Hy-Score Miscellaneous

Hy-Score Patent Information.

With thanks to Peter for this scan of research by Dennis Commins.

Hy-Score air pistol in American Rifleman 1948.

With thanks to John M for these pics:

Hy-Score target model case.

With thanks to Steve for these pics:

Hy-Score air pistol owners leaflet.

With thanks to John for these scans:

Hy-Score air pistol care instructions 

With thanks to Ken

Phoenix/Hy-Score Sporter ad

Hy-Score Target model instructions 

With thanks to Ken.

Mk2 Hy-Score Sporter brochure 

With thanks to Harvey.

Hy-Score rotary magazine 

With thanks to Steve.

Hy-Score 6-shot repeater owner's instructions 

With thanks to Steve.

Hy-Score 6-shot repeater instructions etc (videos) 

Hy-Score leather holster 

With thanks to Randy.

Note Hy-Score is mis-spelled!

Hy-Score introduction from Blue Book of Airguns 

HY-SCORE ARMS CORPORATION : HY-SCORE PISTOL DESIGN Steve Laszlo was an expert marketer, but he was not a designer. About 1940, he asked his brother, Andrew Lawrence (nee Laszlo), an engineer in applied mechanics, to develop a compact, modern high-powered air pistol. See Ref: Lawrence (1969). Andrew designed the gun to be produced without the forgings and leather seals typical of contemporary air pistols, to have a light, good trigger action, and to look like a firearm. A desire for easy cocking, no pumping, and reliability dictated a spring piston powerplant. His Stanford University research paper, which outlined the development of this pistol, discussed the pros and cons of the Zenit, Webley, Diana, and Haenel spring piston airguns. He settled on the concentric piston design found in the English Acvoke, Warrior, Westley Richards, and Abas-Major air pistols. These pistols are conspicuous by their lack of any mention in Andrew´s paper and he dismissed consideration of English patents as "too costly." Concentric piston airguns use the barrel as a guide for a piston snugly fitted around it. The concentric powerplant allowed for a very long, powerful mainspring and a long barrel, conducive to both high power and accuracy, in a rather compact pistol. World War II delayed production until about 1946. Hy-Score advertised their new pistols as the world´s most powerful airguns, with the accuracy of an air rifle, and the looks and feel of a Luger. Andrew was skilled in automotive engineering; so instead of the conventional leather seals, the first Hy-Score CP pistols used automotive-type steel piston rings made by the Perfect Circle Co., expected to be good for a lifetime of normal use. (The seals were later changed to o-rings when the steel piston rings proved to be a maintenance problem.) The solid, durable grips were made of Tenite, a new plastic from General Electric. Steel blocks cast into the grip provided excellent heft and balance. The trigger system is unique and deserves special mention. Rather than having the full pressure of the mainspring bear on the sear, Lawrence designed a special "servo-mechanism" to enable the shooter to apply relatively little pressure to very smoothly release the shot. A "dry practice" feature allowed the shooter to slightly open the gun, without cocking the mainspring, to set the trigger for practice trigger pulls. Lawrence´s genius is revealed by the loading mechanism. The loading gate is a very ingenious camera-shutter system, which, in the repeater version, is coupled with one of the cleverest projectile feeding mechanisms in the world of gun design. When the breech cap is turned by the shooter, six little steel cylinders cam their way around, like bumper cars at a carnival, to each feed their contained pellet into the firing chamber. This mechanism apparently has never been duplicated in any other gun. The body tube is a very sturdy, drawn steel tube which, in the later models, is smoothly tapered down to form the barrel profile. The frame is a smooth stamping. Engraving-style, stamped scroll markings were added to the frame at approximately serial number 850,000. An excellent blue finish was standard. Chrome plating was an extra cost option and is rarely seen. The various Hy-Score CP air pistol models all used the same basic mechanism and frame. The key differences were in single vs. repeater mechanism, finish, grip color, barrel style, and barrel length. The 700 and 800 model series appear to be fixed long-barrel single-shots, although what appears to be the visible barrel in the Model 700 is just a large-bore tube extending forward from the frame which contains a short barrel. The 802 is a fixed long-barrel repeater. The 803 Sportster is a short interchangeable-barrel single-shot. The 804 is a short fixed-barrel repeater. An "R" on the repeaters or an "S" on the Sportster models precedes serial numbers in the 800,000 range. Serial numbers over 900,000 are without the prefixes.