Testing my new Hatsan 125 (Crony results) 30FPE

[rjp]

Picked up a Hatsan 125c a couple weeks ago and finally got around to building a lighting setup so I could use my crony indoors with nice steady lighting.

This is .22 cal.

This is one heck of a powerful gun! I shot a set of 10 with two different pellets and got the results shown below. I have about 500 pellets through the gun so far. I was kind of surprised how much more consistent the H&N pellets performed. Today was the first time I tried them. I guess they must be a better fit for the barrel? What else could cause them to group so much closer in velocity? I was actually thinking of returning the gun based on the inconsistent spread with the CP pellets (I was seeing ES of 100 fps earlier), but now I'm thinking it's doing great.

How do these results look compared to what others are seeing?

Crossman Premier  (14.3 gr)

Lo 928
Hi 987
Av 958
ES 59
SD 19.7

FPE 29.1

H&N Baracuda (19.09 gr)

lo 851
Hi 864
Av 857
Es 13
Sd 4.7

FPE 31.1

[packard8]

Good numbers for a .22, close to my 135/.25 (33+ FPE with the 26gr H&N Crow Mags). More consistent weight would account for the tighter numbers with the H&N pellets as well as more consistent skirt diameter. Crosman pellets seem to vary batch to batch....sometimes good, sometimes not so much.

[robertr]

 My tin of Baracudas are 21.14grains, do they make 19.09 grain ones?

[BenjiHunter]

My tin of Baracudas are 21.14grains, do they make 19.09 grain ones?

The Barracuda Hunter Extreme are 19.09 grains.

[robertr]

 Ok,  I see, forgot about the Hunter's. Thanks.

[rjp]

I forgot to mention this is a .22 cal version.

[grimeszee]

My 125 sniper .177 cal springer puts out 27 fpe with 10.4 grains. It consistently shoots 3/4 inch groups at 30 yards. The only major downside is cocking the beast.

[rjp]

I decided to weigh individual pellets. What I found is that the Crosman Premiers have much more variation compared to the H&N. This almost certainly is a primary contributor to the velocity fluctuations I recorded. At least that is my theory tonight. If this is the case, then I can say the gun shoots very consistently and the velocity varies only (or primarily) because of pellet weight variation rather than variations in the seal or the skirt against the barrel or spring or cylinder performance. This is pretty cool and makes me think the gun is even better than I thought!

Here is a list of individual pellet weights for a sample size of 11 of each pellet (.22 cal)

Crosman Premier pellet weights
14.6   
14.2   
14.6   
14.2   
14.4   
14.6   
14.6   
14   
14.4   
14.2   
14.2   
   
avg=14.36,   stdev=0.21

H&N pellet weights
18.6   
18.6   
18.6   
18.6   
18.6   
18.6   
18.4   
18.4   
18.4   
18.4   
18.4   
   
avg=18.51, stdev=0.10

Two important things I learned here.

(1) The standard deviation of the CP pellets is twice as large as the H&N. This is huge. The Crosman is a rather inconsistent weight pellet.

(2) The average weight of the H&N is only 18.51 grains, not 19.09 as stated on the can. This is significant as well, because if I plug 18.51 into the energy calculations in the first post I get 30.18 FPE, rather than 31.1 as I got using the stated weight. This makes the energy nearly identical to the Crosman pellets, which it should be.

So basically, this gun puts about 30 FPE on whatever comes out of the barrel, and the velocity pretty much varies with the mass of the pellet according to the formula

E = (1/2)MV^2

Just like the physics says it should...