Hatsan 125, what a behemoth of a springer and an accurate one at that, but for that little bit of extra accuracy, you gotta' tinker with it.
Hello again everyone, I haven't been on here in a while and the last post that I've made was exactly about the Hatsan 125, if I remember correctly...
Anyway, after having crossed the 500-800 shot mark on the Hatsan 125, I had to re-tighten all of the scope and stock screws yet again in order to again achieve the optimum stability of the rifles' stock and scope, although the scope dials did not have to be re-adjusted, strangely enough. I've re-tightened all of the screws after every 250 shots, or so, but without ever adjusting the zero on the scope, but after a few times of having to screw around with the stocks' screws, I started to have enough of re-tightening everything all over again and began to look for a proper solution, which was no other than to somehow prevent the stocks' screws from loosening themselves with every shot cycle...
And so, I thought of teflon tape, which I've tightly wrapped around every stock screws' thread in a counter-clockwise rotation, all the way down to the tip of the thread and had some of the tape hang off the last thread. In order for the wrapping process to succeed well, the tape must be fully flexed, almost to its tearing point and tightly wrapped around each threads' pitch with almost no overlapping in between turns, from one loop to another. I've added a drawing depicting a properly wrapped screw in order to better explain what I've just written down here...
*EDIT* - Correction:
As far as the principle goes, if the thread on a screw is facing downward - toward the floor, then wrap it in a counter-clockwise rotation, and if the pitch of the thread is going up - toward celling, clockwise. Down = CCW; Up = CW. That's all.
Ok, so after having done all that, I shot a few groups of JSB Heavys and realized, that the 7-shot group is at least a quarter of an inch tighter than before, and so I quickly grabbed my phone and glanced through the older photos of groups that I've shot with this rifle in the past and figured my assumption is actually correct, as the groups I shot prior to having tinkered with the stock screws were certainly larger and some 1 1/4" CTC at 25 meters and even somewhat inconsistent. After a while, I also realized that it's time to give the H&N Slugs another go and what followed outright shocked me, the slugs were actually grouping and the only pellets with which I was really disappointed were the JTS Dead Center ones (cca. 22 grain in weight- both 18gr and 22gr were tested, both performed poorly) and I also didn't have luck with another batch of H&N Baracuda 18, those could've grouped better, but everything else was pretty much spot on. On the attached images down below, you will also be able to see the group size in centimeters, as the only measuring tape I had lying around was a metric one. Also note that during the testing of the groups I haven't zeroed my rifle to any particular ammunition, I was only testing whether the gun "likes" a certain kind of ammo. I didn't even bother to measure the group of Baracuda 18s, because it was that bad. But the H&N 21gr slugs performed really well, even though the group was a bit larger than with the rest of the pellets, but that could've just been me, or the wind
This was my shooting setup, just a table and a support bag: (Whether the rifle was shot off a tripod, or bag had no effect on the POI)
Alright, on to the other thing regarding the optic... In order to conserve my Leapers 4x32mm scope to the fullest, I decided to replace the two-piece ring mounts that came with the scope with a dampening, moving, or otherwise "zero" mount from Optima/Hatsan... And that's when things got weird and I mean really, really weird!
During the last shooting session I shot another 200 rounds and bit by bit, the whole left side of the mil-dot reticle began falling off, but only the inner part of the crosshair was affected, as the "duplex" lines, or parts of the left side of the reticle were not affected, but the most peculiar thing about all of this is that the optic held its zero and still does, apparently what was going on with the reticle had absolutely nothing to do with the erector tube in the scope, or otherwise it would affect zero for certain. How do I know that zero was not affected, even though half of the reticle is missing?! Well, just after it fell off, I took 4 consecutive shots at a 0.5l beer can at 80m+ and hit three of them; .gif of the shot included down below. So yes, the "PROTECTOR" mount certainly did its part, but apparently the etched reticle didn't hold up, although I have no idea whether these reticles are etched onto glass/lens or are somehow else fixed in the scope. If anybody knows, they can comment on this.
So, this is how it started falling apart...
...And here we are now:
And that's pretty much all there's to it, I absolutely love the accuracy on this rifle as it is easily a 100+ yard gun for plinking beer cans. I guess I got a good one, if something else changes on the gun, I'll let you guys know.
