If you are contemplating getting into PCP rifles, and have been considering any of the Hatsan lineup, perhaps the following link will help you to make a better informed decision on how to spend your hard earned dollars:
My apologies. The forum linked to this thread has removed the post.
I will try to re-post the info here as time allows.
So, you can purchase a Hatsan, and take the chance that you will not ultimately end up paying the price of an Air Arms airgun - or - you can just go out and pay for the Air Arms gun, and actually receive an Air Arms airgun.
Serious QC issues with Hatsan PCP rifles.
This is the third Hatsan rifle to be brought to me for attention, and while I do not normally work on these guns, the owners of these guns were unhappy with previous attempts to resolve the gun's issues through normal channels. What I found in all three incidences, were guns that were poorly made, lacked lubrication at key wear areas, and did not perform to factory specifications right out of the box. This seems to contradict the positive reviews given these guns by some owners, who praise what they perceive to be high quality of workmanship.
All three guns that I have had here in my shop had similar defects, and I find it difficult to accept that these are the only guns out there to suffer from such shoddy manufacture.
I am presenting the following pics and explanations so that anyone contemplating the purchase of one of these guns can make a better informed decision.
This most recent gun to come my way is a Hatsan AT44 Long, in .177 cal. It was purchased as a non-PAL gun, but with the intent of being tuned to be suitable for FT. When the owner received it, he decided to put a few shots through it to see how the gun felt, but in only a matter of a dozen or so shots, the bolt probe broke off at the o-ring groove. The retailer replaced the bolt, but considerable time was taken to obtain, then replace it, thus the gun sat un-usable for the duration.
After the gun was returned to the owner with the new bolt, he approached me about tuning it to FT specs. I decided to run a couple "before" shots over the chrony to see what the gun was shooting at, and the result was a sad 312 FPS high for the two shots. I then degassed the reservoir, and swapped out the non-PAL valve stem with the supplied PAL valve stem. The reservoir was charged, and I intended to put a couple more shots over the chrony to see what the velocity was with the PAL stem installed. The first shot registered 1044 FPS, but on the second shot, the chrony reported an error. The bolt probe had once again broken off at the o-ring groove, and exited the barrel behind the pellet. It hit the cardboard face of my pellet trap a bit lower than the pellet, and bounced back to where I was sitting. So, this gun has not yet seen 20 shots down the pipe, and it has broken it's second bolt. Needless to say, the owner was not at all pleased when I told him what had happened. It was decided that the best course of action was to replace the bolt with one made of steel, so I began the job of removing the broken bolt.
What follows are pictures of what I observed while handling and working on this particular gun.
The very first thing that I noticed was that the action was sitting in the stock at a very obvious, muzzle high angle. It would appear to me that the inletting at the rear of the action is cut too deep. Looking at the first pic, the angle can be seen by the poor fit of the safety extension to the top of the stock. In the second pic, compare the distance between the two amber arrows, as compared to the distance between the two red arrows. I did not measure it, but It is significant, as can be easily seen in the pics.
The next item of interest was noted while changing the valve stem. The degree of chatter marks in the threads that mate the valve body to the reservoir are, at least in my opinion, completely unacceptable - especially for a pressure vessel. The pic does not capture just how badly scalloped the edges of those threads really are. These poorly machined threads are a trait that was common to all three of the guns that I have been into.
Next up, the barrel.
As the pics show, it too is very poorly machined, with the undercut that fits into the breech so badly covered in chatter marks, that it is neither of uniform diameter, nor even round. The shoulder indicated by the red arrow, that is supposed to fit flush against the breech has chatter marks that prevent it from seating properly, holding it well forward of where it should be - as will be seen in subsequent pics. None of the edges has been deburred, and as a result, the o-rings at the transfer port area are badly shredded.
These next couple pics show how badly the locating dimples in the barrel have been missed by the actual location where the set screws have been tightened down. Notice that the marks are about one half the diameter of the set screw further back than they should be, due to the inability of the shoulder, noted in the paragraph above to seat properly against the breech. In the second pic, note the small arrow within the red oval. It is pointing to a razor sharp burr which sticks out several thousandths of an inch, no doubt caused by the use of a dull tool for cutting the o-ring groove. Rather than deburr this edge, the o-ring was just forced right past it, shredding the o-ring.
