Beeman Webley Vulcan

[Artie]

I found a Beeman Webley Vulcan .177 in a local pawn shop. I'm calling the gun 70-75% as far as stock and bluing, no rust but the bluing is worn and the stock has a few pressure dents. No where on the gun do I see a Birmingham manufacture stamp.Could it be under the stock?
I did my due diligence for research here in the forum but have a few questions since I'm fairly uninformed about the gun. Is it a UK manufactured gun or not? What would be the relative value at 70%. I didn't fully cock the barrel but did cock it enough to feel what I consider a fairly mild resistence, somewhere between an R7 and Slavia 634. Looks to be a direct sear trigger, has iron sights and dovetail action. Though I havn't tossed an offer on the table, I'm guessing the gun will walk out the door at $90 give or take.
I wasn't that interested in the gun so didn't take notes but do recall the gun had either a Santa Rosa or Rafael address. Only later, after leaving the store, did I seriously consider acquiring it.
Any help or advise is welcomed, Artie

[joek]

I picked up a near pristine Vulcan mkIII for $129 on a auction, so $90 my be a little high imho. it is not a direct sear trigger but it is simple. Chambers UK has parts schematics for old air guns.
https://www.gunspares.co.uk/categories/23960/Airgun-spares/

[Artie]

As it turned out I picked up the Vulcan for $65 out the door. It's a 47 Paul Drive, San Rafael gun. I under estimated the condition, what I thought was rust was actually grime, cleaned up nicely with CLP and quad zero wool. Still retains 90% or more of the bluing. Stock is actually fairly clean, more like 80%, a refinish would put the gun @93-95%. Trigger needs some tlc, any suggestions?
Overall, I'd say worthy purchase. No chrono test yet but it does test fire okay, decent pellet flight.
This gun has lots of lands and grooves, no rust but plenty of build up in the grooves and will require a few brush strokes from the breech, pulling patches comes up short. Currently soaking the bore with solvent.

[joek]

Looks like you got a great deal for $65 you can lightly polish the sear contact points by hand and iirc there's a trigger pull weight adjustment screw on top of the end cap.

[Artie]

Thanks Joe, what I've gleaned from the internet, the pistol cap and the white spacer under the cap and also behind butt pad would make this a MKII model.
Apparently these are 12 fpe +/-  guns which would please me.
I'm looking forward to trying it out when I get some more time available.

[joek]

Hmmm maybe I have a mkII, same animal as yours, when I researched there was kind of a fuzzy line between mkII and mkIII lol

[abqjoe]

I picked up this one for $100 and I love it!

[joek]

I picked up this one for $100 and I love it!

Is this the Hawk mkIII you posted about?

[Artie]

Late MKII vs early MKIII is likely toe-may-toe vs toe-mau-toe. In other words, little to none is the difference from what I can tell searching online. The late mkiii apparently had a curved trigger blade with stamped trigger componets vs machined parts and straighter, slightly curved blade. I guess it really comes down to serial numbers and how much someone cares about pedigree. One thing for sure, ain't much chance of picking up another one from the local Walmart anytime soon.

[DanD]

You guys are killin me. I paid like $150 each for my .177 and .22 Vulcan Mk 1s. And they're not really pristine.
My .177 came with a sacked spring. IIRC, I had it running up around 11 ft-lbs, but I like it much better at 9 or 10. My .22 still has the stock powerplant and shoots at 12+ fpe. I gave it the ol lube, sleeve, and tar, and it has a really nice shot cycle.
They really benefit from trigger polishing, but the sear and spring is a little tricky to assemble.
Have fun!

[Artie]

"They really benefit from trigger polishing, but the sear and spring is a little tricky to assemble."
That's what I figured and hate the prospect cause I love a good trigger, really, really dislike a not good trigger. Makes me that much more conscious of my sorry marksmanship.
I'll study up on it a bit, try a couple of safe stabs at improvement, add a drop or two of "hope" lube and see what happens. Hope... as in "I hope this works".

[abqjoe]

I picked up this one for $100 and I love it!

Is this the Hawk mkIII you posted about?

No, this one is an MKII

[joek]

I picked up this one for $100 and I love it!

