Taming the HW45 Beast

[north country gal]

Thanks, again, folks.

No, no problem cocking the gun with the scope. To get the leverage I need, I brace the bottom of the gun on my thigh as I cock the gun. Unlike the HW75, the 45 cocks on opening, not when it closes.

[north country gal]

Just happened to pull out the HW75 after session with the HW45. The75, of course, was a pussycat to shoot by comparison, but ... I kind of missed the challenge of shooting the 45. Not that the 75 was boring, exactly, just not as "exciting" as the 45.

Good heaven's, I really am a hopeless springer addict.

[Skinard88]

Springers are becoming my go to guns now. I'm still a noob. been into AG. for about 4 years now and I think I'm about done with the darkside. springs for me for now on. I think I'm going to go out and shoot my HW30 now. HAPPY SHOOTING

[Sig-Man]

Oh, no! You shouldn't do it!  Your 'other' guns will cry--and rust--if unused...   I went this weekend to my club to punch some 9 mm holes, then came back, sat on the porch, removed one screen--and shot maybe 100 pellets using spinner and paper targets at 30 yds.  Both are a great pleasure to shoot, but the side wind seemed to affect the pellets more...   

[north country gal]

Still enjoying my work with the HW45, even find myself picking up the 45 instead of the much easier to shoot HW75. Kind of like the recoil on the 45, in fact. Crazy spring piston addict me!

I'm now convinced that this gun is more accurate than it often gets credit for being. I'll even go so far as to say the performance difference between the HW45 and the easier shooting HW75 is mostly shooter technique - with a little assist of those weights out front to tame the recoil on the 45. 

I am using a fairly light grip on this gun, but, for me, the real breakthrough as to grip came when I learned to leave plenty of room between the backstop on the grip and the heel of my palm, allowing the gun to recoil back without slapping my grip hand. If you have a 45, might give it a try.

Match grade accuracy from the HW45? I think it's there. Here's a target I just shot, standing position, 10 meters. The bottom three shots were first. I then added in some elevation on the Nikon 1x scope and shot the last 5. Love this gun (my 75, too.)


If I get a break in the weather, I hope to step outdoors and shoot the 45 at a full 25 yards. Will post when I do.

[grauhanen]

I'm now convinced that this gun is more accurate than it often gets credit for being. I'll even go so far as to say the performance difference between the HW45 and the easier shooting HW75 is mostly shooter technique - with a little assist of those weights out front to tame the recoil on the 45. 

I am using a fairly light grip on this gun, but, for me, the real breakthrough as to grip came when I learned to leave plenty of room between the backstop on the grip and the heel of my palm, allowing the gun to recoil back without slapping my grip hand. If you have a 45, might give it a try.

Match grade accuracy from the HW45? I think it's there.

It's a good observation that this gun is probably more accurate than it gets credit. And for accuracy, shooter technique is also probably more important with this air pistol than just about any other as it is not an easy gun to shoot very well. It has an accuracy potential that other spring piston air pistols simply don't have.  Nevertheless, it doesn't compete with other designs for accuracy and the superlative "match grade accuracy" is perhaps overly optimistic.

[north country gal]

True, match grade accuracy is probably overly optimistic, given how hard the gun is to shoot. You will never see the 45 going up against an Izzy or other dedicated 10 meter match pistol. No argument, there. I do believe, though, that at 10 meters, it has enough inherent accuracy to produce single hole groups at least in the same ball park as my Izzy and so on. That was what I was clumsily attempting to say with "match". I would never recommend this gun for competition and hope no one takes my post that way.

I actually got the 45 for the power (and, okay, because its a Weihrauch), to play with spinner and reactive targets out at 25 yards. It's a great gun for that work. Hits on the spinners at 25 yards leave no doubt that the 45 has more power than the 75. Really is an exciting gun to shoot.

[Tomcat]

Very nice grouping, NCG!

[north country gal]

Thanks, Tom

One of the  (many) reasons I bought the HW 45 was also to practice for my 1911 shooting, since, of course, this gun feels like a 1911 (or it did, until I added all the weight. )

Didn't want to mess with the 10 meter sight settings for 25 yard shooting, so I grabbed what pellets I had in the range bag and fired for effect. Turns out the JSB Exact 8.44s only needed a little holdover to get in the black. Bull is 3" in diameter. 

10 shots, ständig, no rest, 25 meters


Next step will be to remove the weights to see just how much they affect my accuracy. As always, a work in progress.

[Loren]

Excellent!!  and so much fun!!

