Why so much hate for the Hatsan BullMaster?

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TucsonAZ

TucsonAZ

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Dec 12, 2018
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AZ, United States
I've done a lot of reading on it and ended up buying one with the promo they just had ($499 on a refurb in .25) and this seems to really and truly be a love it or hate it gun. I personally love the look but most people seem to think it's hideous. I'm expecting a BullPup trigger with the linkage (and feel) required to function. I also know it's Hatsan heavy but I'm assuming it's built like a tank in exchange for the weight. I'm just wondering if there were some bad ones out there or if it's a case of buying a truck when you want a car and then complaining about it having a stiff ride. 



Mine hasn't come yet (tomorrow it'll be here) so I'm mostly trying to feel it out in advance as my expectations for the gun are modest. Also, I'm paying $499 for mine, at $800 I could see somebody expecting more from it.



Any of you happen to have anything to add on it? I've lied to myself and promised it will be the last PCP I buy so hopefully I can't find a good enough reason to justify another. I'm actually going to sell a powder gun to pay for this I wanted it so badly.
 
I have a .22 caliber version and overall I love the rifle. I did a review of the rifle not to long ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnYmJPFrruY

Pro's - The semi-auto functionality is very reliable, it shoulders well and has great balance, it generates good power and it does not look terrible.
Cons - Yes it is heavy (as most Hatsans are) and the trigger (once cocked) is heavy and spongy without a predictable breakpoint, it is very loud and has a very poor scope attachment rail system.

The two things that are major let downs for me with this rifle is the report level and scope attachment rail. The bark will require an LDC to tame but the scope issue is a bit more complex.

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As shown in these photos, the aluminum rail is attached down to the rifle at the rear end closest to the shooter and again at the midway point. These two attachment points are fastened to polymer stanchions. The midpoint stanchion is a combination scope rail support and barrel band riser which flexes substantially. POI changes are the result. If any reasonable forces are applied to the scope the forward stanchion moves and will require the scope to be resighted.

At one point I had my scope adjusted to the maximum right side on the turret and was unable to get on center, in desperation, I firmly pressed on the left front side of the scope and regained all my turret range back and was able to resight somewhere in the middle of the turret range. I examine closely that if you apply lateral forces to your scope you can watch all the sway at the end of the scope.

Either a solid middle riser needs to be developed or the introduction of a third point of attachment at the cantilever end of the rail where you see my forward most scope ring.


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Well, I just got it and I would say it's in a 9 condition wise, has a couple little marks on it but overall it's fine and well worth the $400 savings. You can see a scope was mounted on it, I wonder who had it and what the issue with it was but I guess I'll never know that. 



Im just wondering why you would want to spend even $500 on a gun or anything for that matter that your not expecting much from. Im not saying the gun is good or bad but 500 bucks is still a lot of money. I hope it is a great gun and you love it and exceeds your expectations. Good luck, let us know.
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I never said I wasn't expecting much, I said my expectations were modest, meaning I'm not expecting a $3,000 gun for $499, I'm expecting a $499 gun for that price. As somebody that has owned a Caspian and a Kel-Tec I'm only saying I'm not expecting Caspian quality at Kel-Tec prices.
 
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I had two. First one I had to return. Second worked for a couple of months. It was actually very accurate, if you had time to slowly squeeze the seven pound trigger. But, if you shot it in cold weather it would not hit anything because it would fire only blanks. If you shoot it a lot it's mechanics will eventually would start failing, as did mine.

If it was durable, reliable, and actually worked, I would still have it. But, it did not have any of that, so I pretty much gave it away.

Now, if it lowered to $200, I would still NOT have buy it again. The gun really was a sore spot and a waisted for me. Maybe, it is a great gun but I just got two duds...?

Just my advice, hope it helps someone.
 
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I bought a .177 last January. I needed to get a ldc for it because it was NOT backyard friendly. I ordered an ldc from tko22 because I had them make me different ldcs over the last 5 years or so and they always worked well. Anyway, the ldc worked great but the rifle wouldn't cycle worth a crap. I ended up sending it to them because I didn't want to deal with it. In opening it they discovered tons of grease and several friction points fir the cycling action. I had them ship it back to pyramydair and received my refund a week later. Sooooo disappointing.
 
