Hw95 cocking very "gritty" after vortek PG4 kit. what would you do?

[wimpanzee]

I still felt like the cocking shoe was dragging on the spring with an ARH spring kit that I also tried. Not feeling real confident that I could do anything besides keep making it worse, I sent it off to a master tuner.
I got it back yesterday, shooting very smooth, but after being spoiled by pcps for a while, I am have trouble getting vertical stringing...pretty sure its my hold. But it is very smooth now! It is using the factory spring with a custom fitted guide and liner, shooting about 15fpe.
The vortek kit situation is very disappointing. I feel like I got a run around for what is advertised as a drop in kit. I was very happy with the pg2 kits I had in tw previous HW guns.

 

[jimk1963]

I still felt like the cocking shoe was dragging on the spring with an ARH spring kit that I also tried. Not feeling real confident that I could do anything besides keep making it worse, I sent it off to a master tuner.
I got it back yesterday, shooting very smooth, but after being spoiled by pcps for a while, I am have trouble getting vertical stringing...pretty sure its my hold. But it is very smooth now! It is using the factory spring with a custom fitted guide and liner, shooting about 15fpe.
The vortek kit situation is very disappointing. I feel like I got a run around for what is advertised as a drop in kit. I was very happy with the pg2 kits I had in tw previous HW guns.

Thanks for the update. Interesting the master tuner ditched the ARH spring and went back to the original spring... That is a bit surprising. I've read numerous times that JM springs don't cause such fit/interference issues and that's supposedly one of the key reasons to go that route. So in the end, did you get to use anything out of the JM tuning kit? Did the tuner tell you if the guide is PTFE or other?

 

[Vincent10]

Thanks for the update. Interesting the master tuner ditched the ARH spring and went back to the original spring... That is a bit surprising. I've read numerous times that JM springs don't cause such fit/interference issues and that's supposedly one of the key reasons to go that route. So in the end, did you get to use anything out of the JM tuning kit? Did the tuner tell you if the guide is PTFE or other?

I installed a PG4 12lbs kit this week in my HW98 with their vac seal and after a couple sessions I had a similar issue with the surface of the guide. I applied a thin layer of ARH moly paste to the guide. The firing cycle also seemed a little harsh for 12lbs so I added some ARH havy tar. I hope this corrects any issues.

 

[wimpanzee]

Thanks for the update. Interesting the master tuner ditched the ARH spring and went back to the original spring... That is a bit surprising. I've read numerous times that JM springs don't cause such fit/interference issues and that's supposedly one of the key reasons to go that route. So in the end, did you get to use anything out of the JM tuning kit? Did the tuner tell you if the guide is PTFE or other?

no, i've got an arh kit and a pg4 kit just sitting around now. probably save the arh one in case the factory spring ever breaks, and the pg4 one to sit and drink over when i want to feel miserable.

not sure what the liner is, i assumed ptfe, its a .01

 

[A.G.R]

Good stuff here
Learned

 

[Airgunmanart]

I still felt like the cocking shoe was dragging on the spring with an ARH spring kit that I also tried. Not feeling real confident that I could do anything besides keep making it worse, I sent it off to a master tuner.
I got it back yesterday, shooting very smooth, but after being spoiled by pcps for a while, I am have trouble getting vertical stringing...pretty sure its my hold. But it is very smooth now! It is using the factory spring with a custom fitted guide and liner, shooting about 15fpe.
The vortek kit situation is very disappointing. I feel like I got a run around for what is advertised as a drop in kit. I was very happy with the pg2 kits I had in tw previous HW guns.

Remember when shooting a springer. Loose as a Goose.

 

[Pea-shooter O.G.]

I know this horse has been well kicked, but one more kick in the right spot might help a few out there...
I put a .177 barrel on my HW95 recently and found the power really low. It had a full power ARH kit in it with a vortek seal and WAS making almost 16+FPE when new with the .22 barrel. It settled in around 14.5fpe in .22. With the .177 barrel, it was struggling to make 10.5 fpe?! So, I decided to take gun apart AGAIN and found the ARH spring pretty sagged with a big cant. So, I decided to try this PG4 Vortek spring kit WITHOUT THE OUTER STEEL GUIDE INSTALLED. I was hoping it wouldn't twang and to my surprise, it was downright nice. Snappy shot cycle, no spring noise, very consistent. Its making 16 FPE with HN 10.68 Baracudas and about 15.5FPE with JSB 10.34. standard deviations of 3!
So, if you still have that Vortek PG4 kit sitting there mocking you, all hope is not lost. Just wrestle that steel guide off, pull the spacers out of the inside of that steel guide and slap that spring in your gun. No need to remove the metal piston liner.
Since the gun is cocking smoothly and there is no spring noise, I wonder why this steel guide is on there to begin with. Vortek could sell this kit without the steel guide and charge less. Or charge the same and include a piston seal instead. Oh well, I'm glad I could use it and not feel like I was out money completely.

