The Mysterious East!

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RobinC
The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:58 pm

Want to see something different?

Another masterpiece of recovered history from the workshop of Tank!


Patience, it will be worth waiting!

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:38 am

No guesses?

I had heard of these, never seen one, or seen one for sale either before or after I aquired this one. The only reports on them contrarary to what people expected were remarkable.
It came out of the blue, a club member had had one for years and no one knew he had it, he asked me to repair it which was my first sight of it.
After a quick basic part strip it was apparant that this had suffered the ravages of the worst type of bodger, one who thinks he know more than the designer and had modded it. It needed spares which were unavailable from the manufacturer, but if the rumours were true there may be a way? Other parts would possibly need to be manufactured.
Now, I'm not a collector, the 9 air pistols That I have all reflect my target shooting career, they are either my originals bought new from my 1972 FWB 65 or others bought to replace ones that I used and foolishly sold such as my FAS 604 and my Walther CP1 which had to go as it was on FAC at the time, now replaced with a CP2, through to my beloved Walther LPM-1 and my current Steyrs. But this thing I had to have, it was an ingenious masterpiece, it had a place in my shooting career, it was rare and I was besotted, I paid well over the odds to buy this non working example!

I had a plan for the repair but quickly realised that this was not just a simple repair but a full restoration required and if the parts I hoped to get were not available or did not work out it could come to quick stop and require parts to be made, it needed an experienced restorer with enginering capability. My pal Bob knew just the man, Graham! It was duly packed off to him.
I heard nothing, had he thrown it in the bin in disgust? Had he collapsed into a corner with a bottle, gibbering? Or was he as exited as me at this rare example? Slowly the word came back through Bob that not only was it possible, but it was in progress, and each report was more positive.

You are still going to have to wait until Graham is ready to reveal it but I'm sure you will be impressed not only with his workmanship (and ingenuity!) but with the pistol itself.

zooma
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Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by zooma » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:08 pm

I would like to let everyone know exactly what this mysterious thingy is..........but I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I won't :whistle:

However, cryptic clues often add even more intrigue and help to build the interest still further so here is your first cryptic clue and I will suggest another from time to time to see if any of our budding Clueso's can crack the case before the official reveal :-
Last edited by zooma on Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Feinwerkbau P40 Tricolour wanted.........still !
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zooma
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Cryptic Clue

Post by zooma » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:13 pm

You may already think you know this mysterious object probably comes from the east - but you may need to look further around the globe to find the origin of this little beauty :think:
Last edited by zooma on Tue Nov 26, 2013 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Feinwerkbau P40 Tricolour wanted.........still !
http://www.bobsairguns .com - proud to host the RMTC site since April 2011.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:37 am

For the Poirot's the clues are in my second post, besides which east? The orient, the eastern bloc, and I live in the east of England?

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Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by pmh » Tue Nov 26, 2013 10:36 am

Difficult to hazard a guess, as I am sure some Rolls Rope collectors will still have a passion for Robin Reliants and may have one in their collection.

I would expect any gun owned by Robin would have a target association, rather than something like a Russian made Gat gun.

Kind regards,



Phil
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I now have so many airguns I've had to make a list, which is >>HERE<<
>>North Manchester Target Club<<

zooma
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Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by zooma » Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:09 am

Not necessarily - Robin has already posted on another thread that he has had a Webley Premier from new and still has it with it''s original box.......so maybe he also likes to collect odd non-target related as well?
Feinwerkbau P40 Tricolour wanted.........still !
http://www.bobsairguns .com - proud to host the RMTC site since April 2011.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:17 am

If any one thinks they know they can PM me so it does not spoil the game!

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Re: Cryptic Clue - 2.

Post by zooma » Sun Dec 01, 2013 11:01 am

zooma wrote:You may already think you know this mysterious object probably comes from the east - but you may need to look further around the globe to find the origin of this little beauty :think:
The first cryptic clue did not produce any correct answers so how about another one to help the grey matter get into gear?

