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I'm sure this question has been asked many times, but it did occur to me that there probably isn't a "best" HW model.
Obviously, the criteria would have to be subjective and all that, kinda like comparing all time sports greats who played at different positions. Or different sports altogether. But, as I thought about it I still couldn't cleanly separate any one rifle from the pack.
So, I did something "sporting" - I built an 8 rifle playoff bracket for HW springers.
Then I tried to work my way through the match ups and find out which rifle is #1.
I figure that I'm as good an evaluator as most anyone, since I'm not looking to satisfy a particular want or need. I just appreciate each these rifles for whatever combination of qualities (..."personality" ?) they are endowed with. Because everything in life is a tradeoff.
Some do work out better though!
So here's how I seeded the brackets:
(1) HW50 vs (2) HW35
(3) HW80 vs (4) HW95
(5) HW97 vs (6) HW98
(7) HW30 vs (8) HW90
The 50 vs 35 bracket pits two rifles that are different in design but similar in performance against each other.
80 vs 95? The old lion vs the young lion, doncha think? Or maybe father vs son...
97 vs 98? Same weight class, different strengths and weaknesses. A real slugfest!
30 vs 90? It's not really David vs Goliath. More like two specialists, both the best at what they do.
I'll stop here for now and let people chew this over. I found it a lot more 'doable' once I broke it down this way. I hope you do to.
And if you'd like to play along, just list your four head to head winners for Round One in a reply.
1 or 2
3 or 4
etc.
ps/mea culpa:
I did not list the 77 because of the 97. I would have liked to include it along with the 55, the 85, and even the Gen 1 50 and 85's. I could have included the 57 too.
But since most of these aren't part of the current lineup, etc I decided to include only the 8 listed. Sorry!
Obviously, the criteria would have to be subjective and all that, kinda like comparing all time sports greats who played at different positions. Or different sports altogether. But, as I thought about it I still couldn't cleanly separate any one rifle from the pack.
So, I did something "sporting" - I built an 8 rifle playoff bracket for HW springers.
Then I tried to work my way through the match ups and find out which rifle is #1.
I figure that I'm as good an evaluator as most anyone, since I'm not looking to satisfy a particular want or need. I just appreciate each these rifles for whatever combination of qualities (..."personality" ?) they are endowed with. Because everything in life is a tradeoff.
Some do work out better though!

So here's how I seeded the brackets:
(1) HW50 vs (2) HW35
(3) HW80 vs (4) HW95
(5) HW97 vs (6) HW98
(7) HW30 vs (8) HW90
The 50 vs 35 bracket pits two rifles that are different in design but similar in performance against each other.
80 vs 95? The old lion vs the young lion, doncha think? Or maybe father vs son...
97 vs 98? Same weight class, different strengths and weaknesses. A real slugfest!
30 vs 90? It's not really David vs Goliath. More like two specialists, both the best at what they do.
I'll stop here for now and let people chew this over. I found it a lot more 'doable' once I broke it down this way. I hope you do to.
And if you'd like to play along, just list your four head to head winners for Round One in a reply.
1 or 2
3 or 4
etc.
ps/mea culpa:
I did not list the 77 because of the 97. I would have liked to include it along with the 55, the 85, and even the Gen 1 50 and 85's. I could have included the 57 too.
But since most of these aren't part of the current lineup, etc I decided to include only the 8 listed. Sorry!