 

[jimk1963]

I know this horse has been well kicked, but one more kick in the right spot might help a few out there...
I put a .177 barrel on my HW95 recently and found the power really low. It had a full power ARH kit in it with a vortek seal and WAS making almost 16+FPE when new with the .22 barrel. It settled in around 14.5fpe in .22. With the .177 barrel, it was struggling to make 10.5 fpe?! So, I decided to take gun apart AGAIN and found the ARH spring pretty sagged with a big cant. So, I decided to try this PG4 Vortek spring kit WITHOUT THE OUTER STEEL GUIDE INSTALLED. I was hoping it wouldn't twang and to my surprise, it was downright nice. Snappy shot cycle, no spring noise, very consistent. Its making 16 FPE with HN 10.68 Baracudas and about 15.5FPE with JSB 10.34. standard deviations of 3!
So, if you still have that Vortek PG4 kit sitting there mocking you, all hope is not lost. Just wrestle that steel guide off, pull the spacers out of the inside of that steel guide and slap that spring in your gun. No need to remove the metal piston liner.
Since the gun is cocking smoothly and there is no spring noise, I wonder why this steel guide is on there to begin with. Vortek could sell this kit without the steel guide and charge less. Or charge the same and include a piston seal instead. Oh well, I'm glad I could use it and not feel like I was out money completely.

Nice work! Questions:

1) You're getting 16FPE with .177 ? That's really high for a 26mm piston chamber. Most of the typical data I've seen hovers around 13FPE for the HW95
2) At 16FPE I'd expect the shot cycle to have a good-size kick? Might be "smooth" but especially on a rifle as light as the HW95 it should be pretty hard compared to, say, an FWB 124 or other similar-size gun
3) Does the PG4 kit use a metal rear guide? Does it also have a brass washer at the rear? See photos I posted of the PG1 kit Tom made for me for reference, in this post: https://www.airgunnation.com/threads/fwb-sport.1271641/
I ask because in my testing so far, I'm finding Tom's metal-guide+brass washer design works significantly better than just a delrin-based rear guide. And by "better" I mean, no vibration/twang and a sharp shot cycle that's kinda hard to explain but it's just better. I have a few more delrin/spring options to try out so no conclusions yet, but to this point I'm loving that custom PG1 kit

 

[Pea-shooter O.G.]

I have about 300 rounds through the HW95 with this Vortek spring kit(minus the outer steel rear guide) with Vortek piston seal. I did a chrony with the 10.65 HN Baracudas. The power dropped down to just over 15fpe. I ran a 10 shot string with an average of 808fps and a SD of 2. Its very accurate with the Baracudas and with the JSB heavies.

The shot cycle is flat, fast and snappy. Not as unruly as you might expect. It's nice enough to earn itself a first place at the indoor Field Target match this past Saturday.

The rear inner guide is not metal. I did slip the original steel washer(Weihrauch) over the base of the Vortek rear guide. I also transferred the spring seat and 2 small spacers out of the Vortek outer metal guide to the base of the inner guide. Sorry, I didn't take pictures, as they are worth a good many words! There was no brass washer at the base.

 

[jimk1963]

I have about 300 rounds through the HW95 with this Vortek spring kit(minus the outer steel rear guide) with Vortek piston seal. I did a chrony with the 10.65 HN Baracudas. The power dropped down to just over 15fpe. I ran a 10 shot string with an average of 808fps and a SD of 2. Its very accurate with the Baracudas and with the JSB heavies.

The shot cycle is flat, fast and snappy. Not as unruly as you might expect. It's nice enough to earn itself a first place at the indoor Field Target match this past Saturday.

The rear inner guide is not metal. I did slip the original steel washer(Weihrauch) over the base of the Vortek rear guide. I also transferred the spring seat and 2 small spacers out of the Vortek outer metal guide to the base of the inner guide. Sorry, I didn't take pictures, as they are worth a good many words! There was no brass washer at the base.

Congrats on the blue ribbon!! Amazing how much variation there is in the FPE's of these guns. Tinkering with my FWB Sport, I've hit as high as 17FPE using an HW80 spring w/ Vortek 30mm seal. It's a jolt w/ some buzz, even with a fitted delrin guide. On the other end, the factory spring w/ ARH seal netted around 12FPE.... While a custom Vortek "PG1" style kit served up 14-16FPE depending on coil count. All have different shot cycles. The higher FPE's seem to suffer some accuracy loss with H&N Field Targets... I just got in some Barracuda 10.65's, will give those a whirl. Thanks for the info!

 

[Pea-shooter O.G.]

Here's a few 5 shot groups at 22 yards off my fancy bamboo shooting sticks and milk crate seat. They are the 4 groups outlined. Thats with the JSB heavies(10.34). The Baracudas were similar. The JSB 8.44 exacts were not very good but they were sailing over 900 fps.

 

[Mycapt65]

I have about 300 rounds through the HW95 with this Vortek spring kit(minus the outer steel rear guide) with Vortek piston seal. I did a chrony with the 10.65 HN Baracudas. The power dropped down to just over 15fpe. I ran a 10 shot string with an average of 808fps and a SD of 2. Its very accurate with the Baracudas and with the JSB heavies.

