Hämmerli Match Air Rifle

Hämmerli Match Air Rifle.

With many thanks to Mark for these pics of his amazing collection.

In a post on the American Vintage Airgun Forum (reproduced with his permission), Mark said this:

Hammerli ‘Match’
Mod 472
.177 CO2 Match Rifle

Introduced by Hammerli in 1962 and produced alongside the ‘Junior’ ( More on that rifle later) right up to 1970. This rifle has a similar action to the ‘Master’ pistols, but is cocked by the use of the front trigger. The front trigger is really a lever that automatically pops up the loading port and sets the trigger, once the pellet is loaded it is pushed back down against light spring pressure and is ready for firing.
The triggers are finely adjustable and a delight to use

The rifles come with a rear dioptre and replaceable element font tunnel sight. A neat feature of the rear dioptre is that it can be folded forward, so that the shooter can easily change the CO2 bulb. These rifles all use the standard 12grm bulbs.

A barrel sleeve was also available as a option in varying weights. On all the examples that I have seen the charging assembly is the same as that on the ‘Master’ pistol and features an adjustable blow off setting, so that no low power shots can spoil a match card.

Some models of the rifle also came with a facility to use bulk fill by means of a tube that extends through the pistol grip, on some examples the drilling of the holes was not perfect and weakens the stock in its most vulnerable area, namely the grip.

The stocks have a distinctive cheek piece and are made from walnut. Hammerli to their credit also made the stocks with a left handed set up, at least I have one with a left handed factory stock. All the stocks came with 1.2kg of lead in the fore end that is removable

Whilst preparing the photographs I came across an anomaly that I have yet to understand. If you look at the pictures you will see that 1 of the rifles has a completely different cylinder length dimension to it. They all use the same valve, so I am puzzled why the change.