"Eastern it may be - but it may have some German influence - and maybe even have some connection with the midlands".
Feinwerkbau P40 Tricolour wanted.........still !
http://www.bobsairguns .com - proud to host the RMTC site since April 2011.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:06 am

Its actually not just got influence from four different countries, but from three continents, Asia, North America, and Europe.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:06 pm

Now the secret is out! Its a Huanqui built in the Sichuan provence of China as a clone of the Feinwerkbau 65 match pistol initialy in the late 80's and continued into the early 90's.
There were upwards of 5 different factories in China who had a go at making a 65 copy, initialy those were from Shanghai at the instigation of an American company. Some were not so good and the Shanghai versions were in that category but the Sichuan versions were reputed to be as good as the FWB ( we shall see!!)
The version I have is a Sichuan built Huanqui comisioned by Titan Devlopments of Birmingham, now demised, I bought it non working but the faults were not so much Chinese faults as from idiot gunsmiths who had no understanding of the working principles and had modified (bodged) the mechanism, that and that it had been well used and abused, so had the same ravages that a 65 would have had had it been equaly abused. The whole thing has been passed to Graham for his expert attention.

Visualy it looks no different to a FWB 65 other than it had Chinese script, the grip is very similar to the FWB anotomical grip but I believe was produced by Titan and carries the Titan mark.
It came with what was once a nice case and that has also been restored by Graham, I also have a copy of Guns Review from when it was new with a test from them, reading it I gather the tester is not much of a target pistol shooter but the test is quite favourable. I also have a test from the USA which is similar.

I don't consider myself a collector, my so called collection is the rifles and pistols tha my wife and I have used over our 40 year shooting career (and still going), we just mostly kept the guns we used when we moved on to newer and better, so we have a history of what we have done.
I shot a FWB 65 in the UK and abroad, I bought mine new and I still have it, when the Huanqiu was new I would have sneered at it as cheap copy, now I'm fascinated to see how it shapes up to the real thing. Graham is working on the restoration, and when its all complete Bob will test it and photograph it for Bobs airguns site. I have foolishly promised that I will shoot at least one round of the MPL with it, so best I get training, but then if I shoot rubish I can always blame it on the Chinese copy!

zooma
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Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by zooma » Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:22 pm

I think it should hold together long enough for you to complete all of the next seasons MPL series.

6 cards per month January to June total 36 cards with 5 shots on each = 216 shots. It should be able to cope with this workload and if you get the cards shot on time we can all meet in July on the Daffodil in Liverpool to give it a fitting send-off :whistle:

..............it would be a shame to waste all of that boyancy foam !
Feinwerkbau P40 Tricolour wanted.........still !
http://www.bobsairguns .com - proud to host the RMTC site since April 2011.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:04 am

I expected the jokes to follow the Chinese take away line, very satisfying to shoot but an hour later you need to do more?
This was built actualy in a time when the FWB had been super ceeded so they did miss the boat and probably why FWB did not seem to be concerned about it. The request for them came from the US and the UK and I wonder if they had a home market?
I'm interested in modern shooting, and the Chinese and other orientals are now really into it in a big way and making a big impact in World Cups, Olympics, and World Championships, which means there will be massive numbers competing in their own countries, currently they use European equipment but I'm sure the time is nigh for them to build their own modern state of the art pistols and rifles.
An article I found on the world wide thing on the replica's is

http://www.ihmsa.org/tom/techarticles/Axelrod%20Air.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's a bit American, and some of the info is wrong but its a guide.
Robin

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Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by zunmik » Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:41 pm

Seems like they had some interesting versions in New Zealand of the Titan!, M. :think:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=131
WALTHER LP3],Etc[/b], G0JVB ex G6MUI.

RobinC

Re: The Mysterious East!

Post by RobinC » Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:11 pm

Hi Zunmik
The problem was there were several diferent Chinese companies that made 65 replicas's, so its a bit difficult to determine which were which, and as they were only marked in chinese script, and some were crap and fell apart, this one the Huanqiu made in Sichuan was requested and imported by Titan. I know from reports that the real bad ones came from Shanghai so its hopefull this is one of the better ones.
From the research I did it looks like Titan produced back engineered drawings from stripped FWB's and had parts made first as FWB spares and then complete guns.They put it to 5 compainies before they found one who could work to satisfactory standards and tolerances so it will be intersting to see how it shapes up. I did not do much before I lost interest and realised it needed a detailed rebuild but it looked to me to be a reasonable quality and I'm a bit fussy. Graham says its close enough to use original FWB parts but it will be interesting to see what he thinks when he posts the comparison of parts.
The bodge ups on this one were from a UK "gunsmith" who did not realise it was suposed to slide! He would have done the same to a FWB65!
I only bought it as I started target in '72 with a FWB65 which I still have so it was of interest and it is a bit different. I promised Bob I'd shoot it in the MPL so I hope it works well, although I've not shot pistol for three years so I'm stacking up my excuses!

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