The shot cycle is flat, fast and snappy. Not as unruly as you might expect. It's nice enough to earn itself a first place at the indoor Field Target match this past Saturday.

The rear inner guide is not metal. I did slip the original steel washer(Weihrauch) over the base of the Vortek rear guide. I also transferred the spring seat and 2 small spacers out of the Vortek outer metal guide to the base of the inner guide. Sorry, I didn't take pictures, as they are worth a good many words! There was no brass washer at the base.

This was a creative solution. I like it. I've been a long proponent of the plastic Vortek kits. Unfortunately I've had checkered results with his steel kits. I still install them but the steel kits require more attention and modifications than I like to do.

I've had two Hw95 PG4 kits that I sent back that had some twang in them. I never figured out why. The guides were fitted well but for some reason still had twang. I've installed bunches of these kits both steel and plastic across the entire Weihrauch line including a few others in Hw95/R9s that never experienced twang of any kind. It was odd that the only two Vortek kits with twang were PG4 Hw95 kits.

After those experiences and steel slivers from cocking shoe/PG4 guide interference scoring my Special Edition R9 compression tube I've been installing the ARH FAC kit in Hw95 platforms. Combined with the Vortek piston seals they make solid power. About 16.0 fpe in the last two 20 caliber guns I've done. The shot cycle is similar to Vortek, sharp but still nice. I do roll my own plastic piston liners from plastic soda bottles with these kits so there's extra work involved with these as well. At least I don't have to worry about the gun eating itself to death with metal particles. Fwiw you can get by without the plastic piston liner if you have the factory steel liner. I just find the guns cock and shoot smoother with a better fitting plastic liner.

This is just food for thought. Your groups look great and it looks like you came out with great solution for your situation. I admire your ingenuity. Kudos
Ron

 

[tor47]

I do not know to much about springers, but my barrel on my fx impact got scratched up like that, when I used silicone grease on the cocking block.
If the surfaces rubbing against each other are metal, silicone based lube is probably not the best solution.
If you do not know what lube is on the gun, it might be worth trying another kind?

 

[jimk1963]

This was a creative solution. I like it. I've been a long proponent of the plastic Vortek kits. Unfortunately I've had checkered results with his steel kits. I still install them but the steel kits require more attention and modifications than I like to do.

I've had two Hw95 PG4 kits that I sent back that had some twang in them. I never figured out why. The guides were fitted well but for some reason still had twang. I've installed bunches of these kits both steel and plastic across the entire Weihrauch line including a few others in Hw95/R9s that never experienced twang of any kind. It was odd that the only two Vortek kits with twang were PG4 Hw95 kits.

After those experiences and steel slivers from cocking shoe/PG4 guide interference scoring my Special Edition R9 compression tube I've been installing the ARH FAC kit in Hw95 platforms. Combined with the Vortek piston seals they make solid power. About 16.0 fpe in the last two 20 caliber guns I've done. The shot cycle is similar to Vortek, sharp but still nice. I do roll my own plastic piston liners from plastic soda bottles with these kits so there's extra work involved with these as well. At least I don't have to worry about the gun eating itself to death with metal particles. Fwiw you can get by without the plastic piston liner if you have the factory steel liner. I just find the guns cock and shoot smoother with a better fitting plastic liner.

This is just food for thought. Your groups look great and it looks like you came out with great solution for your situation. I admire your ingenuity. Kudos
Ron

Great info. On the FWB Sport thread, I'm slowly chronicling my way through a variety of kits either purchased outright (Vortek PG1 custom steel version) or made up via individually purchased parts (Pyramid, CountryStore, Tbt, ...). My early experience with a fitted delrin rear guide is not as good as Tom's steel-guide based kit, but I'm just starting down that path and expect better results as I work my way through coil count optimization, etc. Since the Sport has a 30mm power plant, just like the HW80, there's a nice overlap of widely available HW80 parts that work in the Sport - like the 30mm piston seal, a perfect fit. The HW80 rear guide flange diameter is too large, but easily turned down to fit. Etc. So I have a variety of options to play with.

The bummer of the Sport is FWB embedded a metal "top hat" of sorts inside the piston, not removable like the HW washers stuffed up inside HW80's/et al. So a very thin sleeve like you've crafted is the only anti-buzz option on the piston-side of the spring. CountryStore sells HW80 (and other) metal sleeves, pre-cut, .003" thick, for about $7 US. I bought one to see if it saves any time/headache compared to soda bottle origami. I worry though about metal particles, like you found w/ Vortek kits. For the custom PG1-based kit Tom made for me, he specifically did not include a top metal sleeve because he felt there wasn't enough available clearance in the Sport's piston. (Not sure how thick the metal sleeve is that Tom typically uses.) Instead, he supplied a thick brass washer with ID that hugs the Sport's "top hat" very accurately. Presumably he feels that brass interface generates a smoother surface for the spring to spin on vs. the piston head itself. Or he expects the brass to get eaten away and replaced over time, saving the piston head. Or some other reason I haven't figured out yet... I'm in my rookie year of rebuilding these springers, after 43 years of ownership, so just starting to climb the learning curve.