HW30 Woes

OMG ! Regulation overload! 

Looney tunes are just that. If they want to kill they will kill. Gun...Knife...Explosives....Baseball bat....Automobile! 

I'd go for the new rifle.

What’s gone? The gun? You get rid of it? If that platform was so troublesome for you, I’d say look into the HW95, not the 50. Personally I think I want to try both. 

I just checked the current temp in your area. That heat with a 55% humidity. 

I’ll share a little secret with ya all about why I like open sights on EVERY springer, AG if possible.
First, I own John Thomas’s Wife’s personal HW30, so believe me it’s tuned well. Only thing is it came with a nice solid metal brake and no sights. A Hawke 2x7x32 & rings, optically centered & shimmed for a 20 yard zero with 8.44 JSB’s.

I call John and tell him I love it, it’s amazing; but where’s the sights? He says no problem and sends about 3 sets and 5 rear Diana 48 sets for me to choose from & fix up old 1992 48.

Here’s the secret. I prefer open sights just in case but on 2-3x I can see the front globe cover. By aligning target, top radius of globe cover, reticle, eye, repetitive hold, you wouldn’t believe me so I won’t claim anything.

I will say for 10-30 yards on a target you can see with 2-3x, (I understand older eyes) this 4 sight radius alignment instead of common 3 (most shoot on higher magnification or take sights off) target, reticle, eye aligning with exit pupil for full clear picture, all preferred pellets started dropping into one ragged hole at 30 yards. That top globe radius MAKES you repeat your eye placement. Is it cheating? No, it’s making the most of the sight combo.

Being its MPBR is 20 yards and drops from there on out, be clear I’m shooting it in no wind early morning. Using this system and a bubble level I can repeatedly hit soda cans out to 75 yards and quite often 100. 


This is a windy 5-8mph day at 50 yards shooting against 76 year old Daddy and his Savage .22WSM. Doesn’t sound fair? I didn’t think so either, but; Suprise, Suprise, Suprise!

His eyes are failing, and I can feel the slightest breeze on shaved head/skin.


Top 4 teardrops are me shooting off elbows on rickety porch table from John Thomas tuned HW30 using the 4 system sight alignment, JSB .176” 8.44’s. Yes, .176”. I bought 40,000 at a very fair price and I don’t compete so, thank you Sir, and God bless you for your patience, good work & honesty. I wish you many years of 1st place comp shooting. 
The smaller straight hole .177’s not dropping in like artillery are from a hot tuned BSA Ultra/Scorpion hybrid spitting 10.5 CPHP’s. 
Dad kept adjusting scope and blamed Winchester ammo. He did come back 3 days later to show me 3 shots within a 1” fluorescent orange target marker taken at 50 yards. He’d bought Federal and settled on his scope. I guess he was really mad a 7-8ftlb springer had showed up his Varmint rig. 
Dad never spent tons on high end guns. Total utilitarian other than his Franchi’s, and whatever my Gunsmith Uncle Ted left him. 
That’s an incredible master worked El Llama Especial that if in say Ron Robinson’s hands would probably beat all groups mentioned.

But hey, I’m just talking HW30’s here. I had so many good top tuner spring guns, and forgive me but was power mad as a newbie with too much money. That’s all changed. Anyone I ever sell to has THREE DAYS to inspect a gun. If not what I said, pay shipping back, I inspect & if all’s Kosher, refund minus shipping on its way. So anybody out there that got some incredible tuned springers from me for a song & a dance, please consider selling back. I’m not one of those liars that say No Regrets. Tons of regrets, Theoben Scirocco, HW80K, Mike McKeon R1, AZ masterpieces, on & on.

Hey, I write. I didn’t read every post here & doubt 5 people will read this. But to OP’r. If you’re not happy with your springer and haven’t tried a John Thomas tuned one, I’ll let you borrow one if ever interested. I’m going to his place fairly soon to have 5 guns worked on & learn. I’ll probably continue to have him do my special ones that are unique but I need to learn how to at least change breech seals in side cocking Diana’s.

Hey, peace out Girl Scouts.  

dormitionskete said:

I had issues with our Weihrauch HW97K. I fought with it for months. I, too, didn't want to take it apart lest I void the warranty.

The reality: What I found is that a Weihrauch warranty is only as good as the vendor you bought it from. If you have any mechanical skills at all, and a little common sense, take it apart. Watch some YouTube videos about how to take it apart and reassemble it first, if you can. There are plenty on YouTube for almost everything. I think I saw some for the HW30 when I was looking for mine.

The three big things that can cause the problems you described are: 1) Bad piston seal, 2) Bad breech seal, and 3) Broken mainspring. I had all three. The mainspring wasn't immediately obvious when I looked at it, either, amazingly enough. I ordered a Vortek kit and breech seal directly from Vortak, tuned it myself, and all is much better with it now. Thank God.

Don't be afraid of it. It's not that hard.

While it's apart, I also highly recommend you give it a little tune up. Deburr and polish everything except what common sense says you shouldn't -- even things that you think shouldn't matter. Smoothen it out, anyway. Any rough spots whatsoever, no matter how slight, will potentially add more vibration. Here's a GREAT video how to do that!

As a personal touch, I also added a soft neoprene washer to each end of the spring to further reduce vibration. Vortek seemed to have neglected to include the washers that were supposed to come with it, and I didn't want to nit-pick them about it. I'm very happy with their parts, and their service.

Then put it all back together, and chances are, it will work better, and you will be much happier and more comfortable with it since you know how it all works inside and have worked on it yourself.

Otherwise, contact the vendor you bought it from. If you contact Weihrauch, they'll just tell you to contact them. Trust me. I've been there multiple times with them with both our Weihrauch rifle and Weihrauch scope.

I hope this helps!

PS - I'd guess you have at least a blown out piston seal. If you keep shooting it with a blown out piston seal, you *will* end up breaking the mainspring, in time. The Weihrauch piston seal in our HW97K was junk compared to the Vortek one. Even the CustomAirSeals.com piston seal looks better than the Weihrauch seal, and they're from Australia, where you are from. Feel free to DM me if you have any other questions you don't want to bother the list with. I just went through this all myself!

And be at peace. It will all work out.

PSS -- Use caution when you get to the part where the mainspring will be released, as it could have a lot of tension. If you have a 12 ft lb gun, or if your mainspring is broken, it should not be a big deal. Otherwise, it could have a good deal of pressure behind it. Don't let it get away from you. But again, a little caution is all that's necessary. And if you need a spring compressor to get it back together again, a simple woodworking clamp will do just fine.

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Hi, neoprene washers?.I installed Vortek P G tune kits in all 8 of my springers and about to put one in a new HW30 .I don’t ever recall seeing neoprene soft washers in any of the kits? Is this something new? What is the size of the washers and where where did you get them? Ive also heard the pin holding the cocking leaver in place ism very difficult to r emove

The neoprene washers were a touch of my own. I bought them from our local hardware store. In fact, they didn't have the size that I needed, so I bought some that were a little too big and trimmed them down with a scissors. Surprisingly enough, they show no signs of wear even after all these years and thousands of shots. I think they help soften the shot cycle.