TargetTalk

Can any Hammerli 150 owners advise what ammo it requires? I'm thinking of buying one, used, but don't want to have to feed it Eley or other high cost euro ammo all the time. It's through an estate, out of town, clearly in good shape from the photos, but the owner who actually used it has passed on. I mainly use CCI SV thru my S&W Model 41, and a Rhoner Sportswaffen club-level free pistol (accurate but not so great trigger). There is no free pistol shooting where I live (Vancouver BC).

Free pistols will generally shoot almost any decent standard velocity ammo. If you get REALLY good, you might be able to tell the difference in accuracy otherwise only noticeable when shot from a rest.

The team I help coach has six Hammeli 160's, and I'm guessing that the barrel & chambers are largely the same as the 150. We have shot CCI, Aguila, Federal Gold Medal, Winchester T22, RWS Target Rifle & Target Pistol. Never had a huge problem with any of it. The lube on some ammos tend to gunk things up a bit faster than others, but function & accuracy at the scores collegiate shooters generally fire (450 to 520) is fine. The 6's that drag down the scores have nothing to do with ammo.

I like Aguila sub-sonic for my Morini because of the softer recoil.

Many thanks. And yes I have no doubt the accuracy potential of this pistol is way beyond where I am now, ie that I can get 4" group at 50m pretty reliably).

Fwiw, from my experiences with the 150 and 160, the 150 seemed to have a tighter chamber diameter than the 160. The 150 functioned well with the spendy Euro match-grade ammunition but was otherwise quite finicky. My last adventure with a 150 was about eight years ago and the CCI SV at that time was always a struggle to load and eject. Some brands of ammo would chamber to the point where the bullet engaged the rifling and then abruptly require a LOT of thumb pressure to fully seat. A theory about that problem was that some brands, such as CCI, use a harder bullet alloy. RWS, SK and Wolf worked flawlessly.

Possibly caused by the chamber situation, the 150 required considerably more lever force to move the block than the 160 did. Otherwise, it was a comfortable and enjoyable pistol to shoot.

I shot CCI standard those years I had my 150.

Before matches I did use a paper towel and cleaned the tip of them to remove the excess wax, since that'll build up in the chamber and make it difficult to eject the empty cartridges.

My 152 didn't like to eject CCI, but yours may vary. Free pistols will fire anything, but loading and ejecting are the main issues. I shot Eley back then but you can also try relieving the chamber. Tricky to do and I wouldn't but many have taken something like valve grinding compound and gently 'opened' the chamber.

Joel

A nice tip I got from a fellow free pistol shooter was to use baby q tips to clean the chamber. You get them in all pharmacies - works very well!

My 150 doesn't have a SAAMI compliant chamber. The chamber is slightly short and slightly smaller ID wise than a nominal USA spec chamber. The rumors are that thereare a couple 3 known reamers with different numbers all going by 22 LRr Match. When I micd my 150 it and my Pardini were within a couple tenths of each other. The TOZ looked to have a bit of taper in it, it was almost a us head with a eurospec diameter mouth.
It always feeds CCI with force to close unless I seat the bullet with a plastic rod to get the head seated. What this means to my 150 is that 22 ammo between SAAMI nominal and Max length hard engraves into the rifiling on closure. Eurospec ammo functions flawlessly. BOTH will suffer from a funky bolt closure pressure and ejection sticking If I don't brush the chamber periodically. For some reason it is cut on the numbers but not highly polished. I suspect the lack of polish is why my 150 collects dirt wax and craap a lot faster than my Toz or PGP75.
Newer CCI SV is hard to chamber. Wolf match target and SK drop in trouble free. Eley is flawless. Aguilla Super Extra SV works fine but is pretty dirty...... Amazingly enough, the best mechanical functioning happens with Federal Automatch. It is on SAAMI min dia and min length to feed in anything but some pop and some go hang so I'll blame that for not being able to shoot it well....... Hope this helps.....