Hatsan Hercules Bully .357 reviews

[blackmantis]

Hey Guys,
        I've been looking into this model pcp for a while but in my research I've been coming up with limited topic on it. Not many videos or reviews. What are you guys thoughts on this gun and it's use for target/hunting?

Thanks
CPT

[Mrgray2710]

Im looking at too! so far info is very limited

[Danny]

I got the Hercules Bully in .45.  My thought compared to my other big bore, the Benjamin Bulldog.  The Hatsan is much, much harder to cock.  The lever that rotates the magazine is a cheap stamping that seems off.  Sometimes it doesn’t index well.  There are sharp edges everywhere.  I cut myself on the lever arms when cocking.  The magazine might hold the Hatsan bullets, but it is loose on all the others I’ve tried and they move during recoil and extend outside the mag, blocking rotation.  It is crazy loud.  It is heavy.  The trigger was set, from the factory, to about 10 pounds!  It can only be adjusted down to about 3 pounds safely.  Below that and it fires with a bump.

In .357 there is no question I’d choose the Bulldog over the Bully.

[SAGERAT NITEMARE]

The Herc is a bully with two bottles basically and I've make many comments on my 357 Herc link. 

Danny hit many of the high "problem" points but you have to take "badmouthing" with a hand full of salt as ANYONE who's object of affection turned into the "*(&^ *****" can be deeply and be-definitely rock hard and "scorned"...NO DISS INTENDED.

When it comes to buying an AG you need to put your "dreams" aside and get TOTALLY HARD NOSED...CAVEAT EMPTOR, "LET THE BUYER BEWARE"...try NOT to cut a fat hog, it CAN'T BE DONE...I KNOW, I try all the time so I know how the raccoon ate the persimmon. (you'd think I would learn?) 

You also have to be careful of the information presented on the "sales" sites...they are out to make a living and DON'T show you the peccadillo's of ANY AG.

Forums do the same...if I LIKE a particular gun, it can do NO WRONG, if not, it is a filthy, nasty POS of the first order.  We all have things that set us off...I want ACCURACY and most other warts don't bother me...to me it's a tool to do a job and UGLY will work just as well as PRETTY...sometimes better as I'm NOT so worried about scratching of dinging an ugly gun and will stuff it up a bush if that is what's needed to get the shot.

I WON'T BUY OR RECOMMEND another Hatsan. Although I have three...the 22 BullBoss and .177 AT44 are BOTH VERY ACCURATE, but ALL THREE have warts as does my two AF's, Gauntlet and Daystate....picky stuff can be found on ANY AG but more so on the cheaper ones from the other side of the world.

I can only recommend digging as deep as you can for the gun YOU think is right for you...GO TO AN AG GUN STORE and handling as many as you can and asking as many questions as you can and LISTEN for minimal responses or hedging...they are in business to SELL.  Think of your gun as a used car and what used car salesmen will do to sell.

Scary isn't it!!!! hahahahahahahah

Good Luck.

[Kinetic45^]

I have one I acquired while buying another airgun, the seller just gave it to me because he had problems with it - it had horrible shot count and could not be tuned and had a habit of poppet failure.

I brought it home and found he was right. I gave up on it. The concept is appealing but the actual exicution is bad.

In .357 I've got a Texan, a Slayer, a Pitbull and two WAR FLEX's: one a custom high powered 'heavy' slug gun and the other a 'stock' pellet rifle. I have also owned a Ataman .357 MR2 Tact pellet rifle , nice rifle but only pellets and I shoot 95% slugs so sold it.

The Hercules is MUCH heavier (this thing needs to be on wheels like artillery, it's too heavy to carry around for realistic hunting), has a terrible shot count even with two bottles (several of the other guns get more shots with only half the air!)  And mine has a trigger that if adjusted to less than 6 pounds becomes unsafe.  That's SIX POUNDS trigger pull... unacceptable!
And finally, I did not find it capable of being tuned to shoot slugs heavier than 120gr at 900 FPS which is the minimum standard for me. I tried to find someone who was a tuner for this rifke to either get some suggestions or even send it to them but found no one.
I'd sell it but I'd have to tell the buyer it was a dog and I think it would be a bad buy for them, it's going to take a lot of work and maybe money to bring it up any value and it still will always be 3rd class compaired to other products out there. Actually, if someone paid for shipping and handling, I'd let them have it as it's useless to me.

