Hatsan Sniper Long

[Racing]

As some of you are aware i´m into hotroding while that being said.. Hatsans not so much. Sure. Some of them will take it but their QC is beyond critisism even.
However.
On this one i was told that Hatsan had finally gotten their **** together. Spoiler alert, not so.
Anywhoos.. i bought one.
Mind you. This is not your average priced Hatsan exactly. Bordering on Impact dollars almost so yeah, my expectations were no doubt up there.



On a whole these are marketed as a new take on Hatsans behalf. One of the treats being that it raises the bar as far as power out the snout, and i´ll give them that much. Power is not an issue for being what it is.
In stock form though as they come, out of the box, to reach claimed 155J/114fpe in 25cal.. well i bet that will take some almost insane regulator setting.
Mark.
This unit is set for a 300bar fill which on a whole i´d say is a telltale of things to come. Some mans are already marketing 500bar setups for what it´s worth. This one though, 300 bars on a 700cc carbon fibre bottle.



Sniper Long (for a friggin name btw..). Yeah. Sure. Barrel is on 760mm and as you undress that bit there the barrel is run sans support the entire way really. But long.
Yes.
With one of my cans out front the puff becomes to laugh at long. It´s an airgun for the love a gawd.. to the note of 140cm+
I guess the massive dimensions increase sales or something but whatever. I would have been WAY more happy with it as a bullpup, i´ll tell you that much.



As you open the case it comes with/in there´s small details to catch your eye. Like these rubber protectors for the various pic rails and m-locks
Neat.



Of course i took the thing entirely apart, of course i did. Wanted to check what i bought for crying out loud.
This time out someone spent the time to touch the muzzle on the barrel, sorry to say though with wrong speeds on the lathe and dull tools leaving insane amounts of chatter. Yes. Handed the thing a fresh muzzle crown as our creator intended them to work and look, you bet.



Ah. The regulator, gauges and plenum. Hatsan claims the plenum to be on 100cc´s, which is ample to say the least, but to my findings as you put all the various nooks n crannies together it´s actually a tad more than that.
This though is where the problems start.

The regulator is thought to be externally adjustable. Might be, my dial wasn´t even on there. As i reset that thing and tried to adjust pressure, no-can-do as the materials arrived on are simply to soft to take the heat. In short, fugedaboutit.
At that the actual adjuster, that runs into the regulator block, its sealing surface is so short that as you crank down on the adjuster the thing goes skewed and the o-ring riding on it gets shot in a heartbeat.

So. Upcoming (for other reasons too) i´ll redo that. First up there´s WAY to little material present as far as bearing surface for that part there.. so i´ll fab a fresh one and this time out of tool room steel, that i´ll thread on there. Thus i´ll have that part protrude somewhat from stock and thereby hand the adjuster way more bearing surface area to work on. In turn i´ll set the clearance way tighter, which will again make the adjuster more steady where it´s at. Insert as well as the new adjuster then, as mentioned, either out of 2541 tool room or 2241 stainless. I´m happy either way really and want this done to never have to be bothered by it again.
To my mind this is just first up poor economics by Hatsan. Them parts there is NOT where you should save a few pennies on materials.. second up that short a bearing surface, that´s just poor engineering.

Let me put it like this, the SL has simply been put into market way to early. That´s the bottom line really.



Ah! N Hatsan insists on their downright insane solution for a valve body. For assembly reasons i guess they insist on this exhaust valve setup that lets air out via all in all, in this case, 5 ports instead of one. It flows worse and it weakens the valve. Period.
In turn out of brass, on a gun supposed to take the heat like few others. Not ideal, let me put it that way.



Stock poppet works against a POM seat. There´s a few different poppets available as this is where power is limited for various markets. No matter as you´ll soon see..



Yep. Going to go 2mm shank without firing the thing even once. So a small bearing insert was turned on the lathe, threaded and what have you.
However.
Notice the exhaust ports. On most Hatsans these hoover around the 4mm mark, which i guess works, while on the SL they´re all in at 6mm.. which leaves very little material between the ports as far as valve housing integrity.
Important?
Yeah. You could say it is, read on.



Basic flow dynamics i guess, but even an untrained eye can see the difference between the stock poppet and what´s in the picture here and yes it pays off.

[Racing]

Trigger is Hatsans by now fabled Quattro trigger. For some reason on the SL, which is their flagship to part, the housing out of rather poor plastics. Again.. as these are made with a steel housing for other Hatsans, WHY opt to save a few pennies on this?