Is this the Hawk mkIII you posted about?

No, this one is an MKII

From what I have read on the Hawk's it's wise to have a set of piston rings on hand, not sure why?. Nice rifle for $100

[joek]

"They really benefit from trigger polishing, but the sear and spring is a little tricky to assemble."
That's what I figured and hate the prospect cause I love a good trigger, really, really dislike a not good trigger. Makes me that much more conscious of my sorry marksmanship.
I'll study up on it a bit, try a couple of safe stabs at improvement, add a drop or two of "hope" lube and see what happens. Hope... as in "I hope this works".

Imho it's not a bad trigger, about like my UK Stingrays without the fake 2 stage.

[Artie]

The Vulcan apparently has a strong following. An air rifle with a terminally bad trigger may be a great rifle otherwise but would always be known as the one with a bad trigger. The Vulcan lacks that rap so it must be a trigger that can be coaxed into pleasant behavior.  My Slavia 634 is a great example of a well built air rifle with a very manageable, simplistic, single stage trigger. All that was required was a little massaging and quick spring swap for it to perform exceptionally and more importantly, predictably well.

[Van]

   Mine is a Mark III .22 cal. I bought from Beeman in 1994.  I am pretty sure it was $279 new back then, so that's a great find for that price. I had a fall on slick ice that scratched the original finish, so I had to strip, stain and refinish it.  I also added a JM tune kit that made it a super smooth shooter 615 fps with 14.5g RWS Superdomes. The wide skirt pellets fit the breech better than Crosman pellets. When adding that tune kit, I used the British purple parachute seal from Chambers Gun Parts instead of the PTFE white seal and washer that came in the gun. The trigger is much nicer after a good bit of use and a little polishing the contact points.  It's one of my most accurate air guns.  .

[Artie]

I havn't done any accuracy or speed/es/sd testing with my .177 Vulcan yet, so don't know the absolute health of the gun. I did fire a pellet into 5/8th weathered exterior plywood from @ 12" and though it didn't shoot clean through, it did push out and almost splinter the backside enough to know the pellet had some wallop behind it.
I concur the gun as a minunum, likely requires a wide skirt. A head or two sized up is probably in order too. Rumor has it the barrel isn't choked, something I havn't tested for (the existence of a choke). I'm thinking H&N to head size..
I replaced the oem trigger (weight) spring with a ball point pen spring and backed the adjusting screw out to flush with the cap edge. No cigar, evident after inspection that a spring swap is pointless after visually seeing with the stock removed, both springs have zero preload with the screw backed out that far. Spring does little more than hold things in place I reckon.
The trigger housing has a viewing window (stock removed). That window allows access to cock the trigger with a small screwdriver and view sear to trigger blade overlap. To lessen overlap and shorten trigger time I didn't want to remove metal or add metal so my solution was JBWeld on the blade where the only friction is a slight contact (no rubbing).
JB is still curing (24 hours) so the jury is still out on that mod. Can be reversed, so a good thing in my estimate? Just hold on tight to that barrel while cocking and keep it pointed in a safe direction during the swing is my plan.
Will show pics if it works, and if it doesn't, why bother right?
I did learn some cool things about renewing bluing on a gun that hasn't been severly wounded from abuse and or neglect, but more about that later. Off to Texas for a few days.. another good, even better thing I must say. The gun must wait.

[Artie]

BTW Van, that's a handsome Mark III. I hope I can achieve a refinish as nice as yours at some point.

[DanD]

Rumor has it the barrel isn't choked, something I havn't tested for (the existence of a choke)....

My .177 Vulcan Mk1 is a bit picky but does well with JSB RS. I have pushed pellets through it, and the tightest part of the bore is closer to the middle than the end. I've thought about chopping it down so it becomes a potentially more accurate choked carbine, but it's hard for me to justify hack sawing an out of production classic.
Both my Mk1s (as well as some old HWs) have the easy loading loose leade feature where the pellets fall into the breech.  Webley used to advertise this as making loading easier on the fingers.
Have fun! 

[Artie]

The JB Weld worked like a charm. I now have a 25 oz pull with zero creep. I did have to crank down on the ball point spring a few turns to secure my confidence.
Happy camper am I!