chisel detent is just a strong one and will remain so, cocking this gun isn't for sissies.
 I've also quit being worried about the force it takes to close the action, i just slap it shut and so far the new Hawke sport model 3x9x40 seems to be holding well. Sure is a clearer brighter veiw than that little 4x leapers!!  The gun is a little chunkier now though, which i regret ,  It's right at 8.5 lbs, not bad for a 39" springer i guess.

  I pulled out the chrony and finally ran some rounds over it. Now Paul told me after tuning the gun he was seeing 825-850fps with various lightweight pellets and i'm using a fairly heavy 8.44gr jsb match diablo. I was thrilled to see the first 5 shots all between 803 and 795fps! 12ftlbs any way you figure it!  Very nice job Paul Thank you!!  Now the longer i shot, the more the fps dropped, it ended up hovering right around 790 fps, with no shots dropping below 786fps. I'm very impressed that this gun makes that perfect amount of power, very little shot vibration but still a good "slap" on the steel plates at 30yds. Plenty for small game hunting too, as my next paragraph will show...

  This gun is accurate. This gun is accurate. This gun is accurate...  i could keep saying that. I put this target downrange at 25 yards from the muzzle. I rested off a regular old rest, nothing too precise, i had plenty of movement in the scope hairs believe me. If i had been locked into a vise mount i swear i think they would all go into the same hole. I could call my misses off dead center target, when i'd pull it a bit, sure enough a hole would appear where i pulled to.  This gun is uncanny accurate. These pellets are perfect for it. I DO think the jb paste helped somewhat but these are good barrels, no doubt. I first shot around the circumference using a single shot per target. Those 8 shots were all within .53"  ,  i put 10 shots in the center and as you can see i pulled several. These 10 shots were within ... well you can see, it's on the digiscale, right at an inch, 1.088" actually. You think the shots look all spread out because the picture makes the target look so big but all those shots, the cluster where the gun wants to shoot all the time, is all within 1/2" @ 25y. For any new springer to easily shoot 1/2"  or 10 shot 1" groups at 25 yards is pretty incredible to me. Sure no problem with a marauder but a springer? VERY IMPRESSIVE!!  Especially a $180.00 one. Guys, i just can't say enough good things about this gun.  J





  

[bluzjamer]

Hey JR.......I happened on Pauls site and i've been hemming and hawing about grabbing one. I just ordered two others this weekend. When I saw your stock and finish on the LB I had to order the Tomahawk. Hey ya can't take it with you, might as well enjoy it now! So many nice AG's....so little space in the safes.
bluz

[JonnyReb]

  lol bluz your on a spree     I truly hope you like yours as well as i've liked mine, remember to do a very thorough cleaning on both wood and metal to bring out the shine, and let us know what you think of it.  J

[JonnyReb]

  Ok, just wanted to check in and let everyone know that as this beautiful rifle approaches being completely broken in it is getting better and better. I spent a portion of the afternoon trying to really zero in a gamo, and after getting frustrated with some flyers i couldn't contain, i decided to grab something i knew could shoot, just to make sure it wasn't me. I reached for the Mrod as it is a very reassuring gun but decided to go apples to apples with another springer. As the Longbow is the most accurate springer i have or have ever had, i grabbed it.

  Last week i spent a few hours at a local tuners, Rob Hawkins and brought along the Webley just to show him as he had not seen the turkish variety. Now i won't call Rob an airgun snob( ) because i like him to much but i have the feeling that most inexpensive guns are not that interesting to him. In spite of the fact that this longbow IS an inexpensive gun, i think he was most impressed, remarking happily when he punched some holes through a leaf 30 yards out and also mentioning with a little awe in his voice(ok, maybe not awe..) that the little gun had more punch than an R9. He also said it would not take to much work to lighten the chisel detent, making breaking/closing easier. He had nothing to say about the trigger, which is what it is. Anyways..

  I put 10 shots in this pistol target at 25 yards using a small rest. I couldn't tell exactly where everything was landing till i was done but when i walked up to the target, i was happy to see the same excellent accuracy i keep getting out of this gun. 10 shots in 1/2" at 25 yards, i just can't recommend this gun enough.  J

[renowntwo]

thanks for the update

[Ed Ennis]

JohnnyReb, I have one on order.  I have a couple questions for you if you don't mind sharing.  What type of cleaner/lube did you use on the outside metal?  What type of cleaner/polish did you use on the stock?  And finally what did you use to clean the inside of the barrel - cleaning rod with soft brush, patches..?  Thank you JohnnyReb for a great post!!