Hatsan AT44 Tact QE

Great shooter, shooting NSA .22cal 23g slugs at about ~840 fps. Quarter sized groups at 40 yards.

Pros
Great shooter, Good customer support

Cons
Stock cracked on me after a few trips to the field, Hatsan sent me a new (at44 plain) stock for a discount. Even before it cracked it felt loose unless you death gripped it in your shoulder, hence why I opted to get the regular stock.

I bought this AT44 Tact QE in .25 cal. Added a Hawke Airmax 30sf 6x24x50 with high mounts. Gun shoots pretty good out of the box. Once zero in I was hitting quarter size targets from 50-60 yards. After cleaning the barrel the accuracy improved. Dime size groups are easy to achieve in 50-60 yards. The knock down power is a lot better in .25 then .22. Out of five different pellets I tried. The JSB EXACT King 25.39g was most accurate gettiing 838-868 FPS without any hammer adjustments. The two extra mag storage on the gun makes it easy to reloading. Gun is pretty quiet compared to the sound of your pellet hitting the target. Gun is also very simple and easy to work on. One comment of advice, buy extra tins of pellets. This gun is very fun to shot and most sport good store don't stock JSB .25 cal or any other .25 pellets.

Pros
Great price for the quality and accuracy of this gun.

Cons
Gun is alittle heavy to shoulder. If your shotting from a bench or bi-pod it will be fine.

This is a great first PCP rifle and is a better choice than the standard AT44 QE in my opinion. It costs $10 more but you get an extra mag and a better stock so it's worth it. The best feature on the tact model is the removable shoulder stock. You can take it off and use it as a 35" "pistol" which is much lighter. The other QE hatsan's are too long imo. Even with the shoulder stock attached, this one can be shortened to 42". These rifles have no perceivable recoil so I find this one easy to shoot without a shoulder stock when using my bipod. It is so quiet that I could hardly hear it when I used it outside. It is worth noting that this gun is heavy so you will want a bipod or rest to use it comfortably. The AT44 QE would really benefit from a bullpup stock. If you want something light and quick, consider the Hatsan ATP2 QE which would probably make a better discreet backyard plinker.

Also, I recommend buying a 2nd air cylinder if you plan to use a pump so you can do all your pumping at home and focus on shooting when you are out. I get 30 shots from 3000 psi to to 2000 psi then it takes me 60 - 100 pumps to get back to 3000 psi with an Air Venturi G6

I got the .22 btw. Squirrels drop with one shot. I use the JSB 25g monsters and the JSB jumbo 18g pellets which are both excellent in the AT44.

Pros
It's accurate, quiet, powerful and better than any other .22 PCP rifle in the price range. It comes with 3 mags a sling and spare parts. It has enough rails for a scope, light, bipod and laser. It's backyard friendly (within reason). It has removable air cylinders. It gets a lot of shots and isn't terrible to pump. It's shorter than the standard AT44 QE. It's not particularly pellet fussy. Only a few pellets are too long for the mag.

Cons
It's too heavy. The weight is a little front heavy. The quality of the fittings are not great but that is expected at this price. Mine rattles a little which makes it feel like it won't last a long time. I don't like the light gray grips which I think should be black for the tactical look. The bright orange Hatsan logo on the sling is hideous. Hatsan is not exactly a prestigious brand, it's entry level, so I have no wish to walk around advertising them. The removable air cylinders are annoying to remove. The ping of the hammer could be further dampened with some inexpensive sound proofing material around the exhaust valve. The ping gets louder as the caliber increases. The above "complaints" are really me being picky. They are all very minor and are really more like suggestions for the next models. Hatsan seems to listen to their customers. Hats off to them for being one of the few companies to bring us low priced high performance PCP rifles. They do more for $500 than other brands do $1500.

Have had the rifle for a few weeks now. Pluses: (1) very accurate. Shooting off a stuffed backpack or any other crude rest still keeps all pellets in a group smaller than a dime. I haven't bothered to test out a bunch of different pellets -- just buying plain crossman premier domed 14.5 gr. I'm sure more testing could yield even better results. And with a 500-pellet break-in, things should improve (just got to about 300 or so). After shooting springers for the last couple years, this feels easy. Playing around at the shooting range, I was ringing a 6" steel plate at 100 yards with relative ease. (2) I'm not much for the tactical look. I put some orange tape on the barrel to make it look less scary while carrying it to/from hunting areas and in the back yard (neighbors can see partially through the fence). But the pistol grip and adjustable stock are pretty nice. They give me a similar feel to my deer rifle so the muscle memory is pretty similar. (3) the rifle offers plenty of power. With a 25-yard zero, there's minimal holdover out to 50 yards. Most of my holdover is for the 5-10 yard ranges where I do a little bit of evening rat control. A better mounting system would help this but I just used one I already had. If anything, it's a bit too much power for the backyard. I have to choose my shots carefully because they are likely to blow through a fence board. I wish somebody would make a heavy plastic pellet or frangible pellet that gave me the accuracy I want but with little risk of overpenetration. Oh well. (5) It's pretty quiet for the power it generates. It's hard to tell as the shooter but it seems that the sound of it hitting a cardboard box backstop (filled with old clothes) makes more noise than the rifle itself. Neighbors probably hear it -- it's not silent by any stretch. But it's an odd *TWING* sound that doesn't sound very scary.

Minuses: (1) it's heavy. After the scope & mount, it is well over 10 lb -- making it heavier than a medium bull barrel .308. Offhand shooting gets tiring very quickly. My oldest son (6) can collapse the stock to fit him but he can hardly move it to fire it safely and accurately due to the weight. So it's just dad's toy for now. (2) It's long and tall -- I've been having trouble finding a soft case it can fit into. For now, I'm just wrapping it in a thick quilt when I take it in the car. (3) I still can't figure out how to remove the adjustable stock. That might make storage a little easier. (4) I haven't been able to get as many shots as they advertise. After pumping to about 185 bar, I get about 25 shots before I can hear and see the pellets dropping. And they drop lower with every shot. This is in 90+ degree heat so not sure what, if anything, that does to things. (4) The anti double-feed simply doesn't work. I've had numerous double-feeds after loading a new cylinder. I found that I can usually avoid them by cocking the bolt all the way back before ejecting the empty cylinder. But sometimes, the bolt just doesn't want to go in and I end up with a jammed pellet or a double-feed. It's not often. But it's enough to make me really take my time loading and unloading each cylinder.

Overall, I really like the rifle. If it were a few pounds lighter or even shorter, I'd rate it a 5-star. But as it is, it's I think a few improvements can be made but it's still a keeper.