Looking at the underside of the breech, with the barrel re-installed and the set screws snugged back into the locations in which the gun was received, yet another issue becomes evident. As noted by the yellow arrow, the transfer port is obstructed by the mis-location of the barrel, which takes us back to the poorly machined shoulder of the barrel undercut. Note as well the dimple indicated by the red arrow - this point does not contact anything at all when the gun is assembled, so I believe it to be the result of over-zealous clamping effort from one of the factory machining fixtures.
Moving to the breech area of the barrel, what I believe to be the potential cause of the broken bolts is seen. The two yellow arrows point to two significant ridges in the leade, just behind the transfer port. I suspect that as the pellet head caught one or both of these ridges, that sufficient perpendicular vector force was created to eventually break the bolt probe. These ridges, coupled with the gouges indicated by the red arrows, in the face chamfer of the breech opening, suggest to me that the tooling used for cutting these details was both dull and chipped. The burr all around the ridge of the chamfer would seem to confirm the dull tooling. I have no idea what the two semi-circular gouges, located between the two top arrows, is from, or the result of - there is no fastener that touches it, only the flat face of the breech bushing. The shredded edges of the two transfer port o-rings is quite easy to see in this pic.
Moving now to the back section of the breech, a look at the underside reveals another heavy divot noted by the arrow on the left. I suspect that this is another clamping mark, similar to the one seen at the front of the breech, but this one has raised enough of an edge that the breech will rock against the main tube, until the fastening screws are tightened down. This bump will obviously need to be removed. The two arrows on the right of the pic show what appear to me to be hammer strikes on the breech, presumably, made while installing the cocking lever pin.
Next up, a pic of the broken bolt. Note that the bottom of the o-ring groove is cut square at the bottom of the groove. Good practice would normally dictate that with such a tiny diameter, in this case, 1.5 mm (or 0.060"), that the bottom edges of that groove should be radiused for strength, especially considering the application, and the material. Instead, the square corner essentially creates a fracture line, which in this case, the break clearly followed.
What next caught my attention was truly appalling. The front of the trigger mechanism was covered in metal filings. Not Good.
A look inside the main tube reveals the heavily galled ID of the main tube, where the hammer rides. The red arrow points to an actual ridge of scraped steel, along with the entire inside being covered in metal filings. The complete lack of any apparent lubrication has just exacerbated the problem.
The hammer shows no indication of being deburred, and the razor sharp, and hardened edges have made a very effective steel scraper.
These next pics clearly show the damage done by the lack of deburred edges, and the lack of lubrication.
Now, looking at the "polished" section of the main tube, where the hammer edges have not contacted the tube, it is not hard to understand why so much damage could have been done in such little time. The tube ID looks like it was "polished" with 60 or 80 grit sandpaper. Those scratches are deep enough to actually feel with the pin-point tip of a scriber. Hardly the type of surface finish for metal to metal contact, with no lubrication.
And last, but certainly not least, the trigger mechanism. The first thing that is immediately noticeable is that all the trigger bits appear almost as though they were hack-sawed, then hardened. All the edges are irregular and rough - including the sear faces. It is no wonder that some of these guns have such gritty feeling triggers.
As well, at least with this particular gun, the trigger mechanism was full of debris - some metal filings, and some bits of what appears to me to be rusted production swarf. The trigger unit will have to be completely dis-assembled and cleaned - what you see here is only what could be removed by tapping the unit while holding it inverted. I am quite surprised that the trigger did not malfunction, despite the low shot count of this gun.
And there you have it.
In my opinion, this gun should never have left the factory with such obvious flaws. While it is understandable that the retailer could easily miss these flaws at the point of sale, what is disappointing is that the retailer did have the opportunity to more closely inspect the gun while changing the bolt. All these defects would have been as obvious to the retailer as they were to me, but were apparently ignored by the person doing the work. I suggested to the owner that he should seek a full refund or exchange of this gun, but he has resigned himself to having learned a very harsh lesson - you really do get what you pay for.
If you are prepared to correct such shortcomings of a product on your own, you may find that these Hatsan guns suit your purpose, but for those uncomfortable in tackling such a project, it can become a very costly venture to find yourself paying someone else to correct the manufacturer's negligence.
AT44L - Addendum - more pics.
I thought that I had covered everything in the original post, but as I progressed further with the repairs, yet more issues came to light, so I thought that I would add them to this thread.
