Greetings Steven and all, I’m new here myself. I look forward to reading/learning from the collective experience residing here at airgunnation! I’m traditionally more of a traditional firearm user, and kind of new to this end of the shooting equation, but am gaining appreciation for air guns, especially PCP!
I recently went through a similar sort of decision process on my first PCP purchase, so I’m certainly no expert on this subject, and can only speak of my own experience. As you have described, I also spent the past couple of years messing with nitro-piston break-barrels (Crosman Fire, Gamo Magnum, both in .177) with fairly decent but laborious success in dealing with the chipmunk and groundhog population on my property. While I’m sure there are better break-barrel rifles out there, these are what I had. Issues: cocking force, poa/poi float due to the harsh forward/backward recoils of piston rifles.
Wanting to get away from these nagging issues, and after some weeks of research, I had interest in several PCP rifles, but eventually landed on the Hatsan Factor RC. (Cue the boos and hisses now!). Admittedly, I’ve seen both good and bad opinions of the Hatsan products here, but after seeing a 34:00 plus minute review on this exact rifle by fellow forum member
kaylaindy, I decided to take the chance.
I can say this much, as I’m a toolmaker/mechanical engineer myself- I took heed at the mention of the use of Phillips screws and a bunch of other harsh criticisms regarding this rifle/Hatsan products in general at a glance. Sure, if Phillips screws had been used in critical areas, it would be a concern, but the only Phillips screws I’ve found on this rifle are a) on the hammer preload tension adjustment gauge plate, and b) in the side plates covering the cocking mechanism, which arrives as right-handed, but is convertible to left hand (a nice feature, imho). The rest of the fasteners on this rifle are socket-head hex or set screws (at minimum, I haven’t disassembled it completely) including the trigger adjustments. They don’t appear to have “skimped” on the business end of the mechanicals. This rifle is in .22 caliber, btw.
So- in my experience:
I found it on Krale after a period of “out of stock”. Once back in stock, I ordered it on a Tuesday evening and It arrived Friday morning (2.5 days to MI from the Netherlands, not bad), packaged in a hard-sided and padded case, in a box, within a padded box. Other than US Customs having opened it up and left the cocking lever open (can’t fault Krale for that), thus prohibiting fully re-closing the hard case, arrived with no damage, but US Customs and TSA annoy me anyway.
I picked up a compressor, and a scope (Burris 2x10-42 Verity with BDC from DVOR.COM on special @ about $289), and started shooting. Found that the trigger is very good, and finely adjustable. With about 400 pellets through so far, the grouping is starting to settle nicely. So far I have had no issues with function or power (I’m actually finding myself setting the transfer port at middle power rather than max) and the accuracy is as expected, repeating very good groups (25-50 yards) using a good rest. I get 80+ shots or so with 18.21 grain H&N Crow Magnum .22 caliber at “ideal velocity” (avg 895-908 FPS) regulated to 140 bar “guesstimating” (on-rifle gauge calibration may be suspect, please don’t slay me over this). I guess this is probably around 18-20 FPE (correction: more like 31-32 PFE-
thank you, MileHighAirGunner) and that amount of energy is fully acceptable to me- I have a chipmunk issue- I don’t need to shoot bears.
Plusses: fully adjustable trigger- adjustable trigger stage overlap, sear engagement and pull force- regulated- high capacity 580cc carbon-wound bottle- 250bar pressure charge- fully floating barrel- lots of shots per fill- accurate- fully shrouded barrel and pretty quiet- has 1/2” UNF threaded barrel for additional suppression if desired (I have a Donnyfl Sumo coming)- price is reasonable- upper and lower Picatinny rail components- power/accuracy sufficient for pest control- NO LEAKS! It holds 250 bar for days sitting in the case..
Minuses: FPE is low for some hard-core air gunners- no sights or scope included- also those darn Phillips screws which have NO impact on functionality
This is not an endorsement, just my experience- (update: pretty sure I’ve got the PCP rifle bug at this point- there are likely more to come!)
Well, that turned out to be a bit lengthy- sorry for that, but I hope that some may find it useful- (should I duck now?) For Hatsan’s first entry to the regulated PCP rifle market, and I can only compare it to my experience in “ real firearms”, I’m impressed.
Best Regards!
Update: DonnyFL Sumo arrived this week- mounted it today and wow... can only hear the hammer strike and pellet impact. No readings, but using the wife’s ears as a baseline, she could hear a slight report from inside before (non-suppressed), and now cannot. Had to adjust scope 2 minutes up only- no windage adjustment needed. Grouping is as good or possibly improved a wee bit. Much better than expected results! Thanks, DonnyFL!
