Hatsan AT44S-10 Review
This is a Community Review of the Hatsan AT44S-10 .177 Caliber PCP with black synthetic stock by Dave Ez. The author of the following review are in no way affiliated with Airgun Depot. The views expressed below are personal opinion only. I've owned and still shoot several Hatsan manufactured Daisy/Powerline/Winchester airguns. Although rough around the edges, I have grown to respect these springers as the powerhouse hunter/plinkers they are. With a little spit and polish, they can be excellent additions to anyone's arsenal of airguns. It was with that picture of Hatsan in mind that I eagerly opened the box to the newly arrived AT44S-10 from Airgun Depot.
The package does not include a scope, this is the gun AFTER I mounted my 6-18X50 Bushnell Banner scope. First impression, this is a nicely designed piece. At only 39.4" and 7.3lbs without glass, it's a nice size and weight for all day handling. When I shouldered it for the first time, it felt natural and just went right into place. I like that in a stock. The balance felt quite nice. As with most synthetic stocks, it had a hollow "thump" sound when I tapped the fore grip. Maybe bedding would help reduce that sound but it's not a deal breaker by any means, just a personal observation. Noted and moving on to closer examination and testing. Some of the features of this gun include a 180cc-200 bar reservoir, Quatro two stage adjustable trigger, metal 10 shot auto-indexing clip, side cocking lever, ambidextrous Monte Carlo stock, adjustable butt pad, auto safety, dual size capable 11mm/22mm scope rail, and TruGlo adjustable front and rear sights. No, that's not a misprint. Front sight is also adjustable to help compensate for any barrel droop.
So it's no stripped down econo gun, it has some nice bells and whistles included. Here is the adjustable butt pad.
The gun is packaged with 2 metal auto-detent magazines. Rounds are held in place by the rubber O-ring around the entire clip. And one thing I really liked about these magazines, the
Predator Polymag pellets actually fit and cycle quite well in these. Some other brands cannot handle these rounds without some modification.
I found the lever operation to be VERY smooth and made for a positive cocking cycle. At the rear of the pull and the actual cocking also rotates the clip to the next round. You can do some rapid reloading and firing with this mechanism and I never witnessed a bad cycle or misloaded round. That's great when hunting calls for a follow-up shot. But as accurate as this gun is, you probably won't need a follow-up. But it's nice to know it's there should you need it. In the package you will also find a quick fill adapter.
This attached to my Discovery gauge and fill adapter hose. There is an O-ring sealed plug in the fill port that you simply push out as you are inserting the fill probe.
The only hitch I found during the fill process is with my tank. I use small 44 cu ft SCBA tanks at 2500psi and they work fine to fill my Discos. But they just did not have the volume to fill this airgun to the max to 200 bar. I recommend a larger tank, maybe a 4500psi 97 cu ft model to get the max fill. One other comment about filling. Personally I'm not too fond of having to look at the business end of an airgun to read the gauge. But hey, that's just me. I like the gauge on the bottom or side of the tube better.
According to Hatsan, you can expect a shot count of between 90-100 with a full 2000psi fill. I was not able to top the reservoir off so I started my testing at around 170 bar. I set up my Chrony and fired a 20 shot string which finished with 100 bar remaining. Without a more potent tank, I can't verify the claimed shot count. For my testing I used
Crosman Premier Ultra Magnum 10.5gr ammo. First shot registered 966.62fps and shot #20 registered 835.69fps. That's 21.79fpe down to 16.29fpe. I'm certain the numbers would be higher if I could have filled it to the max before starting. But this will give you an idea of the minimum power range you can expect. Next I mounted a 6-18X50 Bushnell Banner scope. And a note here, the scope rail will accommodate 11mm or 22mm ring sets. That's a handy option to have. I set my target backstop out at my normal 25 yards and attached several Shoot-N-C targets and a few paintballs on golf tees and some Dum-Dum pops. I like interactive target shooting. ☺ It only took 4 shots to get the scope dead center on the 8" Shoot-N-C target.
After that, I placed 8 shots in the upper left section. They were grouped just over a dime size but I'll toss in that I was shooting against a 10mph cross wind. And the gun can definitely shoot better than me. As you can see, it stacked them.
When I finished stacking a few rounds, I put the hurt on a couple of .68 cal paintballs and a couple of Dum-Dum pops at 25 yards. One shot each. I didn't adjust the two stage Quatro trigger. I'm guessing the pull to be around 4-5lb out of the box. I have other Quatro equipped
Hatsan airguns and this is a very nice trigger. I will put the Lyman gauge to it later and tweak it down a bit. I like mine around 1.5lb of pull. As accurate as it was shooting, I just didn't want to mess with it too much. ☺ So, I am VERY impressed but not surprised at the accuracy of this airgun. All of my older Hatsan springers have proven to be extremely accurate. I would rate the sound level at medium to medium high. NOT really a backyard friendly gun if you live in the burbs. I live in a rural area but have neighbors close. I had one neighbor actually come over to inspect the gun as I was testing. But Hatsan also offers this gun in the AT44X-10 model that has a permanently attached moderator.
Overall I would rate this gun as excellent. The pros are the weight and balance, the 10 shot metal clip that handles long rounds, positive and smooth side lever cocking, auto safety, fully adjustable front AND rear sights, easy fill and the SUPERB accuracy. The only things I found that I did not personally like were the location of the gauge, the "thump" sound of the hollow stock and the fact that my Disco SCBA tanks would not top this gun off. The gun also has the light "ping" when fired, so it could use a de-pinger modification that most PCP airguns benefit from. These to me are not deal breakers. The stock could be bedded to help reduce the hollow "thump" sound and if you have a higher capacity tank, filling to capacity is not an issue. As for the gauge, I don't know if they plan on doing anything about the location but be VERY careful when checking your air level. It's great to see Hatsan become available to more of us and their new line of PCP airguns are worth taking a serious look at. Thanks again to Scott from Airgun Depot for allowing me the opportunity to put this nice gun to the test. Till next time...Safe & Happy Shooting!!!! Dave Ez
April 9, 2012 Helpful Links: 
