Just bought a mint condition R8 .177. It came topped with an old glossy Tasco 4x32 scope and a Beeman muzzle break.
The first thing I noticed is the beautiful stock. The slim forearm, the sweet grip, precision checkering, the elegant wrist followed by the swept cheek piece.....all "just right". Difficult to outdo this classic in the looks department.
Right out of the box ....5 shot clover leaf off hand from 20 yards. Easy to cock and it has a pleasant little recoil. The trigger....oh that sublime trigger...makes shooting it a breeze. Truly a great plinker!
I have a kind of rough old HW50S with the same power plant. They shoot nice.
David Enoch
David
Thank you for the kind words. In so far as the stock, I have seen many that have dings and scratches, but this is a perfect one.....even the bluing. Took a long time to find.
Those old 50s units are equally sweet shooters as you know. Kind of a Goldilocks rifle. Just right!
Unfortuneately the peep sight broke off in transit.
Cocks super easy and hits hard though.
HA
HA
Don't blame all your spending on me!!!! Lol.
Best of luck with that gorgeous R8. Let's see some pictures of your FWB124. Too bad about the peep. I always insist on removal of sites and scopes. Safer that way.
Congrats on another nice find! I've never had the pleasure of shooting an R8 or the older HW50S, but I do appreciate the fun of shooting the "mellower" spring guns. And I have to agree with Ed from your other thread. You do have the nice guns! ?
A great find and a beautiful example! I just recently got an R8 and love it. Makes we wonder what in blazes I was thinking when I sold my first one years ago...
The R8 was Beeman’s last version of the Weihrauch HW 50 (the current HW 50 bears no relation to this design beyond a roughly similar size and appearance). The stock design was supposedly by Gary Goudy. Beeman also added a synthetic piston seal and HW's side-button safety. The R8 is a very collectible rifle these days.
The gun has a 25mm piston seal like the R7/HW 30, and a threaded-on rear section like the larger HW 35, R1, and HW 77/97 - a great feature IMHO. This makes for a slender action with decent power that is solid as a brick, easy to work on, and IMHO perfectly balanced - all combined with legendary HW accuracy and the Rekord trigger.
The HW 50 was actually Weihrauch's first post-war air rifle, made for about 50 years in a dazzling array of variants. The same basic action was used for the HW 55 target rifle. This “family” of designs are really just about my favorite air rifles, period.
Thank you for taking the time to embellish my post with your encyclopedic knowledge of airguns....this platform especially. As you know, i have a soft spot for HW50 and HW55 rifles. This one is 1 of 3 that I recently acquired. So far, I like this one best but in fairness, the others have open sites. I can't shoot for shxx with them.
Sometimes its not about the power, or shot count or how far out it can shoot. Sometimes it's about enjoying the challenge of getting pinpoint accuracy from something aesthetically pleasing. Like making a 3 bank pool shot with a tricked out cue. The R8 delivers that feeling in spades!
I have peep sights on one of my HW30s and they work better for me than the open sights and I too have a bit of trouble with open sights when shooting my rifles as well. Pistols not so much.
Scopes extract the most out of their accuracy and easier to shoot with tho...
Congrats to you, too, HA. Look forward to the report on your R8.
HA, I forgot to ask. Are the stampings on that R8 gold filled? Kinda looks like they might be in those pics.
I am unsure because that is the pictures I got from the seller and I can let you know when I receive it. Lucky I know a lot of people in airgun land always have connections on any kind of guns for sale 24/7. I already knew somone selling one and just needed the motivation to get off of my butt to buy it. I get solicited pretty much daily if I know anyone want to buy this and this and this gun etc...
If I were rich I would just buy everything but I am the poorest out of my group so I am very selective on what I buy.
In Weihrauch’s early years, their entire rifle lineup consisted of just the HW 35, 50, and 55, as you can see in this scan of a 1959 Weihrauch brochure. Note that the Rekord trigger was new in those days; the 35 and 55 have it, but not yet the 50:
Did you get your R8 from Lance? I really wanted to buy it at the Hickory show, but was just a bit shy of funds. Still would like to have it. Hope things are going well for you. Looking forward to the next show.
I did indeed talk Lance out of the ugliest of his three R8's! Which is still pretty darn nice. Really a gorgeous rifle though I gotta say my homely early-70's HW 50S fits and balances a bit better for my tastes. Great air rifles all...
Although roughly similar in size and configuration (especially the 2-piece cocking linkage), they are otherwise quite different.
Old HW 50 has 25mm piston seal and the classic threaded-on rear section, and runs about 700 FPS in the later synthetic-sealed versions like the R8.
The new one (full disclosure: I’ve never owned one) was introduced in the late 1990’s, and was originally called the HW 99; still goes by that name in the UK in fact. For a short time Beeman sold it as the R6. I believe it has a 26mm seal. The receiver tube is one piece, with the trigger module held in by plugs like the R7, R9, etc. It has a shorter transfer port and shorter heavier barrel than the old gun, and with the fatter piston is 800 FPS+.
To me it’s confusing Weihrauch decided to re-use the “HW 50” name, but hey they didn’t ask me, LOL.
I'm actually looking for something in between the R7/HW30s and the current production HW50s since I really like the near effortless cocking from my tuned HW30s and would prefer a lighter cocking effort than my current production HW50s to be able to enjoy prolonged shooting sessions.
Hopefully the Beeman R8 will be it. Will know when it arrives.
I just bought a Beeman R7 in 177 as well to compare it to my HW30s.
Well...what you just said, is pretty much exactly how I would describe the original HW 50 and its relatives!