Anywhoo...
Down to the imperative bit, will it shoot? Yes. Yes it will shoot and from what it seems that barrel could care less if pellets or slugs. Target in pic made using 42 grain hollowpoint H&N´s.

As stated above. The stock unit is claimed to a decent 155J for a 25cal. What sets the limits isn´t the porting per se but more so the entry port on the barrel, which is of WAY less area vs the rest of the setup.
So yes. Barrel port got hit by me too and this coupled with a valve assy by me now hands a rather impressive approx 130J@ a mere approx 135bar.
Seeing the fill pressure of 300.. that´s a fair number of shots before you need to get bothered about it.









Yep. She´s a tall girl alright. To the point where it, at least to my mind, becomes an issue. Don´t get me wrong i own powder burners that are about on the same note but.. them boomsticks also carry a tad more whoop*ss compared.
So no.
I bet this is a sales/marketing thing cause this thing is just downright cumbersome to tout around.
Silly downright.

[Racing]

Then disaster struck. There´s a reinforcing piece of aluminium running between the main block and the regulator housing and to be able to adjust the trigger more simple i removed both that and the handle/grip/trigger guard.
As i sat there dryfiring the thing all of a sudden... *BOOOOM* right there on my lap!
Picking the rifle apart, the valve body had cracked as can be seen in the pictures, which had sent the hammer in rebound which cracked the sear in three pieces and in turn ripped the "fork" on the hammer spring adjuster clean off.
***?

Hm.
I called my vendor up, explained what had happened, and we agreed on that the simplest and fastest solution here was if i repaired that there myself.
One little caveat though.. sear went in three pieces and i could only find two and as i had zero idea what the thing was to look like at the time, yeah well... you get it.



What i did was turn a new "top hat" for the valve body which i brazed on there by "sweating" the two parts vs each other. A technique that works very very well for applications like this.
All done i drilled for ONE exhaust port.
I guess the reason behind them multiple ports is assembly. Using one port the thing as to be timed, which TAKES time when putting these units together.
The sad part in this is that i´m by far the first to experience this and truly feel and believe that Hatsan needs to adress this before someone gets hurt for real. 300bar isn´t to be played around with i´ll tell you that much.

Then pure luck and chance struck. A few days had passed as i all of a sudden noticed the missing part for the sear right there on the floor.
So out the TIG welder came and presto.. we were back in business again.



Adjuster fork and so forth.. Yeah. Some of these parts are cast why again brazing is my go to method. That being said as i now had the entire thing apart and came to work the action... was it ever gritty to the feel.
So probe, return spring plunger as well as hammer got a trip on the lathe and.. took a dingle hone to the cavitys in case on the main body.



These things really are cheaper than dirt so.. no harm no foul and the difference in feel on the action not even on the same map when done.



Seeing the rather long unsupported barrel we also took to 3D printing a barrel band. This can of course affect accuracy but.. we were good.

[Racing]

Right.
So where are we at?

There´s a few of us that own these that do keep heavy machinery around and we´ve agreed on one thing. These units were truly let into market way to early. They carry design flaws as well as choice of materials that are simply not acceptable for a gun this price range and done deal.
One of us, that lives down in Holland, has gone even further and had Huma deliver a true match grade regulator for his unit (he competes at bench rest)

To add insult to injury in my case i´ve had regulator creep galore lately, so need to adress that - too. As i have to redesign the reg block i might as well do all of what´s planned around there while at it i guess..

What am i saying?
I´m saying that if you´re not really into the loop AND keep a machine shop at hand stay away. Some owners claim theirs run flawless, good for them, but we´re way to many that "battle" these units for it to be ok.
Really.



Oh! About forgot! Length of this thing really came to annoy me and as i was browsing through FX spares offerings i noticed this "foldable stock hinge" for their Dreamline. Supposed to take standard AR equipment so ordered one.



Runs about 60$ or so and yep.. you get rid of an easy 15 inches as you fold the thing - for carrying it around or whatever.

Don´t get me wrong. I´m going to see this through, but that Hatsan as claimed by any number had gotten their **** together.. nah. Not really.
At all.

Power though.
Got yet another owner that lives a good tad north of me. He followed suite as far as poppet, valve, barrel entry and so forth but a way heftier hammer spring than I run. Then did yet some work and came to install the reg out of spec why reg pressure came to follow fill pressure.
He noticed to late and thought.. whatever. Loaded some 46grain pills up and these went supersonic with a massive boom.
Chrono showed the thing made 220J/162fpe there n then.

Welp.
That´s the story on the Hatsan Sniper Long fwiw.