The burrs on either side of the o-ring grooves had to be cleaned up, and in order to do so, obviously, the o-rings had to be removed. What was found upon removal of the o-rings was really no surprise, considering the dismal machine work already seen on the barrel - heavy chatter marks at the bottoms of both o-ring grooves. The flared out burrs on all four outer edges of the grooves, and the obvious heavy chatter marks at the bottom of the grooves once again suggests the use of dull tooling, coupled with no apparent support of the workpiece. Even though the o-rings in these grooves "are only to seal the transfer port upon firing", I highly doubt that at full power, they were providing an effective seal to provide maximum efficiency of the air charge.
In preparation to properly face the shoulder of the breech end barrel undercut, to correct the misalignment of the transfer port, and barrel location dimples, I would have to also correct the relationship of the front sight by a few degrees. As I went to remove the barrel nut, it was obvious that the front sight shoulder would also need attention, as it displays the same heavy chatter as the breech end shoulder, and likewise prevents the sight from properly seating against it.
As the muzzle nut is being removed, all sorts of black debris is falling out, and once the nut has been removed, it becomes clear what has happened. The front sight had been forced over the heavy burrs at the end of the threads, and on either side of what appears to be an o-ring groove. If you look closely, you can still see a substantial amount of that black plastic debris in the groove and the threads.
Once the front sight has been removed, the deplorable machine work is once again obvious. Just as with the breech end undercut, the front sight undercut is covered with chatter marks from one end to the other, and once again, is neither of uniform diameter, nor even properly round in some spots.
A close up of the cleaned up muzzle thread, and the groove behind it.
The thread looks to be die-cut, but of very poor form, with chunks missing from some of the threads, and pick-up marks along the edges of many. This again, is the indication of dull tooling as well as a lack of cutting fluid during the process. A properly die-cut thread should not look as bad as this if done properly. Note also the chatter marks at the bottom of the groove, and the flared out burrs at either side of the groove - once again suggesting dull tooling.
Needless to say, I am disgusted by the sheer number of QC issues that this particular gun exhibits.
I also have to wonder just what percentage of guns currently in the hands of shooters are as bad, if not worse than this gun, and whose owners are completely oblivious to the horrible quality of construction that lies beneath the exterior.
I strongly suggest to any current owners of these guns, take a few minutes and pull the action from the stock and look for tell-tale signs of the issues displayed by this gun, and take the few minutes to correct those issues that are within your comfort zone - even if it is just a few drops of lubrication.
My apologies. The forum linked to this thread has removed the post.
I will try to re-post the info here as time allows.
So, you can purchase a Hatsan, and take the chance that you will not ultimately end up paying the price of an Air Arms airgun - or - you can just go out and pay for the Air Arms gun, and actually receive an Air Arms airgun.
Serious QC issues with Hatsan PCP rifles.
This is the third Hatsan rifle to be brought to me for attention, and while I do not normally work on these guns, the owners of these guns were unhappy with previous attempts to resolve the gun's issues through normal channels. What I found in all three incidences, were guns that were poorly made, lacked lubrication at key wear areas, and did not perform to factory specifications right out of the box. This seems to contradict the positive reviews given these guns by some owners, who praise what they perceive to be high quality of workmanship.
All three guns that I have had here in my shop had similar defects, and I find it difficult to accept that these are the only guns out there to suffer from such shoddy manufacture.
I am presenting the following pics and explanations so that anyone contemplating the purchase of one of these guns can make a better informed decision.
This most recent gun to come my way is a Hatsan AT44 Long, in .177 cal. It was purchased as a non-PAL gun, but with the intent of being tuned to be suitable for FT. When the owner received it, he decided to put a few shots through it to see how the gun felt, but in only a matter of a dozen or so shots, the bolt probe broke off at the o-ring groove. The retailer replaced the bolt, but considerable time was taken to obtain, then replace it, thus the gun sat un-usable for the duration.
After the gun was returned to the owner with the new bolt, he approached me about tuning it to FT specs. I decided to run a couple "before" shots over the chrony to see what the gun was shooting at, and the result was a sad 312 FPS high for the two shots. I then degassed the reservoir, and swapped out the non-PAL valve stem with the supplied PAL valve stem. The reservoir was charged, and I intended to put a couple more shots over the chrony to see what the velocity was with the PAL stem installed. The first shot registered 1044 FPS, but on the second shot, the chrony reported an error. The bolt probe had once again broken off at the o-ring groove, and exited the barrel behind the pellet. It hit the cardboard face of my pellet trap a bit lower than the pellet, and bounced back to where I was sitting. So, this gun has not yet seen 20 shots down the pipe, and it has broken it's second bolt. Needless to say, the owner was not at all pleased when I told him what had happened. It was decided that the best course of action was to replace the bolt with one made of steel, so I began the job of removing the broken bolt.
