Canadian Airgun Forum

Just wanted to offer a quick review of the FAS 6004 which has been hit by poor press since its advent.
After servicing several now, I am in a position to pass an informed judgement should anyone be considering one.
I think the initial thoughts of many, is due to a certain build failure, they will not touch it but IMO they would be robbing themselves of an excellent gun once its little gremlin is sorted out.
Indeed its the only gun in its price point offering trigger adjustment of a top class Match pistol. It can be set up to give a very short first stage, followed by the perfect let off on second stage. It requires a lot of fiddling to get there but can be done with no mod work. Just left stock and fiddling with all the adjustment screws to get precisely right for you. Once you have done this, It edges all triggers up to a Feinwerkbau 65 and HW75 level but stops short of a world class Morini...
The grip in ambi, is brilliant, best I have used for a sporter grip but the adjustable grips will give you a bit more for competition use, far exceeding the fit of the Baikal 46m or Air V10 Compact.
Although compact, it has a longer site base compared to other SSP of its type, with the sight set flush and very far back in the action, due in part to not having a hammer sat in the way, being sited where the hammer would normally be
It is also better for not having a hammer in regard of loading. Its side lever opening can be snicked with a sideways glance of the thumb and the top strap drawn up in a fluid movement. Best action on any SSP ever.
Not so with hammer lock guns which require a hand shift to get the thumb up around, and over for release. Fine in normal sporter use, but you notice it in a match.
The issue with the FAS is it has a poor breach seal, a simple O ring typical,of this type of gun but sealing on an angled Bulkhead TP..
The O ring is set so shallow in its barrel groove that the upper part of the O ring barely makes contact ...the lower part then requiring to be squeezed tighter and tighter against the broader angle...to get the top area to seal... It fights you and can end up with the lower of the barrel face ditching into the precious bulkhead before it will seal properly.
Its because when building it as the FAS 604, they used a square section seal but swapped to the cheaper production technique of using a simple O ring for the 6004....mistake!
Power winch use to be 380 fps for the 604 is now reduced to 330 fps and reports of certain pellets not firing.

So, instead of writing off the gun and missing out on all its other benefits, simply change the seal, or pack the O ring higher before you get shooting, to prevent the danger of galling the TP bulkhead...
It will also give you a good power increase. I also lapped the breach entry to remove any burrs.
Once done its hard to beat. Even going up double the price will not realise a better gun. You need to go up 3 times the cost to do that ..

Nice looking pistol (from online pics). It's a bit different to have the breech seal on the end of the barrel rather than on the transfer block but I guess it work just the same. It looks like the Italian Chiappa company also has a similar but cheaper version called the Sig ASP Super Target. My old eyes like red dots so the short optics grooves are welcome.

The seal shimming often gives very noticeable velocity increases. I started using dental floss winding for a shim in my HW40 almost 20 years ago. The o-ring seals do have thickness variation so I tweak the pressure for each seal change. If you make it too proud you get buckling. I tried the 009 quad seals for a while but found them more fragile on the rim so I went back to regular o-rings.

I no longer have a HW75 or Webley Nemesis.... but still have an old 1999 HW40 and a pair of P17 pistols. One P17 is about 10 years old and the other only a few years old (with the fibre optic sights). The newest one shoots faster.

just finished rebuilding one for someone and its a very nice pistol
and i'm not much of a pistol guy i prefer my rifles , only real draw back
i found were the grips, to me there more for a kid's hand size and they
put your wrist in a very awkward position, and out of the box after I swapped out
the o-rings and no mod's it shot a high of 372 fps....but for the price i'd stick with
a P-17 hands down....

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"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle"

Ace, I think its possible you may have had the smaller grip option on the FAS you tweaked.
There are actually 4 grip options. It really needs a visit to a gun store when purchasing to handle it, to get the right grip but for me the Ambi grip is the way to go..
The gun will happily do a full 400 fps (415 fps hi) when mildly piston packed.