[Lynx]

Hi

Thank you NCG for this posting. I'd like to say I enjoyed reading this thread (even without pictures) so much that I'm resurrecting it after more than 5 years. Hopefully for useful reasons.

As I'm in the process of taming my own beast, I found your note valuable, and appreciate more comments of the following.

Let me start right from the end:
1- I wanted to know how was the accuracy affected after you remove the weight as you planned if you did. Wondering whether the weights has changed the nature of the gun, or they merely helped you through the process of taming.

2- as all the pictures have been removed, wondering where about exactly you have attached those weights.

3- I noticed that the gun is ridiculously sensitive to my hold, as everyone have. I measured a total of 7 inch shift in the POI when changing the hold from dead tight (down) to very loose hold (up). As a result, the best I could achieve so far is 1.2-2 inch group at 10 meters if I manage to remember how to best hold it. On this matter you've mentioned that the major break though happened when you learnt to leave a gap between the shooting hand's heel and the grip backstop. I'm wondering if you would kindly post a picture of that hold, you'd do me a solid one of possibly saving few weeks and few tins.

any further notes on that taming process after 5 years are highly appreciated.

Cheers,

[north country gal]

TR, you've truly resurrected one from the grave, but glad you found it helpful.

As always, the the bottom line on the HW45 is the hold and I think most HW45/P1 owners will agree. When shooting springer rifles, after all, the hold is critical, so the issue is the same for a springer pistol. You just don't have as many options for different holds as with a rifle.

It's something you have to work out for yourself,though. Some like a really firm grip, but for me, any grip that requires a pressure point bios hard to repeat with the same pressure shot after shot. I do better with a light hold on my springer rifles and with the HW45. Each to their own, as always.

Taking a pic of my grip turned out to be quite a challenge. My camera is not designed to be shot with the left hand, so I had to enlist the help of my husband. He didn't get the focus the best, but here goes.



Hard to see in the pic, but there is a gap in the vee of my palm which on a an actual 1911 would be firmly depressing the grip safety on the back of the gun's grip. This spacing allows the HW45 to recoil back with minimum contact with my palm. Also hard to see is that there is also a gap between the front of the pistol's grip and my fingers and for the same reason, since, of course, there is also forward recoil. In essence, I am supporting the weight of the gun with my second and third g]fingers under the trigger guard with some of the weight along the side of the gun with my thumb extended on the left side. Guess you might call this a crude artillery hold for a pistol.

As for the added weight, I used steel rings to anchor the scope with as many as I could squeeze on the scope and even added one in front of the scope, just for the weight. Totally ridiculous, of course, but all just an experiment to see what added weight could do. Once my curiosity was satisfied, I removed the scope and rings and went back to the factory iron sights. I still shoot it that way.



But the added weight certainly proved to me that the HW45 is inherently accurate when shot from a rest.


One of my better 45 offhand groups.


All this just shows that the HW45 is an accurate gun, it's just a hard gun to shoot, accurately.

Let me also add that I need several warmup sessions to get back to peak shooting with the 45. If I lay off for awhile, I have to start over to get back to that peak. Just the nature of the gun for me. On then other hand, the ever mild and sweet shooting HW 75 is a gun that needs a lot less work to shoot, even though it has the same look and feel of the HW 45. Don't let the looks fool you, these are completely different guns. (Yeah, I do shoot the 75 a lot more.)

[Lynx]

Thanks NCG for your detailed reply.

Taking a pic of my grip turned out to be quite a challenge. My camera is not designed to be shot with the left hand, so I had to enlist the help of my husband. He didn't get the focus the best, but here goes.
Hard to see in the pic, but there is a gap in the vee of my palm which on a an actual 1911 would be firmly depressing the grip safety on the back of the gun's grip. This spacing allows the HW45 to recoil back with minimum contact with my palm.

Many thanks for kindly providing the picture and the description. Honestly I tried holding the gun as you described before this post and couldn't really imagine it. As the gun is relatively front heavy I find the gun tending to rotate barrel down and fill that gap I'm trying to keep.

 Also hard to see is that there is also a gap between the front of the pistol's grip and my fingers and for the same reason, since, of course, there is also forward recoil. In essence, I am supporting the weight of the gun with my second and third g]fingers under the trigger guard with some of the weight along the side of the gun with my thumb extended on the left side.

Now the picture is more clear, I think I get the idea now but need some time to experiment with it.

As I have been shooting so far I found myself supporting the weight of the gun with my first non-shooting hand (oh yes I use both hands for shooting) while the front-back support against the trigger pull is maintained by the fingers and the palm of the shooting hand.

