Webley Hurricane

[zooma]

I picked up a Webley Hurricane today, but when I got home I found that the rear sight was not the usual plastic type - it was a cast alloy one that had the height adjuster screw missing - maybe it came off of a different type of Webley air rifle as it is a very similar shape and it does fit onto the Hurricane body - but it is the wrong item for the Hurricane and it sits a little too low.

Chambers offer a complete rear sight assembly for a Hurricane for £25 new - but they are out of stock - does anybody have one they would like to part with by any chance?

[zooma]

Following a little research and some reference to Chris Thraile's Webley Air Rifles book I have identified the metal sight fitted to the Hurricane I acquired yesterday as the type fitted to the Webley Omega and later Eclipse, Excell and Patriot air rifles - hence the family resemblance!

I have had a very old and rough early type Hurricane (with the original longer type barrel) for quite some time - but the rear sights are complete so I have transferred these for the time being so I can shoot this recent addition to the fleet until I can find a replacement Hurricane rear sight to fit it.

Meanwhile I fitted the Omega rear sight back onto my scruffy old type Hurricane - and that was a bit of an eye-opener but kept me amused for a few hours as I sorted-out the unexpected little problems this "simple swap" provided to entertain and challenge me.

[zooma]

The Omega rear sight was removed from my most recently acquired Hurricane - it was held on by two very short cap head screws that were scrunched into the pistol body in the same original sights mounting holes. I use the word "scrunched" as they had the wrong thread!

These screws were so short they could never have held the rear sight securely, but being so short they mercifully seem to have done no damage to the pistol as the correct bolts that I transferred with the sight from my much older model fitted well and showed no signs of distress.

The "borrowed" rear sight just dropped straight on and the pistol is now complete and looks quite smart although it is far from being a perfect example of the breed and it is also a .22 so when I can get my old early type .177 Hurricane another sight to replace this one I will be able to compare and see the differences when shooting both types.

[zooma]

My old .177 Webley Hurrricane was probably one of the original types that was made before they shortened the length of the barrel and it had never been one of my favourite Webley's as the trigger was so stiff and heavy, so I took the trigger parts out of the body just before tea and checked them over.

Everything looked OK and then I had one of those "senior moments" when I could not see which way around the sear should be re-fitted so I went down for some tea - and when I returned all was clear and everything dropped back into place.

Surprisingly the trigger now feels much better - smoother and lighter - not sure why though so maybe it had been put back incorrectly by a previous owner?

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I accepted my good fortune and put a couple of drops of SAE30 engine oil into the trigger and sear assembly and turned my attention to rigging up some sort of a rear sight so I could shoot the pistol whilst waiting to find one of the correct type.

Now the trigger felt so much better I wished I had not removed the rear sight and donated it to the recent .22 Hurricane earlier that afternoon so naturally my thoughts drifted towards the Omega sight I had removed from it.

The height adjusting screw was missing from the Omega rear sight unit and the stripped thread in the hole that it once occupied may just provide some clues as to why it was missing I found a reasonably large flat headed M4 screw with a slot head in my oddments box and cut a new thread to fit it so the rear sight can now be adjusted for height.

Removing the top half of the Omega sight (so I could cut the new thread in the base unit) showed the soft roll pin used as an axle was bent and deformed so I cut a short length of piano wire I had bought from http://www.rossmod.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for another job and selected a suitable sized number drill to open out the two castings to accept the new hinge pin with a good tight friction fit.

The bottom of the castings were rough and looked like they had a serrated skirt along the bottom edges - obviously Webley made no effort to clean the castings up before painting them so a 6" fine file was used to de-burr them and remove the sharp edges before reassembly.

Then I discovered that I did not have any suitable screws to fix it to the pistol with ! I have plenty of M3 and M4 screws but one was too big and the other too small .......maybe they are M3.5 or maybe they are still an imperial BA size - I have no idea - I just knew I had nothing to fit it.

My attention drifted away again but this time in the direction of the light switch on the wall. The two faceplate retaining screws were found to fit OK and the pistol threads were surprisingly deep, so I adjusted the length of these two screws to be as long as possible and fitted the Omega sight to the pistol.