However, i am inclined to agree. The P17, or the 40 are much better value. Its just a traditionalist thing with me... prefer metal and wood. These spacey composites an acquired taste perhaps but die split lines kill it for me. I would have prefered a blacked trigger and hammer in matt finish rather than the chrome too...Just me.

Todd, I here you on the new P17 being faster. I think they have shored up the piston closer...maybe when doing that new .22 rat buster version with the 2 barrels. I think it does something like 3.9 ftlbs in .22 ...they must have boosted the pressure for the bigger barrel but the rest of the P17 variants now benefitting from this...

You know you love it more guys...it just needs a lot more doe..

The FAS-6004 does look nice. Is the frame made of pot metal or aluminum? Is the piston seal a common o-ring or a specialty seal?

Out of curiosity, I just finished checking the velocities on my 3 PSP pistols. Light pellets were used.

HW40 (1999 purchase) - Hobby 408 fps ... JSB Exact RS 405 fps
P17 (2010 purchase) --- Hobby 419 fps ... JSB Exact RS 414 fps
P17 (2018 purchase) --- Hobby 430 fps ... JSB Exact RS 422 fps

I’ve got the 6004, like it very much, even with lower velocities. For paper it’s all that’s needed at 10m. With cheaper paper it does tear sometimes versus a nice clean pellet hole.

I’ll try the quad seal swap myself. Where were you able to source the correct size?

I ended up buying a 10 pack of replacement breech seals on amazon for pretty cheap. Can’t remember the size but they were not hard to find.

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Highlights - Evanix Conquest
AA HFT 500, FX Dreamline, Diana Mod 70,
HW44, FAS6004, some other goodies.

The Frame is a high grade Alum extrusion...not pot metal but the transfer block that contains the valve is now cast ...Its a solid enough lump though..The gun uses std. nitrile O rings through out..
The P17 has quite am impressive velocity now but its tuning potential is now limited being already set to its max these days.

I sourced my quad seals from RS components, buying a selection box kit..

The 6004 sounds like the same build quality as the HW75.... but it looks more streamline and less blocky. Nice!

Check your yellow pages for a hydraulics shop in your area. They often have a large assortment of o-rings, quad seals and pump cups. The shops can often order seals that they don't have in stock.

The problem with the 75 is it sat too high in the hand for best control and this height makes it look a bit gawky.
I never really got the whole advertisement blurb about it following 1911 lines. It is nothing like a 1911, and almost double the mass.
It is great as a precision plinker and maybe be the the best built of the this type of gun.
Solid steel piston, indestructible top frame for loading, which has been tried and tested for years. The trigger is match quality but the grip does not allow the dropped hand technique required for casual match competitions and no grip options available.
The valves were cruded up with grease on mid period examples but the latest ones are not lubricated internally and do 400 fps straight out the box. Decent gun.

Back around 1991/92 I bought a used Beeman P2 (aka HW75) from a guy in Florida. It had the one piece "Match" grip rather than the slab panels. All I ever did to this pistol was the occasional lube on the piston body and replace the breech seal when it got damaged. I once had a comparison of the P2 vs P3 but the web site disappeared. I can only find one of my old online references to this pistol velocity. It was doing 414fps with 7.7gr H&N Pistol Match pellets.

topic22318.html

That sounds about right Todd..
The early ones were good for the same vel as they make brand new today. It was their mid period of production that saw a drop of 50 fps. HW packed them with some sort of grease which got into the valve and chocked everything up...I found this out after flushing the valve of a mid period model, gaining the lost power it should have been making. There was also issue with the inlet hole during this mid term.
The latest ones have a different pump assembly which is not so clean in design but is supposed to be more robust.

I did a nice mod on one of these once. The void ahead of the barrel was originally intended to take a shove on silencer as per Beemans design but HW dropped it due to technical problems.
It leaves the gun with a 1.5 inch waste of space to which i ran extra length barrel through. It didnt pick up as much as i had hoped but the 25 fps It gave was ok without ruining the guns looks.
A very good gun but i never took to its top heavy, gawky look and let it go..

Much of the key of Firearms and the joy they give the owner, comes from the beautiful look of the gun....Not something the 75 enjoys if you have an eye for sleek styling..