I'm so burned out on springers

[45flint]

I’m a vintage collector and to understand why the love for springers, it helps to go back in time to the 1950’s.  Try a Webley Mark 3, Diana 50, BSA Mark 1 or 2.  These were made by craftsmen of another age, when power wasn’t even thought about.  They are wonderful works of machining art.  The last 20 years has ruined Springers by the endless pursuit of power, in the hands of CNC manufacturers.  Your left at Walmart with cheap uncontrollable rifles.  The PCP fits this environment cause there is less need for a finely machined powerplant and higher power fits the modern mentality. More power has to be good?

Give me grace and 6-10 FPE.

Ahhh this makes sense. All the springers I’ve tried are modern POS! Thanks for leading me down the right path. Beautiful rifles btw;)

"All the springers I’ve tried are modern POS!"
Hummmm.....I've been buying HW springers for a few decades starting with a HW50 (no safety at all) which was sold to help finance a new leather sealed HW35. I then bought a Beeman R10 and then several Beeman R9s over the years.

More recently (perhaps a decade ago) I bought a new .177 Beeman R9 and found it to have several redesigns including a bolt on bracket that included the front stock mounting threads and the fixed barrel latching detent instead of the un-removable the fixed detent of the older R9s, a different method of securing the barrel to the barrel pivot block, a cocking shoe that was supported on the cocking shoe slot instead of the piston liner and a redesigned piston seal that didn't use a thin edged parachute seal. Actually, function, fit and finish was better than any of the older R9s I bought in the past. Then I bought a new HW95 a few years ago and found the same design improvements as the R9, however the fit of the parts was even better. My personal opinion of the newer Beeman R9 and HW95 is that they perform better than they did in the "good old days". If I were buying another HW springer I would opt for a new HW95 rather than an "old design" used HW95!

Here are a few examples of old HW95 construction vs new HW95 construction (the R9 is simply a rebadged HW95 with different "furniture").
Old design..........
Piston seal progression


Old piston seal with factory installation damage........


Here is a new HW95 piston after shooting a box of CPLs. I do prefer oring sealed piston caps I make but I did test out the new HW piston seal design for comparison. I do have to say however that the newer design thick parachute edge is more critical of fit to the receiver than the old thin parachute edge design. When installing a couple new HW95 factory seals from my parts bin it was discovered that the molded seals can vary enough in diameter to create "seal to receiver fit issues" where one new seal can be rather loose fitting but a different new seal from my parts bin would fit the same receiver perfectly......


Older vs newer methods of supporting the cocking shoe..........
Cocking shoe supported by the piston liner and what can happen with "ham fisted" cocking of a HW break barrel..........


Newer design cocking shoe supported by the edges of the receiver cocking shoe slot...........


The old and new barrel latching arrangement.........
Old design.........
In years past I've had the rather thin "stock mounting welded on tab" threads strip out with use which needed repair. LOL....part of my HW home repair work was fixing stripped holes for owners.........   


Newer HW95 barrel latching design..........
I've never had the deeper threads of one of these sintered metal brackets strip out, if they did the solution would be to replace a bracket rather than a whole receiver tube. Years ago Beeman replaced the receiver tube of my brother's R9 because the fixed detent wore very rapidly due to a sharp burr on the spring loaded detent which "machined away" a bit of metal with each unlatching and relatching of the barrel when shooting.......


Older method of securing the barrel to the barrel pivot block..........


Newer method of securing the barrel to the barrel pivot block with a lock nut rather than a dowel pin (well, I can't SEE a dowel pin in the new design, could be wrong here )..........


Here are my two HW springers, a .177 Beeman R9 and a .177 HW95, both are superior to the old design R9s of the past..........

I think my post was taken a little too literally in that my main point was that these older Springers were designed with little concern about power and thus were much easier and fun to shoot.  But to your point you really didn’t go back far enough. I don’t think of any R-9 as “vintage”?  My “vintage” guns have leather seals which still work perfectly after 60 years.  It’s absurd to say vast improments haven’t been made to spring Airguns. But I’m not sure most people reading this have ever had a 1950’s Webley Mark 3 in their hands, I didn’t tell last month.  Just the hand fitted tap loader precision will tell you something is a bit different here.  Similar to holding a older blued Colt Python vs. a new stainless Smith and Wesson.

[nced]

"I’m a vintage collector and to understand why the love for springers, it helps to go back in time to the 1950’s"
and
"The last 20 years has ruined Springers by the endless pursuit of power, in the hands of CNC manufacturers"
Hummmm....I'd rather DRIVE my modern Honda Civic than owning a "hand made Ford Model T" that's only driven at parades!
Different strokes for different folks for sure!

Decades ago I owned a leather sealed HW35 that (for me) was too heavy and the cocking effort was too hard for the piddly 8fpe output. It was replaced with a Beeman R10 that weighed less, had similar cocking effort but shot .177 cal pellets 100 fps faster. The fact that the R10 was also more accurate at distance due to a flatter trajectory was appreciated.

As far as "endless pursuit of power"........It's all a matter of "form follows function"! 6-10fpe vintage springers wouldn't be very effective if used for shooting a field target course (or even squirrel hunting where "flatness of the trajectory" can come into play), however I'm guessing that they're perfect for shooting paper targets in the parlor (of if all shots are rather close).

In general, I do agree that the "fps race" has been detrimental to springer development to the point that "springers of dubious quality"
are advertised to shoot "1000 fps", as if that's all that matters!

[UlteriorModem]

How about a .22 that advertises "up to" 1,100 fps but in reality is delivering around 800?

I suppose that if I put a 10 grain pellet in there it might approach 1,000fps on a good day.