What follows are pictures of what I observed while handling and working on this particular gun.
The very first thing that I noticed was that the action was sitting in the stock at a very obvious, muzzle high angle. It would appear to me that the inletting at the rear of the action is cut too deep. Looking at the first pic, the angle can be seen by the poor fit of the safety extension to the top of the stock. In the second pic, compare the distance between the two amber arrows, as compared to the distance between the two red arrows. I did not measure it, but It is significant, as can be easily seen in the pics.
The next item of interest was noted while changing the valve stem. The degree of chatter marks in the threads that mate the valve body to the reservoir are, at least in my opinion, completely unacceptable - especially for a pressure vessel. The pic does not capture just how badly scalloped the edges of those threads really are. These poorly machined threads are a trait that was common to all three of the guns that I have been into.
Next up, the barrel.
As the pics show, it too is very poorly machined, with the undercut that fits into the breech so badly covered in chatter marks, that it is neither of uniform diameter, nor even round. The shoulder indicated by the red arrow, that is supposed to fit flush against the breech has chatter marks that prevent it from seating properly, holding it well forward of where it should be - as will be seen in subsequent pics. None of the edges has been deburred, and as a result, the o-rings at the transfer port area are badly shredded.
These next couple pics show how badly the locating dimples in the barrel have been missed by the actual location where the set screws have been tightened down. Notice that the marks are about one half the diameter of the set screw further back than they should be, due to the inability of the shoulder, noted in the paragraph above to seat properly against the breech. In the second pic, note the small arrow within the red oval. It is pointing to a razor sharp burr which sticks out several thousandths of an inch, no doubt caused by the use of a dull tool for cutting the o-ring groove. Rather than deburr this edge, the o-ring was just forced right past it, shredding the o-ring.
Looking at the underside of the breech, with the barrel re-installed and the set screws snugged back into the locations in which the gun was received, yet another issue becomes evident. As noted by the yellow arrow, the transfer port is obstructed by the mis-location of the barrel, which takes us back to the poorly machined shoulder of the barrel undercut. Note as well the dimple indicated by the red arrow - this point does not contact anything at all when the gun is assembled, so I believe it to be the result of over-zealous clamping effort from one of the factory machining fixtures.
Moving to the breech area of the barrel, what I believe to be the potential cause of the broken bolts is seen. The two yellow arrows point to two significant ridges in the leade, just behind the transfer port. I suspect that as the pellet head caught one or both of these ridges, that sufficient perpendicular vector force was created to eventually break the bolt probe. These ridges, coupled with the gouges indicated by the red arrows, in the face chamfer of the breech opening, suggest to me that the tooling used for cutting these details was both dull and chipped. The burr all around the ridge of the chamfer would seem to confirm the dull tooling. I have no idea what the two semi-circular gouges, located between the two top arrows, is from, or the result of - there is no fastener that touches it, only the flat face of the breech bushing. The shredded edges of the two transfer port o-rings is quite easy to see in this pic.
Moving now to the back section of the breech, a look at the underside reveals another heavy divot noted by the arrow on the left. I suspect that this is another clamping mark, similar to the one seen at the front of the breech, but this one has raised enough of an edge that the breech will rock against the main tube, until the fastening screws are tightened down. This bump will obviously need to be removed. The two arrows on the right of the pic show what appear to me to be hammer strikes on the breech, presumably, made while installing the cocking lever pin.
Next up, a pic of the broken bolt. Note that the bottom of the o-ring groove is cut square at the bottom of the groove. Good practice would normally dictate that with such a tiny diameter, in this case, 1.5 mm (or 0.060"), that the bottom edges of that groove should be radiused for strength, especially considering the application, and the material. Instead, the square corner essentially creates a fracture line, which in this case, the break clearly followed.
What next caught my attention was truly appalling. The front of the trigger mechanism was covered in metal filings. Not Good.
A look inside the main tube reveals the heavily galled ID of the main tube, where the hammer rides. The red arrow points to an actual ridge of scraped steel, along with the entire inside being covered in metal filings. The complete lack of any apparent lubrication has just exacerbated the problem.
The hammer shows no indication of being deburred, and the razor sharp, and hardened edges have made a very effective steel scraper.