[zooma]

Having fixed the light switch back on the wall I could not wait to test the pistol with the lashed-up rear sight to see if I could shoot it until I can find a genuine rear sight to fit it.

I don't know if everybody is aware of this but the first Hurricane pistols had longer barrels and these also had a lower front sight casting. These barrels were soon replaced with slightly shorter ones that were used for the production life of the pistol and later a higher front sight casting was added to "accommodate shorter distance shooting".

As the Omega sight is a little lower that the proper Hurricane type I was hopeful that it would work for me at 6 yards as I had already started dreaming about using it in the next 6 yard MPL postal competition.

When I shot it on my yard garage range it worked just fine so the combination works OK and it does not look too bad either.

Now I have this early type .177 Hurricane working with a semi-decent trigger I think I will try to find one of the early type front shrouds and perhaps even get the barrel re-finished so it looks a little bit tidier although I doubt I will go as far as to completely strip it and get the main frame epoxy coated again..............but if I did I could end up with a mint example of an early type Hurricane rather than the rough example I have now

First I need to find a rear sight and if possible an early type front shroud and if this is achieved then I might just go the extra mile and fully restore it for future generations to take care of.

I forgot to mention that I needed to remove the grips to access the rear roll pin that needed to be drifted out to remove the trigger parts and found that the grips had been glued to the mainframe by a previous owner as the central mounting hub of the r/h grip moulding had been torn-out Needless to say I did not re-fit them but scraped away the epoxy from the mainframe and borrowed a set of grips from my Tempest.

.......anybody got a spare r/h grip (or a pair) from a Tempest or a Hurricane they would like to sell me by any chance?

[pmh]

Around the same time as the Hurricane was released, there was the original Typhoon.

Without getting my books out, I don't recall the differences, but the Typhoon was the cheaper of the two.

I think this ws more aimed at juniors, with the Hurricane being for seniors.

Webley have, of course, released a break barrel pistol also called the Typhoon.

I am not sure why companies reuse a name, as this does cause some confusion. BSA are also guilty of this with the Scorpion.

Now that I have reminded Bob about the Typhoon I expect to see one soon.

Kind regards,



Phil

[zooma]

The Typhoon was the same pistol as the Hurricane but it has smaller (brown coloured) grips and a softer main spring and was supposed to replace the Junior that had been dropped.

Neither the Hurricane or the Typhoon were very successful at capturing the publics imagination or the sales for Webley so they rapidly chopped the back off of the Hurricane/Typhoon main frame casting to create the Tempest that was a much more successful pistol that is still in production today!

The Nemesis SSP came after the Tempest - but that never had much of a life span either and the Tempest has gone on to outlive it and maybe it will do the same to the Alecto as well?

[zooma]

After shooting a very impressive card with my old .177 Hurrricane/Omega the next card was not so good and those that followed were even worse!

The nicely punched round holes became torn slits but the pistol seemed to be well up on power and so at this moment I have no answers.

The torn targets suggest the pellets may not be going in straight - usually a sign of low power - any ideas?

[Certus]

Hello,

As you rightly say, elongated entry holes in the target would seem to indicate a tumbling pellet usually due to low power. It would be nice to establish this beyond doubt by putting a few shots through a chronograph, but otherwise, I guess it's just down to the usual process of elimination starting with the breech washer and ending with internal lubrication and replacement of the piston washer if necessary.

Regards

Brian.

[wmp50075]

i shoot in my garage and now the colder nights are upon us i start to also notice irregular or torn holes after a short period. i always thought that it was due to the target card/paper becoming a little damp/cold and so not producing regular holes. just a theory!

[zooma]

i shoot in my garage and now the colder nights are upon us i start to also notice irregular or torn holes after a short period. i always thought that it was due to the target card/paper becoming a little damp/cold and so not producing regular holes. just a theory!

You could be right about that as the same thought crossed my mind as well - and maybe the accompanying spread was due to the shooter getting very cold and not the pistol playing-up !

Further testing with new targets from my nice dry office and with a warm shooter should help to confirm this - or rule it out of the equation.