Range Testing the .357 and .30 Hatsan BT65 QE Prototypes

My friend and I headed up to the range a couple of days ago. As I was packing the truck I noticed that I was down to my last partial tin of .35 JSB pellets. Fortunately I had ordered a case of 3000 some time back as I knew I was going to be shooting a lot of .357 pellets. I just had not opened up the box yet. When I did, I was surprised to find .25 cal pellets and not .357s. DRAT!  Now this was going to make things interesting….

Hatsan .35 Cal Quiet Energy BT65 Big Bore

Settling in on the range…

The 100 yard range was occupied so we settled in to the 40 yard pistol bay which affords more than enough room for the testing that I needed and wanted to get done with the .357. I already know how the .30 shoots and will get to those shot cards a little later in this article.

My reason for coming out today was to see how the .357 would cycle the various ammo that I mentioned in my previous article out here at the range and if anything other than the JSBs would be accurate. I setup at 25 yards and got to my tests.

I started with the Eun Jin 77.8 Grain pellets and you can see the results below. They were sort of all over the map at only 25 yards. Time to move on.

Eun Jin Pellets from 25 Yards

Next were the Air Venturi 95 Grain pointed hollow point bullets. This is not at all what I was expecting. These were about the same as the Eun Jins but really curling left of my aim point.

Air Venturi 95 Grain Pointed Hollow Points at 25 Yards

I was really hoping this next Air Venturi option would shoot well. It’s the 105 Grain flat nose bullet. Unfortunately, it was the worst of the bunch, and I barely kept all my shots on the paper at 25 yards.

Air Venturi 105 Grain Flat Nose Bullet at 25 Yards

Ok.. Now I was starting to get a little concerned. I had one “non-pellet” ammo left to try and that was the 67 grain Air Venturi Round Ball. Well as you can see below, it was better. Not awesome, but definitely heading in the right direction.

Air Venturi 67 Grain Round Ball at 25 Yards. This ammo is not practical at this time as it does not stay in the magazine.

Now it was time to go back to the JSB pellets. Having already shot these with President of Hatsan USA a couple of weeks back, I knew these would shoot like I was expecting and as you can see, they most certainly did. Unfortunately I ran out of pellets before being able to take it and stretch things out any further. So those tests will have to wait for a while.

JSB 81.02 Grain Pellets at 25 yards. This is certainly more like what I was hoping for. Unfortunately I ran out before I could do any more tests!

Now for the .30 cal results…

The .30 cal is an awesome shooting airgun. I could dance around a bit, but I’m just going to get right to it. Long range PCP airgunners are always looking for that 1 MOA airgun. That means that you can keep your shots to a 1″ group at 100 yards. In my experience any airgun that can shoot 2 MOA consistently, 2″ or better at 100 yards, is very hard to find. The Hatsan .30 cal delivered a 5 shot group of  1.2″ CTC at 100 yards. At 50 yards I’m getting .553″ CTC. That’s not quite 1 MOA groupings yet, but it’s really close. This gun has had NO work done to it other than loosening the trigger tension screw just a hair. I haven’t even had the barrel off to clean it. I can’t wait to see this airgun on the shelves!

Hatsan .30 Cal Quiet Energy BT65 Big Bore 50 Yard 5 Shot group with the .30 Cal Hatsan BT65 Quiet Energy Big Bore 100 Yard 5 shot group with the .30 Cal BT65 Quiet Energy Big Bore

Initial, final thoughts

I can’t tell you all how excited I am about these new airguns from Hatsan. I want to point out again that these are still just the prototypes. I had the pleasure of working with Hatsan last year on their prototype Quiet Energy guns and was able to provide suggestions prior to the final production models. I think those turned out pretty darn good. There’s a tiny bit of tweaking that needs to be done on the .357, but I think the .30 cal’s ready to go. By the time these come to market, you can bet that they will be as good as they can be. I’ve got some additional plans for these over the next couple of months leading up to the SHOT Show in Vegas. Definitely keep your eye on the blog as things develop and I’m able to share more!