Here's another .gif of the 125's shot, or otherwise recoil cycle:
Have a good one,
- Triglav
Hello again everyone, I haven't been on here in a while and the last post that I've made was exactly about the Hatsan 125, if I remember correctly...
Anyway, after having crossed the 500-800 shot mark on the Hatsan 125, I had to re-tighten all of the scope and stock screws yet again in order to again achieve the optimum stability of the rifles' stock and scope, although the scope dials did not have to be re-adjusted, strangely enough. I've re-tightened all of the screws after every 250 shots, or so, but without ever adjusting the zero on the scope, but after a few times of having to screw around with the stocks' screws, I started to have enough of re-tightening everything all over again and began to look for a proper solution, which was no other than to somehow prevent the stocks' screws from loosening themselves with every shot cycle...
And so, I thought of teflon tape, which I've tightly wrapped around every stock screws' thread in a counter-clockwise rotation, all the way down to the tip of the thread and had some of the tape hang off the last thread. In order for the wrapping process to succeed well, the tape must be fully flexed, almost to its tearing point and tightly wrapped around each threads' pitch with almost no overlapping in between turns, from one loop to another. I've added a drawing depicting a properly wrapped screw in order to better explain what I've just written down here...
*EDIT* - Correction:
As far as the principle goes, if the thread on a screw is facing downward - toward the floor, then wrap it in a counter-clockwise rotation, and if the pitch of the thread is going up - toward celling, clockwise. Down = CCW; Up = CW. That's all.
Ok, so after having done all that, I shot a few groups of JSB Heavys and realized, that the 7-shot group is at least a quarter of an inch tighter than before, and so I quickly grabbed my phone and glanced through the older photos of groups that I've shot with this rifle in the past and figured my assumption is actually correct, as the groups I shot prior to having tinkered with the stock screws were certainly larger and some 1 1/4" CTC at 25 meters and even somewhat inconsistent. After a while, I also realized that it's time to give the H&N Slugs another go and what followed outright shocked me, the slugs were actually grouping and the only pellets with which I was really disappointed were the JTS Dead Center ones (cca. 22 grain in weight- both 18gr and 22gr were tested, both performed poorly) and I also didn't have luck with another batch of H&N Baracuda 18, those could've grouped better, but everything else was pretty much spot on. On the attached images down below, you will also be able to see the group size in centimeters, as the only measuring tape I had lying around was a metric one. Also note that during the testing of the groups I haven't zeroed my rifle to any particular ammunition, I was only testing whether the gun "likes" a certain kind of ammo. I didn't even bother to measure the group of Baracuda 18s, because it was that bad. But the H&N 21gr slugs performed really well, even though the group was a bit larger than with the rest of the pellets, but that could've just been me, or the wind
This was my shooting setup, just a table and a support bag: (Whether the rifle was shot off a tripod, or bag had no effect on the POI)
Alright, on to the other thing regarding the optic... In order to conserve my Leapers 4x32mm scope to the fullest, I decided to replace the two-piece ring mounts that came with the scope with a dampening, moving, or otherwise "zero" mount from Optima/Hatsan... And that's when things got weird and I mean really, really weird!
During the last shooting session I shot another 200 rounds and bit by bit, the whole left side of the mil-dot reticle began falling off, but only the inner part of the crosshair was affected, as the "duplex" lines, or parts of the left side of the reticle were not affected, but the most peculiar thing about all of this is that the optic held its zero and still does, apparently what was going on with the reticle had absolutely nothing to do with the erector tube in the scope, or otherwise it would affect zero for certain. How do I know that zero was not affected, even though half of the reticle is missing?! Well, just after it fell off, I took 4 consecutive shots at a 0.5l beer can at 80m+ and hit three of them; .gif of the shot included down below. So yes, the "PROTECTOR" mount certainly did its part, but apparently the etched reticle didn't hold up, although I have no idea whether these reticles are etched onto glass/lens or are somehow else fixed in the scope. If anybody knows, they can comment on this.
So, this is how it started falling apart...
...And here we are now:
And that's pretty much all there's to it, I absolutely love the accuracy on this rifle as it is easily a 100+ yard gun for plinking beer cans. I guess I got a good one, if something else changes on the gun, I'll let you guys know.
Here's another .gif of the 125's shot, or otherwise recoil cycle:
Have a good one,
- Triglav
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