tirpassion wrote:I was wondering if our esteemed member Mr Ulrich Eichstädt, head of communications in Carl Walther, could throw some light on this subject.
We, the AP40 users, would highly appreciate.
Old Uli is still on holidays, the Umarex company,too, for the rest of this week. I've read the first postings in this thread at the start and now updated myself - but what could I say resp. write about all these developments, that wouldn't be put in the "oh, marketing rubbish"-corner from the first word on, independent if true or not.
I tell you what: When I joined VISIER gun magazine in dec 1987, my first gun review (published in issue 2/1988) was a comparison test of (then) modern .22 sport pistols: Hämmerli 208 S, Walther GSP, Erma ESP 85, Sako TriAce - and the brand new Hämmerli 280. We were proud to be the first gun magazine worldwide to test this (then) innovative pistol, the first one with a carbon-fiber enforced(? right word?) system housing. I personally estimated, that the 280 would soon outrun the GSP - but in germany many shooters wanted to stay with steel or at least aluminium pistols. The 208 S had bocome an "Oldie" because of it's non consistent sight line and the magazine in the grip. The 280 never was a big success, although it was available as .32 version also (like GSP, Erma, TriAce, too), which attracted a lot of buyers.
At that spring 1988 I was invited to Hämmerli in Lenzburg/Switzerland for the ceremony of the 125th anniversary. I saw the company, met the people there and learned, how they invented guns: already part of the SIG corporation group, they got info from all divisions of the group, from the mining specialists to the package designers - and of course a lot of old-fashioned gunsmiths and engineers, who just had got their final examination and straight started at Hämmerli. The chief-designer Christian Bomatter was the (then) youngest gun-designer of all comparable factories - and I was thinking: If I'm ever gonna leave VISIER, a job at Hämmerli would be my goal (second choice: Umarex, and today I'm in charge for both companies...)
But Hämmerli today is only a label, a brand without own factory, own employees etc. But that's not the fault of the Umarex-management - a lot of really bad management mistakes, after Ferdinand Hediger had retired as CEO. Karl Wäldele, a man of genius and head of the german daughter company Hämmerli Deutschland, was supposed to follow him as CEO but died from cancer way too early - I've met only a few people in the gun branch during all these years with such a charisma.
New guns weren't developed, the current models were cut down to the lowest costs, which obviously causes quality problems. Switzerland was also not the country of coice, if you want to produce cheap(er) guns. In fact Hämmerli was already dead, when the moved to Neuhausen, when they were sold as part of a package together with some other gun comanies and when they finally were offered for sale again, left with only the brand and the license to use and continue the six left models in 2006:
SP 20: not on a competitive basis with the top .22 pistols then, like Morini, Pardini, Feinwerkbau and of course still the Walther GSP.
X-Esse with some variants: very popular, but no match gun
AP 40: excellent, but (in 2006) one more air pistol in a field of approx a dozen other and often cheaper match air pistols.
Air rifle AR 50: popular in south america, but no chance in europe (also due to the fact, that before the sale Hämmerli stopped the international service at big competitions, and some top Hämmerli shooters were nearly forced to swith to another brand, becuase their rifles weren't serviced any more (Gaby Bühlmann f.e. shot her world record of 400 of 400 points with an AR 50 - and at some of the next World Cups the rifle had malfunctions and couldn't be fixed)
Air rifle AR 30: an entry-level air rifle, which went (with a lot of modifications!) as AR 30 into the Walther program. The actual Hämmerli AR20 resembles the AR30, but is a complete new development with some adopted (because good) features like the aluminium stock and parts of the loading system.
FP 60 was designed by SAM and had some performance problems from the start - Walther redesigned the housing (which was open on one side and was twistetd within the shot), changed the barrel and renamed it as Walther FP 60
For these six models and some obsolete guns (208, 280, AR 450, 480, 480K etc.) there were some containers (not many!) with spare parts, which were brought from Neuhausen to Ulm, where a part of the new Walther factory building was reserved for Hämmerli. All the parts were counted, checked and integrated into the running Walther spare parts system (some of you may know, that things like that are never easy). In fact only five or six employees agreed to follow from Switzerland (or Tiengen) to Ulm, after a short time only two were left, today only one: Karl-Heinz Wilhelm, the service wizzard, who has long retired but agreed to provide service at international competitions further on. There was a barrel-cutting machine within the transferred machinery, made by Hämmerli people years ago and really unique - but there was no one left to use it.
So, and now I can read here very clever advices from other users, Hämmerli resp. Walther/Umarex should have done this and that, should have sold spare parts for higher prices (look for other discussions here about cylinder prices of other companies, they should obviously be sold for free... but that's totally different... ;) ). I won't argue against it, because that leads to nothing than exchanging long postings like mine here. But I really get angry if someone argues, that the current situation is caused by Umarex and that the managers wouldn't care about this - and I would write the same, when I would still be an independent gun writer.
Walther has it's own management, which is of course somehow indirect dependent of the mother company. But they still try to keep competition shooting as a vivid part of their business. This includes spare parts as long as there are in stock. To annoy really true Hämmerli (or Walther) fans like you here by simply cutting off this or that model wouldn't be clever - but from time to time some important spare parts will surely run out, and one has to calculate, if it is possible and affordable(!) to run a new (re)production. One example: there are certain seals in airguns, which have been bought from a supplier years ago for some cents per piece. If you want to place a new order with only some pieces, the price will go up to 15 Euros for a simple seal! Most customers won't pay that for "a simple seal". The Walther people know from hard experience in the company crisis in the late 1980's, how important a stock of spare parts is. But what's gone, that is gone.
I have personally no knowledge of "Walther dumbed the existing NOS ( New Old Stock) parts by selling them off for pennies on the dollar" - mail me a proof and I will check that. Presumably there have been some dealers who took the chance to buy larger amounts? In another thread here on Target Talk you can read that we have just send a 5 mm short spring for a LP400 trigger nearly around the world (for free), and I have encountered the effective way Walther handles customer problems even before I joined the company.
To come to the end of my Hämmerli story, reader's digest version: if
really everyone, who claims to be a Hämmerli-fan since at least 1863, would have bought regularly a new Hämmerli gun, things would surely look different today. They are still a lot of excellent looking and shooting Hämmerli guns around, as part of a collection (like in the MOMA), these guns can (especially Free Pistols) can outperform some pretty newer pistols in the hands of a top shooter. With PCP guns and the limited lifetime of cylinders it's a bit different (we can discuss if this makes sence in another thread, and most of you will surely have done so).
Back to the origin of this thread (and lunch is waiting...): For the AP40 there are (in contrary to some rumours) some cylinders left for sale at least in germany. There are also conversion kits from old 480 K to AP40, a cylinder and all necessary parts included - but it takes approx one hour labor time and you have to know what you're doing (f.e. cutting of parts of the front sight base). The price
in germany for this conversion kit is around 390 Euro (90 € labor time) - and I must admit that even I would also calculate buying a complete new air pistol.
