Westlake .177 Pellet Pistol

Westlake .177 Pellet Pistol

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When Mr. Completely decides to enter a shooting competition, cost is absolutely NO object. Case in point, the current e-Postal match "Jack-N-Jill" has a class for pistols with a bore less than .200".

Seeking out the most sophisticated and accurate pellet pistol he could buy, Mr. Completely settled on the custom crafted high precision Westlake in .177 caliber. Spending nineteen ninety five for a handgun is a lot for Mr. Completely, but "What the heck" he figured, "you can't win without a good gun!" Counting sales tax, the total came to almost twenty-two bucks.

Gotta have good ammo, too, so he plunked down another buck ninety-nine for a box of 250 pellets.

Before putting the new weapon into competition, however, a few things needed to be done. First, the trigger. A round file took care of the sharp edges on the trigger itself, so shooting the Westlake would not require stitches to close the wound in your trigger finger.

Next, check the trigger pull. The tests were inconclusive, as an accurate measurement was not possible. (I wonder if that pull gauge is still under warrantee? It really shouldn't have broken like that, I'd say.) A 25 pound fish scale was pressed into service, and after a couple of tests, the decision was made that a little trigger work might be in order.

The trigger feel was also a little rough. Well, a LOT rough. You know what it feels like when you pull the tailgate latch on an old pickup truck to drop the tailgate? It felt a lot like that.

It didn't take long to strip the little Westlake down, as the screw that goes through the grip up into the frame had already fallen out. It was kinda like a long sheet-rock screw, and the hole it went into was already stripped out. The four other grip screws, two on each side, seemed to be holding everything together OK, so I guess the grip screw isn't really needed.

How about that! Designed-in redundancy to make it even more reliable! Yep, quality all the way. I'll bet Glock doesn't do that...

After a couple of hours of polishing, smoothing, grinding, and hammering, the trigger pull had been noticably lightened, and it felt more like the tailgate latch on a small japanese pickup, rather than the tailgate of some world war two military vehicle. Put 'er back together and lets get out to the range.

A couple of shots into a cardboard box at point blank range determined that several layers of cardboard were sufficient to contain the mighty impact of the tiny hypersonic pellet.

Time to sight 'er in! I posted a target, cocked it, loaded a pellet, and squeezed one off. "poonk". "Hmmm", no hole in the paper. Got closer. Tried it again. "poonk". Still no hole in the paper. Got to within about five feet, and tried again. "poonk". A little hole appeared at the edge of the paper. Again, "Hmmmm".

Sometimes a photograph can fool you, but if you look in the above photo, it kinda looks like the barrel is pointed down, compared to the "receiver". It's not an illusion. That's cuz, well, it is. By a LOT. Way out of the range of adjustment on the rear sight.

I'm sure at the factory the realise that REAL competitive shooters use custom sights anyway! I just removed the rear sight entirely, and screwed in a slotted head screw into one of the sight retention screw holes. The slot in the head of the screw worked perfectly as a rear sight. I can now adjust elevation with my fingers! Bet you can't do that on a Glock, either!

Now that it's been dialed in as a competition "mean machine" I'm ready to go. Hang up the "Jack-N-Jill" targets, count out twenty pellets, and have at it!

Just nothing like using good tools!!

I won't post my targets as I don't want to scare off all the other shooters.........