[gendoc]

well there you have it....real world experiances   

[SAGERAT NITEMARE]

We need to compare apples to apples...NOT apples to gold foil covered kumquats...comparing a WAR FLEX or SLAYER to a Bully is the same as comparing a Yugo to a Ferrari...it just isn't de Rigueur...leave the egos outside, it DOESN'T help the posters.  There are several AG's in the same price and quality range as the Bully so lets compare THOSE.

Besides the countries where these guns come from are low income with little or no QC in ANY part of the construction/milling process many times...so CAVEAT EMPTOR rules...AGAIN.

The weight of the "Beast" was posted and I knew what it weighed when I bought it, so part of the problem lies with the consumer as well as the builder.  Besides I LIKE a bit of weight in my guns...it absorbs recoil, breathing and heart pulses...ALL of my large cal PG weigh 10# plus and I don't have any problems carting those around but...maybe 15# is a bit excessive in an AG, I'll concede.  At least the Bully is ROBUST.

EVERY large cal AG uses a LOT of air...my 357 Herc uses ≈45 psi/shot /3-5 BAR depending on the pellet weight and the 45 Cal AF's gets what, 2-3 shots before needing topped off so if you want to play with the Big Dogs you have to pay a price in air or dollars...usually BOTH. 

I see a 1/4 - 1/2" change in POI, vertically, with EVERY SHOT so I get a nice narrow, LONG, vertical group with the 6-9 shots I get before the pressure drops off sufficiently to need a top off to keep the accuracy level anywhere near what I REQUIRE.

I have my trigger set to ≈2# but the safety doesn't work now...it still passes the "hammer/slap around" test.  Not having a safety doesn't bother me, I DON'T WALK AROUND WITH A ROUND IN THE CHAMBER, AG OR PG...it just ISN'T safe and worse yet depending on a safety of ANY kind is an accident waiting to happen.

Pretty much EVERYTHING that has been said about the Bully and Hercules is true to a certain extent, but the same can be said for just about ALL the lower priced, third world country offerings so...pay the cheap money and accept the results or save and buy something more expensive and get more value for those shekels.

I'm having a bit of fun fiddling with my Herc...maybe the coming LW barrel will help in the accuracy department and maybe it won't... a few things are are sure to happen...the barrel WON'T effect the massive air requirements and it WILL add at least another 1.0# to  1.5# to the total weight !!!

Good Luck AND Good Hunting

[DLP]

I have one I acquired while buying another airgun, the seller just gave it to me because he had problems with it - it had horrible shot count and could not be tuned and had a habit of poppet failure.

I brought it home and found he was right. I gave up on it. The concept is appealing but the actual exicution is bad.

In .357 I've got a Texan, a Slayer, a Pitbull and two WAR FLEX's: one a custom high powered 'heavy' slug gun and the other a 'stock' pellet rifle. I have also owned a Ataman .357 MR2 Tact pellet rifle , nice rifle but only pellets and I shoot 95% slugs so sold it.

The Hercules is MUCH heavier (this thing needs to be on wheels like artillery, it's too heavy to carry around for realistic hunting), has a terrible shot count even with two bottles (several of the other guns get more shots with only half the air!)  And mine has a trigger that if adjusted to less than 6 pounds becomes unsafe.  That's SIX POUNDS trigger pull... unacceptable!
And finally, I did not find it capable of being tuned to shoot slugs heavier than 120gr at 900 FPS which is the minimum standard for me. I tried to find someone who was a tuner for this rifke to either get some suggestions or even send it to them but found no one.
I'd sell it but I'd have to tell the buyer it was a dog and I think it would be a bad buy for them, it's going to take a lot of work and maybe money to bring it up any value and it still will always be 3rd class compaired to other products out there. Actually, if someone paid for shipping and handling, I'd let them have it as it's useless to me.
[/quote