Guess you might call this a crude artillery hold for a pistol.

Indeed! as much as it could get.

I literally tried the artillery hold previously (for the sake of curiosity) but found that this gun hates being touched near the front of the barrel just as much stranger cat hates being touched on the belly!

As for the added weight, I used steel rings to anchor the scope with as many as I could squeeze on the scope and even added one in front of the scope, just for the weight. Totally ridiculous, of course, but all just an experiment to see what added weight could do. Once my curiosity was satisfied, I removed the scope and rings and went back to the factory iron sights. I still shoot it that way.

I get it you are satisfied with the results you're getting without the weights and the scope just as much as with them. your HW45 is totally under control.

But the added weight certainly proved to me that the HW45 is inherently accurate when shot from a rest.

One of my better 45 offhand groups.

Really impressive groups! well done.

Do you recall what pellets you used for such groups? and what did you find most fit this gun for accuracy.

I'm currently using JSB match 8gn .. some mentioned the RWS R10 7gn to be of a superior accuracy for this gun but I'm not sure if those relatively light pellets would badly affect the gun health especially for a powerful spring the HW45 has.

Let me also add that I need several warmup sessions to get back to peak shooting with the 45. If I lay off for awhile, I have to start over to get back to that peak. Just the nature of the gun for me.

Totally same here. I even have to dry fire it few times then veer off the first two shots before the muscle memory kicks back again.

On then other hand, the ever mild and sweet shooting HW 75 is a gun that needs a lot less work to shoot, even though it has the same look and feel of the HW 45. Don't let the looks fool you, these are completely different guns. (Yeah, I do shoot the 75 a lot more.)

I was almost going to buy the HW75 instead of the HW45, but I couldn't resist the temptation of the spring kick.

[Hobbyman2007]

What we really need is Weihrauch to come out with an HW75 MSP . Big power and no recoil. Oh no ......... I just talked myself into buying one.

[Yogi]

Joanie,

Thanks for explaining your grip.   I agree it is easy to pull you shots if you have to tight a grip, or a grip in the wrong spots on a pistol.
I find it much more challenging, and thus enjoyable, to shoot a springer pistol than a springer rifle.

Stay safe,

Yogi

[WildCJ5]

I have an old P1 from the 80’s. Gun is really accurate if I hold it like it as soft as I can. Mine also is most accurate with JSB 10.4. For some reason it doesn’t like lighter pellets. Give it a try maybe yours will like heavier ammo also.

[WyoMan]

Hi Joanie,

I have a couple that I've tried to tame. They're house-broken but not completely tame...
The main springs were degreased and the spring ends polished so they would rotate freely on the guide and end cap.
The springs were re-lubed with moly (just painted on the surfaces).
And like you, I found that adding weight will tighten the groups... I used LW barrels with a heavy chuck of brass on the end. With the scopes they weigh 4 lbs:




10-shot groups from 10m, rested...

.22 cal:


.177 cal:


I can shoot them better than that, but those are average groups which is what I think folks want to see.
After all my experimenting, I find them to be follow-thru sensitive... and certainly, the hold and the rest affects the follow-thru.
But I focus on follow-thru... I guess if you get that right, your hold and rest are o.k. ... no doubt they will challenge your shooting techique.
And again, like you, if I go too long without shooting these, I'll need some refresher time, LOL... glad to see this old thread 

Wyo

[north country gal]

Gary, those are amazing 45s and some amazing shooting to go along with them. Wow! How in the world did you set them up with LW barrels?

[WyoMan]

Thanks, Joanie. I would say you're very accomplished at shooting this beast as well. There have been many folks I see on the forums that try this pistol and then toss it in.

Had to carve-up a few things to fit the longer barrels…

First, the new barrel:


Turned to .395:


Slot cut for the clamp:


Leade with outside radius - the radius minimizes o-ring damage for a tighter breech seal:


Next, drilled thru the muzzle end of the frame .397, and D/T’d 8-32 for a setscrew to lock the front of the barrel:


And lastly, swapped the oem barrel clamp screws with St/St 5-40 x 3/8”:


It really wasn't that much work, more tedious than anything else...
The length from the breech to the slot, and the length of the turned down section inside the frame don't allow for much tolerance if you're looking for a tight fit...


Wyo

[north country gal]

Gary, that is amazing work you've done. That is way, way out of my league. Nicely done.

All this talk might have me dusting off the 45 and getting back up to par on it. With all the other airguns I have to shoot, tends to get set aside, what with the investment of time needed to get back ij the 45 groove.