Hammerli arms : heritage & innovation since 1863

Link to the main picture : here

Official website of Hammerli : https://hammerliarms.de/
Official Youtube channel of Hammerli : https://www.youtube.com/@hammerliarms/videos

This brand started in 1863 in Lenzbourg (Switzerland) and was named “Haemmerli & Hausch”.

Link to the picture : here

In the early 20th century, the brand now named “Hämmerli” was famous for their target pistols used in shooting competitions. Then in the Olympic games.
In 2006, the brand have been bought by Umarex. The name change a bit because the “ä” is now just a classic “a”. And the company moved to Ulm (Germany)… But in the official communication of the brand, they still say that it is a Swiss brand…

The 11 june of 2018, they unveil their new logo. The new logo looks way more badass and warrior-like than the previous one who was more into the Olympic spirit.

And if you take a look at their website, they do not show the weapons for the competitions (but I am sure they did not stop to make them… But now they are branded Walther I guess). The new website shows only 3 weapons (2 rifles and 1 pistol) which demonstrate a clear will to be now an actor in the modern firearms business.

Umarex/Walther seems behind Hammerli. Perhaps they want to use Hammerli as a brand that will allow them to express themselves in some areas that they could not explore because of the heavy traditional reputations of Umarex/Walther (like BMW did with Mini for example).

In fact, the new motto is “Heritage and innovation since 1863”. We see that they want to reassure the customers with the words “Heritage” and “since 1863”. But also, they really want to dig in the “innovation” world. Which look logical because Hammerli had no product range in the modern firearms area (only in the competition area).

So, with this brand, Umarex/Walther can start a new product range of products they did not have. And in 22lr because it is suitable with many laws in many countries.
We talk about :
_Their first AR-15 look alike on the name of the Tac R1.
_A hunting rifle called the Force B1.
_And a pistol, who looks like the 1911, called the Forge H1.

You notice the number “1”, on the name of the 3 firearms. Which validate the fact that this is a whole new product range.

Let’s study one by one those three firearms :

The Tac R1 22 C

The big advantage of the Tac R1… Is his price. It seems to be the less expensive rifle in the AR-15 style in 22lr. His price is almost the same as the ISSC MK22, in 22lr too, which you can read our post about it here.

So it is an European AR-15 in 22lr less expensive than the official American one made by Colt.

This rifle can have a magazine of 30 rounds, which is very interesting.

The official website say that it is an “all-aluminium construction” which is more reliable than the MK22 who have too much plastic on it.

The entire new strategy of Hammerli seems based on the Tac R1. So we can suppose that Umarex/Walther wanted to do a AR-15 lookalike since a long time !

The official video of Hammerli about the Tac R1 is… Very short :

So let’s see if we can find a bit more informations…
As you know I prefer to talk about the cleaning first and I found this one about the Tac R1 who is nice : link.

As said in the comments (very clever) this is the same company as H&K. So yeah, this is very interesting because the HK is a rifle used by…  30 national armies around the world (as said in Wikipedia).

So is it possible to say that this rifle is also a less expensive HK 416 in 22lr ? Good question…

It is also said in the comments of this video… To do not open this rifle too much ! If you do as they did in the video, the user manual of the rifle say that the warranty will not work after that. A priceless comment. Thank you.

Well, then I found two others video about the review now.
_The first one is in French (but you can get the subtitles). The man on the video is a professional dealer, he has intelligent comments and looks honest :

_The second one is in English. It is more recent and done by Chris Parkin :

Now let’s talk about the second rifle of Hammerli.

The Force B1

Well the Force B1 have not a very interesting price. In fact, there is a lot of others hunting rifle in 22lr who are less expensive. Perhaps there, the brand use the legitimacy of Hammerli in the rifle business, in order to pop up the price…

This is also perhaps why Hammerli communicate A LOT on this rifle. He is really put in light on their website. And 9 videos on 11 on their Youtube channel is about it.

So let’s take a look on his premium advertising clip :

Well indeed, this is a great video. But here is another one who shows better the rifle :

On the two videos, it is said that the rifle uses the Ruger magazines. Another cooperation between Umarex/Walther with another brand ?

Anyway, let’s talk now about the cleaning of the Force B1… And I did not find any video about it… But yeah I found this man who seems to like it a lot :

Let’s talk now about their pistol.

The Forge H1

Here is the official video about it :

As you can see, the main idea seems to be “made to last because we forged it in REAL metal”. By the way there is an apparel brand called Forged.

Well, I found only one review about it. Pretty recent :

And I did not found a video about the cleaning about it…

Conclusion :

A badass logo.
European origins.
Good reviews.
Well Hammerli have some good cards in their hands to convince you to buy their products.

Aquila