Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Hatsan 125 Vortex QE, 25 Caliber

The brown truck dropped this off.

I'll do something better for optics, but for now I mounted up the included scope/rings to get some trigger time.

Seems to be doing great right out of the gate.

JSB 25.4 gr - 695 fps, 27 FPE
JSB 33.9 gr - 610 fps, 28 FPE

I calculated a 13 yard zero would keep it pretty flat out to 45 yards or so.

Zero'd with the 25.4 gr. 4 of 5 in a nice little cluster, I dropped one low.

I tried to warn you but noooo, "The airgun bug won't get me" ....and this is what happens!

I'll be curious to see which one gets to come out to play the most.

My .25 is dead reliable and accurate but one of the .22s usually gets grabbed first, trajectory is the only difference.

My 25 gets one of two pellets, either an H&N FTT 20.06gr ( the most accurate) ,or a GTO non lead 16gr that's almost as accurate but is faster/flatter at distance.

You need some eurasian doves for testing media!!

Seems I'm caught in the snare.....grin

Here's traj table for the 25.39 gr. Looks pretty flat out to 45 yards. I need to test it on paper.

Great group. And that trajectory table shows the .25 being a WHOLE LOT flatter shooting to 50 yards than I'd have ever imagined.

Been wanting one for a while. Just missed out on a British-built Webley Patriot about a week ago.................

Yeah. I'd like to see that with a 35 yard zero...

Carrying 15 ft/lbs out to 100 is a big deal too...
That's more than many good guns have at the muzzle

35 yard zero would be pretty close to 13 yard zero, on paper.. I will try to test this today.

Thanks MontanaMarine.

I guestimated that it would help with as-sighted trajectory past 50 yards but it really doesn't.
Learned something just now. Thank you.

Well, I'm not sure what to even think about this. Kind of a head-scratcher.

From the 13 yard zero I had established, I shot targets at 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 yards. This is the JSB 25.39gr pellet at 695 fps.

My groups did loosen up past 40 yards, and notably after 50 yards. but, the pellet isn't dropping at all. I held dead-on at each distance. I did make a windage correction after shooting the 30 yard target.



I did dial up the power past 40 yards, from 6X up to 9X. It occurred to me that maybe the scope shifted zero as I dialed power up. So I bagged it and turned power while looking through the scope. I couldn't detect any shift. Still, I'm going to try the 50/60 again, at 6X and see how it goes.

You're probably going to have to see that repeat a couple of times, without any scope setting or firing position changes, before it becomes a puzzle worthy of solving. As a 1-time thing, it could be as simple as air currents. I do kinda see a trend downward until 50 which is one oc those split groups that I usually attribute to hold and/or body shift. But its waaay to easy to "see things in the tea leaves".

I was shooting from a stable front BR rest, rear beanbag. Seemed consistent, but who knows.

I'm going to go straight on out to 60 yards again, shoot it at 3X, 6X, and 9X, and see if the groups shift.

May be wind?

Do you move back or set the targets back when you increase the distance?

Same wind but different target position can change impact point for 22s at 50 yards for example - I've seen higher impacts for lower mounted tatgets due to lift from wind over small mounds.

You might want to try a few groups without the rear rest...

Front bad is OJ, but the rear should new held very lightly against your shoulder. Sounds wrong, but it works. It allows the rifle sone room to recoil as it finds natural.

Wind was light, less than 5 mph from 8 oclock. My firing point was the same, I moved the target out further. Target was low to ground, clipped to a cardboard box.

This morning the wind is up a little for optimum testing. We'll see if it settles down a bit, and shoot 60 yards some more.

Well the little scope seems fine. I shot five rounds at 60 yards on 3X, marked the holes, and then five more rounds on 9X. The groups were on top of each other. This time low and right of aim point. Seems about where it should be for drop and wind today.

Seemed like a bit of an anomaly yesterday, being high at 60 yards. must have been my hold, or odd wind currents in play.

Looks like the gun is a shooter.
The shooter also!
What ballistics software are you using?

Like you, I want to find some Eurasians, but have never seen one other than in Mobile AL.

I'm using QuickTARGET software, it comes with QuickLOAD.

The scope that came with this gun started wandering noticeably today at 20 yards. Wasn't sure what was going on, mounts were all tight, but internals must be wonky.

I pulled the scope off and went to the iron sights, it tightened right up.

I think that kind of explains why I was not seeing any drop at the 50 and 60 yard targets yesterday.

Airguns are haunted if you use nothing but what you learn cartridge shooting. Be Well, RZ.

These spring guns are certainly a different experience.

My old Sheridan pumper was easy to shoot, not picky about ammo or hold. Well, there wasn't a lot of 20 cal pellets to choose from, but the two or three I tried all shot well.

I have an old Benjamin 392? easy to shoot yes, but pumping sucks.......I haven't shot 25 pellets through it in the last 10 years. I also own a Beeman R7 - about the same power level as the Benjamin and just as accurate with a single barrel cocking. You guys that have not tried a quality low power springer are missing out.