Hatsan Edge rescued from the edge...

[mikeyb]

Stupid me can't walk away from a cheap airgun deal. I recently picked up a couple Hatsan Edge Combos from Amazon when their AI Pricing Bot dropped the price to <50% of normal. These were 177 cal coil spring models. A good source of parts for me if anything is broken beyond repair and I don't have to worry about leaky Vortex air springs.

One arrived in perfect condition. The other arrived in a GIANT (flat screen TV?) box with the muzzle sticking out of the box. Yeah, I knew that would be bad. Opened the box to find only SHREDS of the retail box and everything else floating around inside the giant box. Surprisingly no visible damage to anything other than the retail box itself. After cleaning up the thousands of foam beads I ran some cleaning patches down the bore. Felt some resistance at the muzzle but dismissed it as a possible choke(?). That was my error.

Attempted to sight in the open sights on my indoor 30' range. Wizzzzz! Pellets missed my 8"x12" trap completely and were hitting the concrete basement wall! That has NEVER happened to me before. Got closer to target and needed the FULL windage to just get on paper. Then the next shot hit the basement wall again!? Now I'm baffled. There is something seriously WRONG with this rifle!

Shot a couple pellets into wadded plastic bags "point blank". Pellet heads were badly sheared and skirts were totally collapsed (bottom two pellets). Never seen anything like this before. Pushed some pellets through the bore and they got STUCK HARD right at the muzzle. Pounded them through which sheared the heads (middle pellet). Hard to see with the muzzle break on but I was pretty certain there was a giant muzzle burr shearing pellet heads, collapsing the skirts, and launching pellets sideways. IMO it was the only thing that could cause >12" groups at 15'.

At this point I was wondering if the rifle could be salvaged. Had to try.

Disassembled and cleaned everything. It really looked like a "new" rifle inside.

Cobbled up a muzzle-break-puller from scrap metal parts. Break resisted briefly then the puller extracted it with minor effort.

WOW, I was shocked. There WAS a giant burr right at the muzzle. Looked like someone cut the blank with a SHEAR(?). I'm just really disappointed in factory Hatsan that something this bad made it out the door. There is just no excuse for this kind of sloppy work. I'm NOT expecting a world class springer for $50 but this thing would only be dangerous to paper and pests if you used it as a CLUB :-(

Very sloppy barrel work so I resurfaced the whole muzzle face, created a new taper with some new (to me) diamond dremel bits, then polished the new crown with my little ball bearing tool and some polishing compound. NOW patches slide right through and pushed pellets push right out the muzzle with no hesitation or damage. Just nice crisp rifling.

Since I'm ALL IN already...

Trimmed hood off of front sight. It's just too FAT and blocks too much of my sight picture.
Straightened & trimmed the too-curvy trigger blade.
Straightened overly bent trigger frame (eliminates trigger wobble).
Replaced the 0.040" wire trigger spring with my 0.026" version.
Installed new fitted 6" bolt-spring-guide.
Reassembled with fresh lube.
Aligned muzzle break as best as I could and re-seated it with a plastic mallet.
Installed slightly longer trigger adjust screw.

Trigger now feels like a 2-stage with a very light 8 oz first stage to a 2.5 lb crisp release second stage.
No spring vibrations... feels like a gas/air spring rifle.
My muzzle break installation was a tiny bit off... needed 2 minor windage marks to get dialed in at 30'.

First few shots supersonic dieseling away some excess lube. Then rifle settled down to subsonic. May be low-level dieseling for awhile.

I shot a couple pellets into the plastic bags just to be certain. The only distortion was some skirt inflation. Excellent clean uniform rifling marks all around pellet head and skirt. NICE! (top pellet)

A 20 shot group looks pretty good. Top single pellet hole was first shot and 19 more grouped under it after 2 clicks down on open sights. Ignoring that first pellet the 19 remaining holes form a 5/8" group at 30'.

Chronograph data for the 20 shot group is attached.

IMO pretty good for a $50 springer, even with all the extra "factory" grief. Good thing I really ENJOY working on these rifles :-)

[mikeyb]

I recently revised my 30' shooting lane to place my chronograph a few inches in front of the muzzle. Data table now shows pellet "muzzle" velocity and energy, not at ~30'.
Lucky timing since this Edge initially throwing wild pellets might have damaged the device.

... and I need to learn to use muzzle "brake" when posting about my "break" barrels ;-)

[avator]

Not being able to walk past a cheap airgun is how I have amassed more than 100 airguns not including the ones I have sold or given away.
I have really enjoyed fixing and tinkering with them but basically I have a whole bunch that nobody wants and not worth the hassle packing and the cost of shipping. I could easily get the number of guns that I shoot down to 25 or so if I got rid of the ones I don't.
I've even considered renting a booth in one of the local 2nd hand joints around here and seeing if I could move some of them.

[H95Kidd]

I recently revised my 30' shooting lane to place my chronograph a few inches in front of the muzzle. Data table now shows pellet "muzzle" velocity and energy, not at ~30'.
Lucky timing since this Edge initially throwing wild pellets might have damaged the device.

... and I need to learn to use muzzle "brake" when posting about my "break" barrels ;-)

Mikeyb---nice "save" on that Hatsan Edge. For a few hours of your time, I think your results speak for themselves! Excellent work, you are the "man" with with these bargain fire sale Hatsans. As you said, it IS a good thing you enjoy working on them, Lord knows most of them NEED it.    

[Blowpipe Sam]

Nice work Mike!  .177 is a good match for that power plant.

Bill.  I’m considering getting a table at the next local gun show.  See if I can move some PB’s and airguns.  Also, a rack of air rifles is excellent “man bait” for a yard sale.

[avator]

LOL... we live on a one lane dead end dirt road. I would have to rent a billboard in town to have a yard sale here.

[mikeyb]

Would like to sell a few of mine. Best case I might break even on some but most would be a loss. That's OK since I got my fun-value from them and profit is not my goal.
My concern is almost everything that launches anything is restricted or not legal in NYS and/or my specific location. Selling some is just an idea evolving over time ;-)

Regarding this springer and similar rifles...

Time for repair and mods was ~4 hours.

Break down and part cleaning 15 minutes.
An hour + 15 minutes to make and use the muzzle brake puller.
Refacing the muzzle, creating a new crown, and polishing to remove any burrs took the most time and effort at 2 hours.
Bolt guide fabrication, trigger straightening, and front-hood-obotmy is another 15 minutes. (images: another bolt guide 90% complete, straight(er) trigger blade, front-hood-removed).
Fresh lube & reassembly 15 minutes.

I know this rifle design fairly well.
Typically basic (sometimes very sloppy) tolerances, rushed factory assembly (cut seals), and usually a mediocre trigger as shipped.
Mostly MINOR things that can be repaired at low/zero cost.
Assuming the rifle has a "good" barrel AND all the parts working the way they SHOULD these rifles are fun to shoot and are always more accurate than I am.

IMO the Striker/Edge coil springer at $100 is a decent entry level air rifle. At $50 sale or $40 refurb pricing I think it is an excellent bargain... maybe one of the best deals currenly avaiable IF you are willing to do some repair/tuning work yourself.

[Mossonarock]

I cut off the top half of the front sight shroud. That way its like a winged partridge sight on an M1 carbine. The wings protect the sight blade but you still get an open sight picture. It works really well with a peep sight.

What specifically did you use for the bolt spring guide?

[Blowpipe Sam]

I too trimmed off the top of the foresight cover. I also took a needle file and an Emory board to the front sight post and the unsightly blob on top.  You can do a lot to slim down the post and reduce the size of the blob.  Makes for a much better sight picture.