Classic HW 35E gets a workout

I picked up this 35E in Hickory this year...the HW 35 was the first gun to catch my eye in my first Beeman catalog back in the day, and I've seen few prettier than this one. It's no powerhouse (clocked it at about 7.5 FPE with Superdomes, almost 9 FPE with Hobbys), but wow - it's definitely a shooter! Benched it for the first time yesterday, resulting in my best-ever iron-sight Superdome group, followed by an hour of effortlessly mowing down 2-inch high pill bottles at a measured 35 yards.

Serial number is from 1966. It's the classic Euro version with 22" barrel (most other 35's are 19") and the "Export" (supposedly US-flavored) stock. The gun is darn near 4 feet long and has a 35-inch sight radius as you see it here. It almost feels like cheating to shoot it at 10 meters...the barrel reaches halfway there, LOL! The longer barrel moves the balance point forward a couple inches, too.

OEM breech seal on these was leather. As with the HW 55, the recess for this is oddly angled, deeper at the top than the bottom. But it arrived with a dead plastic seal, which I replaced after concocting a tapered shim to go under it. Also, a previous owner replaced the regrettably thin and fragile OEM Rekord trigger blade of those days with a stouter later version.

It came without sights. Seen here is an Anschutz front, and a solid steel "turret" style Weihrauch rear sight which is even older than the gun. These were OEM on HW 55's in the 1950's - which then had slightly narrower scope grooves - but this example was professionally tweaked to be a perfect fit on this later rifle with "13 mm" grooves.







 
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Nice re-finishing on the stock....
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I am seriously lucky to be caretaker of this rifle for a while!

SG, as far as I can tell, the wood finish is 100% original. All edges are razor sharp, fit of buttplate and spacers is perfect, and you can see the brush strokes in the factory varnish if you look closely. But this rifle obviously led a pampered life. It does have some extra shine, which is probably from careful applications of wax. 🙂

The action has also gotten some careful attention. Cosmetically, it's been maintained in amazing shape. The fragile OEM trigger blade and original leather breech seal were replaced, and a pair of breech shims added (all HW rifles have had those since the 80's, but they were not OEM stuff in 1966). It's also seen some tuning work, but I haven't dismantled it yet to fully explore that.
 
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What are the large "thumbscrews", one one top front and bottom rear of that sight?
The thumbscrew on top positively locates the sight on the receiver. Underneath it is a stud precisely fitting one of the recesses on top of the rear receiver (that's right kids...those holes on your new Weihrauch are REALLY for ancient diopter sights...just a happy coincidence they also work for scope stops!). This feature was carried through to later generations of HW sights, such as this more common cast-metal type from the 1990's.

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The bottom thumb screw on the old steel sight serves solely to lock the windage setting, by pulling its axis rod (blue arrow) down onto the sighting "turret's" lateral dovetail; you must loosen it to move things sideways. The elevation setting is similarly locked, by the eye disk's shaft tightening against the flat face on the rear of the "turret" (yellow arrow). Overkill which makes ya smile...do Germans lie awake worrying people are messing with their rifle sights??? 🤪

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Thanks for the kind words everyone. I am seriously lucky to be caretaker of this rifle for a while!

SG, as far as I can tell, the wood finish is 100% original. All edges are razor sharp, fit of buttplate and spacers is perfect, and you can see the brush strokes in the factory varnish if you look closely. But this rifle obviously led a pampered life. It does have some extra shine, which is probably from careful applications of wax. 🙂

The action has also gotten some careful attention. Cosmetically, it's been maintained in amazing shape. The fragile OEM trigger blade and original leather breech seal were replaced, and a pair of breech shims added (all HW rifles have had those since the 80's, but they were not OEM stuff in 1966). It's also seen some tuning work, but I haven't dismantled it yet to fully explore that.
Irregardless, it looks good (y)