HW/Weihrauch Is This the HW30s’ Biggest Weakness?

[Mycapt65]

I’ve added shims to some of my other sights before, but I can’t really think of an easy way to improve the Weihrauch ones — hence the complaint.

Really interesting insights on using open and peep sights at longer ranges. Hitting shotgun shells at 60 yards with open sights is seriously impressive!

There's no need to improve them because
A) they don't move around in actual use
B) regardless of your math, human eyesight isn't good enough to make out those sights exact enough that amount of movement would affect the outcome.

If you're worried about movement from vibration simple pack the sight with a sticky thick grease like Almagard 3752. That will retain adjustment and restrain movements. You could crazy glue it, better yet epoxy it and your accuracy would not noticeably improve.

There's way too many much larger variables with springers and pellets themselves to worry about these sights.

Be well
Ron

 

[Xun]

I shoot offhand with iron sights at shotgun shells daily. I start them about 25 yards and knock them downrange until I can't hit them anymore. I give myself 5 misses in a row. If I miss 5 times I go to another shotgun shell.

They usually wind up between 50-60 yards when I miss them 5 times. I've taken them out past 70 yards when the stars are aligned just right. Give me 10 misses and I can knock them out past 70 every darn time. At 70 yards I can BARELY see a red shotgun shell on a light sand background. If I put it too close to the front bead it completely disappears.

We have a 3" steel plate painted black at 70 yards. I'm about 3:5 on it as long as it's calm and I have a couple shots to "find the spot". The gun won't shoot much better than that with a scope off a rest.

We shoot in a sand pit and you can see every miss. As long as I can see my misses I can hit very accurately. In gravel or grass my average goes way down. If I can't get feedback from my misses it's like shooting in the dark and I miss a lot.

I use a Cometa 400 gas ram. The HW95 is a bit more accurate and a joy to shoot. But I can't target a shotgun shell past 50 yards or so without getting creative with that front sight. The Cometa has enough post and enough gap below the post to get out to 100 yards no problems. So despite the HW being the "better" gun I can hit more shotgun shells with the Cometa.

I've got a Williams peep. It's great if you want to adjust that sight every shot. It's definitely more precise and helps to make range transitions. I just can't knock a shotgun shell 20 yards and shoot again without cranking on the elevation knob. I like open sights so I can just hold over and follow my target out as I knock it downrange.

Offhand? That’s incredible!
Have you been taking part in silhouette matches?

 

[Silver Ace]

The old style ones are solid as a rock. But you only get one notch.

 

[Mycapt65]

The old style ones are solid as a rock. But you only get one notch.
View attachment 554510

View attachment 554509

Hmmm? Interesting. I'll have to look through my pile of rear sights. I know i have two of the older ones that weren't hidden under that cast cover. Maybe from the eighties. I never look hard at these because the don't work for my eyes.

 

[.20calguy]

Thanks to you all for your replies!

The title was a bit of a clickbait — sorry about that!
This obviously isn’t a huge issue, and I know I might be nitpicking here — but that’s only because I genuinely like the sight picture and was impressed by how feature-rich the sight system is. With the interchangeable front sight, rotary rear notch, and positive click adjustments — and coming from Weihrauch — I just expected it to feel a bit more mechanically solid.

That said, it’s good to know this isn’t just an issue with my rifle, and that many of you are totally fine with it.

Peep sights and scopes are great, but I also really enjoy shooting with open sights — not just because they add a bit of extra challenge, but also because they were the first type of sights I used when I was a kid.

As for how much this play actually matters — I agree it’s not a huge deal, but I don’t think it’s completely negligible either, if you’re serious about shooting with opens. In my case, there are three areas where play is present, creating around 0.2–0.3 mm of total movement (though it’s hard to measure precisely). To put it into perspective, the amount of play is roughly equivalent to two or three clicks of windage adjustment on the rear sight. These parts may “reset” to a relatively consistent position after each shot, but it’s hard to verify how consistently or to what extent that actually happens.

Given the HW30s’s sight radius of 39 cm, a 0.2 mm shift at the rear sight translates to roughly 1.8 MOA of potential point of impact shift. That’s not catastrophic, but still significant if you’re trying to squeeze the most out of open sights.

For example, here’s what I got with a rimfire — about 1-inch groups at 50 yards, which is about 2 MOA. A possible 1.8 MOA sight shift would noticeably open up a group like that.
View attachment 554262
For reference, the rifle was a CZ 457 Lux, which is known for its accuracy and comes with nice iron sights. Interestingly, it doesn’t have interchangeable front sights or a rotary rear notch like the HW, which is why I feel pity that the weihrauch sights are so awesome but having the play.

Of course, if you’re not particularly into open sights, or not too focused on squeezing the last bit of precision out of them — that’s totally fine too! I get that most people scope these rifles anyway, and this level of detail might not matter at all in regular use.

I was going to suggest giving them the target test to see if as you mentioned, they'll settle into a "norm".maybe 30 to 50 rounds of right and left?

 

[Xun]

I was going to suggest giving them the target test to see if as you mentioned, they'll settle into a "norm".maybe 30 to 50 rounds of right and left?

I'd be happy to give it a try and share my results!

 

[MDriskill]

Looking at your video, I actually couldn't discern any movement at all in the rotating sight element. And as Mycapt65 noted, nothing happens when shooting that would make the main blade move sideways. But if that tiny lateral wiggle bugs you, it might be cured by simply cranking down the sight's big front attachment screw (on older HW's this was so infamously snug it was quite hard to remove).

I second the motion for an aperture sight for true precision shooting...but don't get me started beyond that, LOL.

 

[Mycapt65]

I checked my six sets of these. They vary in the miniscule amount of play at the rotating notch and windage screw. One was a little wobbly where it was peen onto the spring plate. None of them had the fixed notch like @Silver Ace has shown. Maybe mine aren't old enough. All of my guns are early eighties and later.

I was surprised I only had six. I have eleven Weihrauch break barrels and only my wife's 30 and my R1 wear OE sights. The math says I must have given a few away. Oh well they're not doing me any good.

 

[Xun]

I checked my six sets of these. They vary in the miniscule amount of play at the rotating notch and windage screw. One was a little wobbly where it was peen onto the spring plate. None of them had the fixed notch like @Silver Ace has shown. Maybe mine aren't old enough. All of my guns are early eighties and later.

I was surprised I only had six. I have eleven Weihrauch break barrels and only my wife's 30 and my R1 wear OE sights. The math says I must have given a few away. Oh well they're not doing me any good.

Thanks for checking your sights — that’s exactly the kind of firsthand feedback I was hoping for!

 

[Xun]

By the way, I have another question.

When I decock the rifle and the barrel is just about to touch the cross pin, I hear a fairly loud “click” or “clack” sound. It’s quite noticeable — almost as loud as the sound you get when everything engages at the end of cocking.

I’m not entirely sure if the noise was always there and I just never noticed it, or if it started after I recently took the rifle apart to fix another issue. I only became aware of it after reassembling everything, so now I’m wondering if I did something wrong — or if it’s just normal and I never paid attention before.

Do your HW30s (or similar models) make a sound like that when decocking?