The general design of the Slash magazines is excellent and the magazine safety is secure. They are made of machined metal and better than I'd expected. The pellet magazines worked with the dozen or so pellets I tried, in the sense that pellets were securely held in place once the edge of the skirt was caught under the little retaining ball.
I wasn't sure what to expect from shooting slugs. My limited prior experience with them involved wasted time and money compared to pellets. The 48g H&N slug developed the most power of the ammo tested at 185 Bar (85.8fpe) out of the 420mm barrel, and was still only going at 900f/s while all of the pellets were over 1000f/s. Those particular slugs seemed to work fine when shot through the pellet magazine and they didn't protrude or jam the rotation. Some companies offer specialty slugs in various diameters and weights so it isn't hard to determine what slugs works correctly and best for the standard power band available with the shorter 420mm barrel.
If it had one of those optional super-power kits installed in it (I don't remember seeing those kits mentioned in the advance ads) then I'm not sure what kinds of slugs you'd be able to shoot out of it and still keep the velocity subsonic under 1,100f/s. I don't hunt so I'd rather be able to tune down from 80 fpe to 20 fpe for target practice, like on the Huben K1, than be locked into one of three general Slash power ranges which don't allow as wide a variation. Though without having either of the new Slash power kits to test it's hard to predict the actual power range and ammo weights best suited.
The variation in shot power caused by adjusting the regulator from 125 Bar to 185 Bar was an increase of about 20fpe for the 48g slugs (from ~65fpe to ~86fpe) and an increase of about 17fpe for pellets (~60fpe to ~77fpe). That is plenty of velocity adjustment range for dialing in pellets and slugs for specific purposes and distances.
The Slash is a fine airgun, light and quiet for such a powerful .25 cal airgun. The magazines are a pleasure to use and so solid that I can't see them breaking.
It seems to me to be best suited for hunting where you might set the regulator to some optimum pressure and then have a few magazines along with different pellets or slugs in them. Especially the slightly shorter version with the 420mm barrel. It's easier to carry than the longer version and the power difference between the two can be reduced with suitable regulator adjustments and ammo selection.
I'll post this one for sale in the classifieds before the end of the summer. By that time we should all have more test results from Slash owners with different calibers and barrel lengths. And maybe some user feedback about the low-power and super-power kits as well.
I've had a few Huben K1s and Leshiy2s in the past. Each of these three semi-auto airgun models tries to stand apart by having a unique design and individual approach for power adjustments. Since the K1 is limited to .25 cal, it can't compete directly with the Slash and Leashiy2 in the .30 cal arena. But any of the models can be configured for light hunting and producing somewhat similar amounts of shot power compared to the other models, depending on the tune.
I think that anyone would be satisfied with the quality and performance and sound of the Slash, within the realm of reasonable expectation. It's easy to get worked up over the potential of a new design - that's how I've ended up with several which I got just so I could have a look and run some basic pellet/velocity/fpe power curve tests like the ones above. Just another retired engineer who only trusts real-world test data to tell an accurate story.
JP