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Haji, I have a feeling that the flex is also coming from that riser at the breech end. Underneath the riser where it attaches to the breech is a screw hole and a lug. The lug goes into a pocket in the breech. This keeps the riser spacer, or you call it a stauntion, from loosely spinning left to right. Okay, I get that. Great idea. But, the scope rail screws onto that stauntion, then also screws onto the barrel shroud bracket, for the second point of contact. This is okay, but the flex is there. What should have came from the factory I think is one of two methods in order to rid of the flex 100%-

1. Make the breech bracket and barrel shroud out of steel or aluminum. More stout, no way to flex.

2. Introduce a third screw in this rail, or a combination of lug and screw, at both contact points at the scope rail to attachment points. This is if staying with polymer as the materials for attaching to. Right now the scope rail is pretty much “see sawing” itself on the attachment points.

Haji, you can easily cure this by calling hatsan and asking for the original scope rail that were on these when they were first introduced, the one with the breech spacer and scope rail made as one piece. $29 to your door. They still have some of these laying around. Why they went to the two piece, I don’t know. 
 
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What would have been awesome is if Hatsan stayed with this design on the Bullboss on all these bullpup style guns- Bullmaster, flashpup, Bully. This Bullbos has 2 attachment points, but it looks like a beefier scope rail system, provided it is a one piece and made of a steel or aluminum(I apologize, I don’t own a bullboss, just going by what I’ve seen in the pics of the bullboss)
 
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Aren't those like 10 lbs undressed? Along with a crazy heavy trigger, lack of reliability AND coupled with near zero presence of owners ranting and raving about them, I'd avoid them.
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Yup. I would never attempt to purchase again without some major improvements. Hard to believe the price hasn't dropped substantially . Really left me disenchanted with Hatsan but giving them a shot again w a .25 flashpup on its way to me. :)
 
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I should have maybe rephrased things so I will ask this instead. In the $500 range does anybody have a recommendation for a .25 semi-auto pcp that's easy to maneuver in confined spaces, has a good shot count and has the accuracy of a rifle?



I think the main thing I'm really learning here is that there are some Hatsan lovers and some that really don't like it. The main complaints I'm hearing are:



1. Ugly

2. Loud

3. Heavy

4. Trigger



Those are all subjective. I'm also occasionally hearing:



1. Unreliable

2. Not holding zero



I have however heard some people put 2,000 pellets down range with no issues and others who say it never shot right. I'm planning on putting 1,000 or so through the gun in the next month to get a feel for those. If I have issues I'll be vocal about them with Hatsan and get them address and report back as I go.



Essentially I would like anybody thinking about buying this gun to have some more definitive information as well as subjective downfalls so they can make an informed choice.



I had given the Sortie some thought but the low shot count made it seem like a foolish choice. And maybe in reality the cost of production for Hatsan will make the BullMaster one that isn't worth it for them, I don't know as it seems to be a love it or hate it PCP.
 
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Wow...just wow, I am seriously unimpressed!

The good:

The looks of it are fine, it's a tool so come on use it accordingly.

The noise level, again it's fine, large backyard friendly but not suburbs friendly, the action is loud next to the ear so a single earplug makes sense for a long day of shooting but otherwise optional. 



The weight of it, come on people stop being wimps, I'm not a large guy and it was fine. I wouldn't want to lug it 5 miles into the backwoods and it is hefty but I do tend to like a little meat on them bones so maybe it's just me. 



The trigger, I honestly didn't notice or mind it at all but I do suspect the refurb I got has had some heavy use so maybe it smoothed out a little.



It's really fun to shoot!

The flat out ugly:

The accuracy, arrrrrrg, I wouldn't go for a head shot on an elephant if I were standing on it's back! There's no excuse, none, zero, zip, nadda, catch my drift. I'm insanely happy with my AT44 Long and can take house sparrows all day at 100 feet but I couldn't even get a group of 20 under 6" from the BullMaster at 20 yards. I'm willing to call this a Hatsan fluke, one that slipped through inspection that shouldn't have but wow, it's bad!



Also, has a super funky odor which normally would be whatever but you have to hold this thing to your face so that isn't fun. Maybe it leached in from months of abuse in the other owners home? If you had a .25 BullMaster that you sent back let me know, I would love to see who owned this one, what issues they had and if it's having the same problem with accuracy.



Anyway, I emailed Hatsan, I truly hope I have no issues with them making it right and taking it back. Has anybody been through service with Hatsan, how about on a refurb? Any idea what their customer support is like?



Let me know if you have any questions about the thing. To be kind to Hatsan I'm not going to do a video review of this thing unless they give me issues with the return.
 
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