Hatsan Nitro Piston BreakBarrels

[mlmckiver394]

I have been interested in the power of the Hatsan break barrels for a while now and at one point, after watching Rick Eustlers review was dead set on getting one. The more I read in the Turkish Gate the more i began to re-think this opinion. The power of the 125 TH, 125 Sniper and the 135 are very attractive as well as their aesthetic appeal. The things I have read concerning their lack of machining refinement and QC methods seem to affect the compression chamber and seal durability resulting in erratic fps and changing poi. One thing i have not heard is whether the barrels are consistently accurate. My logic tells me that if the bulk of the QC issues involve the milling of the compression chamber, ridiculous amounts of cheap lubricant, and unreliable seal durability. If the barrels are accurate and the other elements of the rifles such as the trigger units are good, would the Nitro Piston conversion produce a much better rifle out-of-the-box. I spoke to someone today from PA and he says the the conversion requires the cleaning of the lubricants and insured me that the techs resolve any minor machining issues and ship major issues back to Hatsan. It can't be that simple though right? Every thread I have read that someone mentions the PA conversion a negative reply is inevitable. Can the Crossman Nitro Piston be that bad, they've only sold millions of them. I also have been reading about the Crossman NP and most agree it is very consistent. I am not gonna cry over a 75 FPS loss and yes, I have heard about the aftermarket Gas Ram offerings. Why is the Crossman NP conversion not a viable option for a fairly new shooter that really doesn't want to tear his rifle down?

[Paul68]

I don't have experience with the converted Hatsans, but have opened several 125s and worked with em.

From what I've seen, and what I've seen others find, the main issues are rough machined surfaces, very poor cleaning prior to assembly of internal parts, metal shavings and debris left in the action, and poor adherence to tolerances pretty much everywhere except the barrel pivot assembly. I've seen some really bad, and some not as bad, but all that I have opened had these issues to one degree or another.

I'm not sure why you would feel a conversion to the Crosman ram is not considered a good option. From what I've read, it seems a pretty good option given the results most have, and considering it gives Pyramyd Air the chance to clean up any machining, cleanliness or damage issues, dont see much reason to look at it unfavorably, unless your goal is maximum possible FPE.

Regarding barrel accuracy....

Back when the 125's came to the US, Tom Gaylord reviewed one and found it performed poorly. He found that the bore was overly large, causing the pellets to seat loosely and make poor contact with the lands, causing poor accuracy.

On all of the Hatsans I've worked with, all the bores tended to the largish size except one, and that was a 177. The 22's and 25's, these had bores that worked best with the larger diam pellets. Some of the guys here are finding that the 25 cals perform best when the pellet skirts are flared, picking up as much as 3 fpe with flared versus unflared. I thought awhile back that this might be because of poor maintenance of the equipment used to prepare the barrels, but since the problem seems consistent across at least two calibers, I now believe this is due to Hatsan simply going too large on their bore sizes.

Fortunately, for the most part the Hatsan barrels seem otherwise free of serious issues, and once you find a good pellet, perform well.

[Hatsanman13]

I have been interested in the power of the Hatsan break barrels for a while now and at one point, after watching Rick Eustlers review was dead set on getting one. The more I read in the Turkish Gate the more i began to re-think this opinion. The power of the 125 TH, 125 Sniper and the 135 are very attractive as well as their aesthetic appeal. The things I have read concerning their lack of machining refinement and QC methods seem to affect the compression chamber and seal durability resulting in erratic fps and changing poi. One thing i have not heard is whether the barrels are consistently accurate. My logic tells me that if the bulk of the QC issues involve the milling of the compression chamber, ridiculous amounts of cheap lubricant, and unreliable seal durability. If the barrels are accurate and the other elements of the rifles such as the trigger units are good, would the Nitro Piston conversion produce a much better rifle out-of-the-box. I spoke to someone today from PA and he says the the conversion requires the cleaning of the lubricants and insured me that the techs resolve any minor machining issues and ship major issues back to Hatsan. It can't be that simple though right? Every thread I have read that someone mentions the PA conversion a negative reply is inevitable. Can the Crossman Nitro Piston be that bad, they've only sold millions of them. I also have been reading about the Crossman NP and most agree it is very consistent. I am not gonna cry over a 75 FPS loss and yes, I have heard about the aftermarket Gas Ram offerings. Why is the Crossman NP conversion not a viable option for a fairly new shooter that really doesn't want to tear his rifle down?

Once you get your Hatsan trigger down to the sweetness of pulls your group are tack drivers out to 50 plus yards. That is with my 135