Hammerli 230 short

[John Ariani]

I have an opportunity to own a hannerli 230 short. It's is good condition.
I know nothing about this pistol and finding it very hard to get some good general basic information.
For example:
Can it be dry fired?
Can it be converted to 'long'?
Does it have a safety catch?
Where can I get a copy of the manual for it?
What was , back in it's day, the trigger weight used for rapid fire, the trigger appears to be very light on this one.
I have managed to download a couple of useful pages from our host site,
but really need more.
If anyone has any useful bits of information that would halp making using the pistol more enjoyable, please post. Thanks.

[Tycho]

The 230 was a specialized .22 short RF. The mag is not deep enough to contain .22lr rounds, so forget about converting it. The 230 has gas ports that lead from right-in-front-of-the-chamber towards the muzzle - good idea, but not really practicable, they get dirty way too fast. That's why Hammerli went to the 232, which is shorter and has a conventionally ported barrel. I wouldn't expect a safety catch on it, although US regulations lead to all kind of strange technical solutions in the past, so one can't be sure about it. The standard European version sure had none. Early 230s have a spring loaded hard rubber above the hand, which when released compressed the shooting hand and stabilizes the gun. That was outlawed pretty fast by the ISSF. Parts for the 230 are very hard to come by, as a RFP it wasn't especially successful, the .22 short has availability problems and isn't shot in any ISSF comps anymore - I'd say you have a potential collector's piece there, nothing more. Standard 230s goe for 99 Euros nowadays on egun...

[jacques b gros]

Had one in the 70's. It was worked on by Terry Anderson, cutting the trigger guard and straitening and elongating the trigger blade, plus polishing sear.

Never seen such a wonderfull trigger. Pistol was great for 8 and 6 seconds shooting, with centered tens. But 4 secs was a impossibility. Even with a personalized grip (the original was like the 160 free pistol: a piece of wood.) most of the times the gun was out of position when raised.

Used a IGI Domino latter. Funny: 8 and 6 secs shots were still tens, but not in the middle like the 230, but the 4 secs was great: always in position in the first shot.

[Guest]

Hi friends-
How can I get one Hammerli 230?
How much does it cost?
Thanks

[Nev C]

I have an opportunity to own a hannerli 230 short. It's is good condition.

Hi John, why would you want to? You can't shoot it at any matches.

[Guest]

Hi John, why would you want to? You can't shoot it at any matches.

If I was asked that, my response would be....(pick one or more)

1. You can never have too many guns;
2. Always fun to have a new and different toy;
3. Occasional NRA bullseye match or league night;
4. You can never have too many guns.

[John Ariani]

True Nev, but you're basing your comments on being an australian.
I did get this gun which included 10K of short amo and it's provided a cheap way to practice rapid and othr 25m events - admittedly with very little gun recoil.
Based in Brunei at the moment and in local club shoots no-0ne is particulary fussed about whether your shooting with a short or not either.

[Nev C]

True Nev, but you're basing your comments on being an australian.
I did get this gun which included 10K of short amo and it's provided a cheap way to practice rapid and othr 25m events - admittedly with very little gun recoil.
Based in Brunei at the moment and in local club shoots no-0ne is particulary fussed about whether your shooting with a short or not either.

Hi John, fair enough.
I wish the ISSF had not changed the rules on rapid fire, I wound up giving my OSP away, nobdy wanted it.
There was no minimum trigger weight on the old RF pistols.

[deadeyedick]

I purchased one new, back in the late 70's or early 80's, but found it to be a poorly balanced and fairly unreliable pistol. I'm afraid I would not want to own one again even if it were given to me.