These next pics clearly show the damage done by the lack of deburred edges, and the lack of lubrication.
Now, looking at the "polished" section of the main tube, where the hammer edges have not contacted the tube, it is not hard to understand why so much damage could have been done in such little time. The tube ID looks like it was "polished" with 60 or 80 grit sandpaper. Those scratches are deep enough to actually feel with the pin-point tip of a scriber. Hardly the type of surface finish for metal to metal contact, with no lubrication.
And last, but certainly not least, the trigger mechanism. The first thing that is immediately noticeable is that all the trigger bits appear almost as though they were hack-sawed, then hardened. All the edges are irregular and rough - including the sear faces. It is no wonder that some of these guns have such gritty feeling triggers.
As well, at least with this particular gun, the trigger mechanism was full of debris - some metal filings, and some bits of what appears to me to be rusted production swarf. The trigger unit will have to be completely dis-assembled and cleaned - what you see here is only what could be removed by tapping the unit while holding it inverted. I am quite surprised that the trigger did not malfunction, despite the low shot count of this gun.
And there you have it.
In my opinion, this gun should never have left the factory with such obvious flaws. While it is understandable that the retailer could easily miss these flaws at the point of sale, what is disappointing is that the retailer did have the opportunity to more closely inspect the gun while changing the bolt. All these defects would have been as obvious to the retailer as they were to me, but were apparently ignored by the person doing the work. I suggested to the owner that he should seek a full refund or exchange of this gun, but he has resigned himself to having learned a very harsh lesson - you really do get what you pay for.
If you are prepared to correct such shortcomings of a product on your own, you may find that these Hatsan guns suit your purpose, but for those uncomfortable in tackling such a project, it can become a very costly venture to find yourself paying someone else to correct the manufacturer's negligence.
AT44L - Addendum - more pics.
I thought that I had covered everything in the original post, but as I progressed further with the repairs, yet more issues came to light, so I thought that I would add them to this thread.
The burrs on either side of the o-ring grooves had to be cleaned up, and in order to do so, obviously, the o-rings had to be removed. What was found upon removal of the o-rings was really no surprise, considering the dismal machine work already seen on the barrel - heavy chatter marks at the bottoms of both o-ring grooves. The flared out burrs on all four outer edges of the grooves, and the obvious heavy chatter marks at the bottom of the grooves once again suggests the use of dull tooling, coupled with no apparent support of the workpiece. Even though the o-rings in these grooves "are only to seal the transfer port upon firing", I highly doubt that at full power, they were providing an effective seal to provide maximum efficiency of the air charge.
In preparation to properly face the shoulder of the breech end barrel undercut, to correct the misalignment of the transfer port, and barrel location dimples, I would have to also correct the relationship of the front sight by a few degrees. As I went to remove the barrel nut, it was obvious that the front sight shoulder would also need attention, as it displays the same heavy chatter as the breech end shoulder, and likewise prevents the sight from properly seating against it.
As the muzzle nut is being removed, all sorts of black debris is falling out, and once the nut has been removed, it becomes clear what has happened. The front sight had been forced over the heavy burrs at the end of the threads, and on either side of what appears to be an o-ring groove. If you look closely, you can still see a substantial amount of that black plastic debris in the groove and the threads.
Once the front sight has been removed, the deplorable machine work is once again obvious. Just as with the breech end undercut, the front sight undercut is covered with chatter marks from one end to the other, and once again, is neither of uniform diameter, nor even properly round in some spots.
A close up of the cleaned up muzzle thread, and the groove behind it.
The thread looks to be die-cut, but of very poor form, with chunks missing from some of the threads, and pick-up marks along the edges of many. This again, is the indication of dull tooling as well as a lack of cutting fluid during the process. A properly die-cut thread should not look as bad as this if done properly. Note also the chatter marks at the bottom of the groove, and the flared out burrs at either side of the groove - once again suggesting dull tooling.
Needless to say, I am disgusted by the sheer number of QC issues that this particular gun exhibits.
I also have to wonder just what percentage of guns currently in the hands of shooters are as bad, if not worse than this gun, and whose owners are completely oblivious to the horrible quality of construction that lies beneath the exterior.
I strongly suggest to any current owners of these guns, take a few minutes and pull the action from the stock and look for tell-tale signs of the issues displayed by this gun, and take the few minutes to correct those issues that are within your comfort zone - even if it is just a few drops of lubrication.
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