[Wolverineshooter]

i once challenged crosman on that and the response is that everyone does it, so...
I told them at least Hatsan does not do it and he would not believe me

[Hoosier Daddy]

Ah Ah Ahhhh... Tisk tisk.
Hatsan advertised with "real pellets" but when I got my model 95 I paid extra for the 10 for 10 test and it came in 20% under... Even with lighter pellets PA used!
Hatsan said "that's acceptable." 

[Wolverineshooter]

Ahh, I guess crosman knows better than me then

[Hoosier Daddy]

Not flaming you Greg!
My point is,  I too dislike the "Unobtainable" FPS claims airgun manufactures advertise.
But especially when they claim theirs is "real world" and everyone else is inflated... until the truth is known and you call them out on it for assistance.

[nced]

Not flaming you Greg!
My point is,  I too dislike the "Unobtainable" FPS claims airgun manufactures advertise.
But especially when they claim theirs is "real world" and everyone else is inflated... until the truth is known and you call them out on it for assistance.

The "claimed fps" is an interesting issue that must be included to sell the gun to new shooters  (or so it seems) . For example, here are the .177 HW95 specs listed by one vendor..............
"Velocity Up to 950 fps"

LOL....I never believed the "950 fps" to begin with when using 7.9 grain boxed Crosman Premiers, but at least the vendor info added the "fuzzy words Up to"for a lot of wiggle room if the actual velocity was questioned.

The last .177 HW95 I bought shot 7.9 grain boxed Crosman Premier domes at 880fps straight from the box in "factory twang mode". Funny thing is that I don't want/need that high of velocity so the gun was broken down and detuned to shoot the 7.9s at 860fps which I feel is just about a perfect velocity for a 7 1/2 pound springer (LOL, before adding about two pounds of scope and mounts). This is a far cry from when I resided in West Virginia using a .177 R9 with a Bushnell multi-x reticled scope. At that time my .177 R9s were tuned to shoot 7.9 grain CPLs at 910ish fps simply so the reticle matched my pellet trajectory when zero'd at 30 yards and using "hold over aiming" for longer and intermediate distances. I still use holdover aiming however the "dotted reticle" I currently use allows me to use a more "shooter friendly less hold sensitive" tune level of about 13ish fpe.

LOL......just for fun I went to Amazon and did a search for "1000fps air rifles" and this was the result...........
https://www.amazon.com/s/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_keywords_6?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A3395161%2Ck%3A1000+Fps+Air+Rifle%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_three_browse-bin%3A7801840011&keywords=1000+Fps+Air+Rifle&ie=UTF8&qid=1537412903&rnid=7801833011
LOL....there was even a $44.84 Crosman PUMPER that had the velocity listed as "Velocity:  up to 1000 FPS (alloy pellets)/up to 800 FPS BBs".

[Wolverineshooter]

Not flaming you Greg!
My point is,  I too dislike the "Unobtainable" FPS claims airgun manufactures advertise.
But especially when they claim theirs is "real world" and everyone else is inflated... until the truth is known and you call them out on it for assistance.

Scott, no problem. I do mean Crosman may know better than me, unfortunately. I was under impression that Hatsan is honest based on what people say in the forum. I had the AT44 that works fine as advertised. But I guess Hatsan has to compete with those inflated numbers...

[Bryan Heimann]

Hatsan got a good start on honest velocity claims.  The guns were/are built to achieve them for the most part, which is why their springers are typically oversprung boat anchors with huge compression tubes.  I guess with some models, they must have inflated the listed numbers to remain competitive with gamo, crosman, etc.

[UlteriorModem]

I guess it is similar to telescope manufacturers putting beautiful color images on their boxes, where there is no way you will see that sort of detail through the scope.

To sell the product.

[Steelontarget]

[bandg]

 

[Sfttailrdr46]

When I got back into AG's five years ago I was shooting a Daisy Steel breech 880 that was gifted to my by a senior citizen that had an emergency no heat call at 2am back in 2005. It sat in my basement untouched for a couple years then one rainy Sunday I set up a target in my basement and the rest is history. My point is that many of us start out knowing nothing about this sport other than we all seem to enjoy shooting . Most of us can put what we know about AG's at the beginning of this journey that we share on the back or a postage stamp.

Then we find the GTA and the true journey begins. 

[JungleShooter]

When I got back into AG's five years ago [...]
Then we find the GTA and the true journey begins. 

Wow, Don, do I understand you right -- you found GTA 5 years ago?
If that is so, you have had quite a journey...!
With 12,952 post to date (and counting) –– that's just about 7 posts every single day for the 1,825 days of those 5 years....!

Congrats to your dedication. 

[Sfttailrdr46]

I guess you could say I just love my AG's and the forum allows me to share and learn at the same time

[Lone Star]

Thanks for sharing, I've learned quite a bit from you already.

[mac]

Thanks for sharing, I've learned quite a bit from you already.

+1

[avator]

When I got back into AG's five years ago [...]
Then we find the GTA and the true journey begins. 

Wow, Don, do I understand you right -- you found GTA 5 years ago?
If that is so, you have had quite a journey...!
With 12,952 post to date (and counting) –– that's just about 7 posts every single day for the 1,825 days of those 5 years....!

Congrats to your dedication. 

Let me just say this about that.....
When I got here somewhere around 5 years ago Don was already here. We soon found out we had more in common than just airguns. We made a trade for (I think) a 392 for a Panther 34. Don surprised us when he gifted that same m/m 880 in the box with the P34. Betty Lou snagged it up instantly and she's been kicking my butt with it in competition ever since. I'm not sure if there is magic in that 880 or if it's a curse but one thing is for sure, it's been a heck of a ride.

[Hoosier Daddy]

I got the nicest airgun I own from Don...
One HECK of an enabler Mod!!!