Tried sending you a PM. You mentioned you would sell your Bully. I am interested. Send me a good offer with shipping to Mi. 48857. I have the Bully .45 and have made several mods and changes to it. I would like to use a .357 to make my own build. Thanks for considering. Darrell

[E30_S50]

I have a bully in 22 so I can't comment on the 357 iteration. Overall I am happy with mine but I did have issues. I would never plan to get one of these and just leave it unmodified. I think these are running around $900 these days? In retrospect it should be in the $500 range until some quality issues are sorted out.

With some barrel cleaning and hammer spring tuning (backed it waaaay out), I have gotten some decent accuracy, great shot count per fill (multiple magazines), and still at decent power.

Out of the box, my gun didn't want to cock smoothly and sort of jammed up. After some tinkering it sort of worked itself out.

Also, all 3 magazines were machined like Ray Charles had made them with a hand file and a drill. They damaged pallets badly so they were very inaccurate.  I managed to fix the mags with files and sandpaper. Relatively easy fix.

Also, like others say,  the trigger is garbage.  Its a little tricky on the bullpup but I did manage to adjust mine...muuuuch better now.

Also...scope rail design is garbage and causes inaccuracy.  The main problem are the 2 outer attachment points that attached to the bottle shroud and barrel shroud. If you are using a bipod, it will move your point of impact all over the place. I modified mine to solve the problem and others have found some other good solutions.

Lastly...personal opinion...but the bully stock/chassis is butt ugly and looks like a 3rd grader designed it. I fabricated a totally different one (shown in my photo). But, that's just my preference. My stock design leaves the hammer spring screw exposed for easy tuning adjustments.  I may make another one with wood.

In the end, I've probably spent more time manufacturing my gun than the manufacturer did! But, I had fun and I'm happy with the results.  For the amount of time I spent though, I could have just spent that time at work, taken the money, and bought a 357 slayer or a totally tricked out pitbull bulldog and still had money left over.

[Jjohnsonjava]

I have one I acquired while buying another airgun, the seller just gave it to me because he had problems with it - it had horrible shot count and could not be tuned and had a habit of poppet failure.

I brought it home and found he was right. I gave up on it. The concept is appealing but the actual exicution is bad.

In .357 I've got a Texan, a Slayer, a Pitbull and two WAR FLEX's: one a custom high powered 'heavy' slug gun and the other a 'stock' pellet rifle. I have also owned a Ataman .357 MR2 Tact pellet rifle , nice rifle but only pellets and I shoot 95% slugs so sold it.

The Hercules is MUCH heavier (this thing needs to be on wheels like artillery, it's too heavy to carry around for realistic hunting), has a terrible shot count even with two bottles (several of the other guns get more shots with only half the air!)  And mine has a trigger that if adjusted to less than 6 pounds becomes unsafe.  That's SIX POUNDS trigger pull... unacceptable!
And finally, I did not find it capable of being tuned to shoot slugs heavier than 120gr at 900 FPS which is the minimum standard for me. I tried to find someone who was a tuner for this rifke to either get some suggestions or even send it to them but found no one.
I'd sell it but I'd have to tell the buyer it was a dog and I think it would be a bad buy for them, it's going to take a lot of work and maybe money to bring it up any value and it still will always be 3rd class compaired to other products out there. Actually, if someone paid for shipping and handling, I'd let them have it as it's useless to me.

Are you still interested in getting rid of your hatsan? Do you still have it? I would really love to have it and I'm happy to pay shipping on it. I can pay extra if needed. I'm good if it needs work. Anyhow please let me know if it is still available. :-) thank you

[DLP]

I would sell my .45 Bully if I didnt have over $1000 in parts, bought ammo, lead and dies. Would never be able to reclaim enough money to justify getting rid of it. And I am too lazy to part it out. Besides, now that I have the bugs worked out, it’s fun to shoot off the bench with it. Easy to keep 1 mag worth of 166 gn slugs touching at 50 yards.