It’s basically a lengthened R7 with a touch more power, even more solid construction, and more adult-sized in weight and balance. Along with its uptown cousin the HW 55 target rifle, this is IMHO, the best “family” of mid-power barrel-cocking springers ever made. The R8 is one of the prettiest of the bunch and I can’t imagine you won’t love it.
Here are some of the 55s Scott Blair reconditioned for me. They are certainly functional works of art. I especially like the 55M. I sold the two tyros.
I've had a number of challenges with my R8 for over three decades but think I finally have figured things out a couple of weeks ago, so this thread has been timed perfectly! First of all, in my R8 the receiver insert/shelf that the barrel breach rests on was crooked/rotated from level, so the barrel ledge was resting just on the insert corner. Please see:
I also found that the way I closed the barrel made a difference; I found much more consistent lockup if I closed the barrel to the point where the barrel detent touched the receiver insert and then snapped the barrel up the for the final part of the closing. Simply swinging the barrel closed did not work so well. My break barrel air rifles needed a tighter barrel pivot hinge. I read that the barrel hinge should be loose enough to just allow the barrel to just start falling in an uncocked gun, but both my R8 and FWB 124 seem to do better with a slightly tighter barrel hinge. These observations may be obvious to more experienced airgunners, but they weren't so obvious to me until pretty recently. Last week I shot my R8 with Air Arms Falcon pellets. Please find below six five-shot groups at 20 yards, including a 30-shot composite that superimposed all the groups, with my R8 shot off sandbags. My R8 wears a Nikon 3-9x40 EFR. I'm pretty happy with the results!
I appreciated reading your posts on the R8 and hope that my addition is also interesting/helpful.
Yes it is - or more to the point, both the HW 55 and the R8 were derived from the original HW 50.
All the basic parts (barrel, receiver, basic breech block forging, trigger module, etc.) are exactly the same between the original HW 50, and the HW 55. The 55 just added some refinements to make it a dedicated target rifle:
Heavier target-style stock. Several different styles were made over the years.
Usually supplied with the diopter-type match rear sight of course.
Trigger pull is lighter, accomplished by a lighter blade-return spring and hand-polished sears. Later 55’s also have unique locking sleeve on the trigger weight adjuster screw.
Lighter mainspring, to reduce recoil and take velocity down nearer 600 FPS.
The 55 retained a leather piston seal much longer than any of HW’s sporter rifles - the factory believed it gave smoother shooting. Some late 55’s did have a synthetic seal though.
Unlike the R8 and other late-model HW 50’s, no 55 ever had a safety.
Most famously, the 55 uses a manual breech locking lever, in lieu of the 50’s auto detent. This includes a very closely-fit breech block with leather breech seal, small “mini-latch” in the receiver face (to hold the barrel up while you grab the lever), and the ability to adjust the tension in the barrel-locking cam.
Please write that book, I hate to see your knowledge go by the way side. We could all benefit from your knowedge.
As I have mention before, I would be the first in line!
Cheers,
Mike, I most definitely second this! Would love to see your knowledge of the vintage springers put into a printed book. Including lots of your wonderful photos! I'm sure it would be something of great interest to us current lovers of the spring guns as well as those of the future.
After getting an email asking about my R8, I decided to do some more testing. My R8 isn't my most accurate air rifle, probably due to its relatively light weight, but I was really impressed by the uniformity of the muzzle velocity. Please take a look at the attached photo showing six 5-shot groups from my R8 at 20 yards from the bench. The QYS Domes seem to work as well as any pellet that I tried before. Please take a look at the muzzle velocity readings for the 30 shots, to the right of the target card. The standard deviation is only 1.8 fps! This is as good as (and for some pellets a lot better than) my Anschutz 2002 CA PCP and FWB 300S match air rifles! My R8 uses a Vortek tune kit, but the low spread in muzzle velocity was there before I installed the kit and works for just about all the pellet brands that I tried. I've also tested a Walther LGU and LGV, and a FWB 124 (all of which are more accurate than my R8 at 20 yards), but have never seen such low muzzle velocity spreads. Of course, the higher power rifles are shooting at around 800 fps instead of the R8's 700 fps, but even if I normalize the standard deviation to be a fraction of the muzzle velocity, the R8 still comes out way ahead. Are you also seeing this? Is there something special about the R8 design or manufacture that makes this possible?
Thanks,
John
PS there were no warm up shots before the string of 30 shots was taken.
It's really been superseded by the do anything HW99/50. I do prefer the "Not really a Goudy" stock on my R8 to the Louisville Slugger beech billboard on the HW99's so I already bought an ARH walnut stock (before he sold out) for the HW50 that I haven't even purchased yet. I will be looking for one without the etched warnings. No rush. One will find it's way here. 177.
The "just a big heavy and twangy R7" R8 will still be here. Collectors are welcome to keep driving the R8 price up!
Four variation on original HW50 theme: picture worth thousand words?
The one on the bottom! I have been searching for a while for an HW35 with that stock. Had one. Sold it. Never should have. Love that stock. A 55 in that wood must be airgun gold!
I like mine so much that I treated it to multiple upgrades: JM stock and all the Paul Watts goodies available. This was my first Beeman / HW and is still one of my favorites.
For fun, I've also included one of it's cousins from the early 50s.
Mine was my second real air gun after a Diana T03 model 24. It was used and came with a Beeman peep. Many years and 25 air rifles later, and it is still my favorite, and with NO SCOPE. I put in a JM kit and once put in a bit more powerful spring, but came back to the perfection of high 600fps shooting.
