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Hatsan Striker 1000

Hatsan Striker 1000

Hatsan may be a new name to the British public but this firm from Turkey originated in 1976 and its products are on sale worldwide. They produce a surprisingly large number of value for money air rifles and air pistols, both mechanical (spring/ piston) and pre-charged pneumatics. The Striker 1000S on test is one such product, a spring powered break-barrel air rifle retailing for just £146, and available in either .177, .22 or .25 calibres. Cheap does not always mean cheerful, but in this case I was smiling at the end of the tests!

Synthetic Stocked

The stock is a polymer moulding in sporter trim with Monte Carlo cheekpiece, well suited to a hunting rifle - and this will be the Striker’s main market. The design is totally ambidextrous so very flexible and the Striker is also available in a wood stocked version also.

The colour of the test rifle polymer is slate grey and is moulded in two halves with a hollow interior and interestingly, instead of the conventional checkering to forend and pistol grip, there are soft rubber insets available in grey, orange or yellow, nice! They are however very tactile and do really give a good grip.

The recoil pad is solid rubber so does grip the shoulder. The cheek pieces to both sides are accented with three chevron grooves.

It’s a comfortable stock although a little light (i.e. hollow in the butt), I would weight it or fill it with expanding foam to give a better balance personally.

Barrel, Action and Sights

The Striker is a pretty conventional break barrel design with strong detente locking mechanism and it is easy to operate even for younger or smaller shooters. The barrel length is 18 inches in length but there is a 7.25 inch long barrel shroud sleeved over the end. This is plastic with 4 slanted top grooves and 3 below. It’s also sits 1 inch proud of the muzzle so indirectly acts as a muzzle brake and is surprisingly good at noise reduction too.

On cocking there’s an anti- bear trap device for safety and the spring noise lessens with use. The receiver is 12.5 inches long with 6.75 inches of 11mm grooved dovetails for scope use. Interestingly there is also a recoil stop screwed into the dovetails to stop scope creep.

The open sights are Truglo fibre optic so clearly glow in the day light hours. The foresight is moulded directly into the muzzle brake with hooded enclosure and a single red Truglo aiming dot.

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The rear sight is micro adjustable for elevation and windage with a notched aiming mark flanked by a single green Truglo to align quickly with the red foresight element. I did shoot some tin cans with the open sights and I have to say it was great fun.

Trigger and Safety

Again the Quattro trigger surprises - in a good way! It’s no match trigger but the design is adjustable for weight and travel and was factory set to 4.25lbs which was actually very good. In fact the position of the first and second stage pulls can be adjusted to suit, and if you take up the first pull and then decide not to shoot and release the pressure the Quattro resets back to full sear engagement. The adjustments are made by tightening or loosening three screws set into the underside of the trigger. There is also a safety device that has a drop down interlock so if the Striker is dropped without the safety applied it will still not go off.

The safety blocks the trigger pull and is automatic and resettable. It is sited on the rear shroud with a central sliding section with a rear thumb rest that slides back as the action is cocked. The anti-bear trap stops the safety being taken off when the barrel is broken. Push the safety in to fire or pull out again to manually reset.

Field Test

As with all new springers it’s a good idea to run a few hundred pellets through them before you seriously start testing, this allows all the parts to harmonise and the lubes to spread evenly. Then you will get a better idea how your new rifle will perform. This certainly helped with the Hatsan as the initial cocking
felt a little “dry” and spring compression could be heard, but after 75-100 pellets it all smoothed up very nicely.

It was interesting shooting the pellets across the Chrony FI chronograph as the Striker preferred certain pellets more than others. Power was more than good enough and highest energy went to the Webley Lazapells with a velocity of 576.5 fps generating 11.2 ft/lbs of 1.25 energy. This was accurate too, coming in top with five pellets grouping into 0.75 inch at 30 yards but you need proper trigger follow through to achieve this. Second best accuracy went to the RWS Super points and Crosman Premiers with 0.85 inch groups with velocities and energies of 573.4fps/ 10.7 ft/lbs and 579.5/10.6 ft/lbs respectively. Joint third place for accuracy went to the Accupells and Air Arms Fields both group just under the inch at 30 yards with the AA Fields achieving 564.5 fps and dead on 11.0 ft/lbs and the Accupells close behind on 580.2 fps and 10.8 ft/lbs energy.

Most powerful were the Logun Penetrators at 11.7 ft/ lbs mainly due to the heavier weight of 15.8 grains travelling at 576.2 fps, they fitted in the barrel snugly but sadly accuracy was only 1.5 inches.
Certainly looking at the results the Hatsan Striker is pellet specific so you need to try a few brands to achieve best accuracy and ballistics, and the one on test certainly loved the Webley Lazapells with a great combination of accuracy and power.

I took the Hatsan out for a rabbit foray having but on a BSA Panther scope which is an excellent value of money scope and good optics. It was nice to have a synthetic stock air rifle to take hunting as you don`t mind getting the stock dirty when you are crawling prone. I choose Webley Lazapels and the first outing accounted for a nice plump rabbit in the tall grass at 28 yards and then a squirrel tree bound at just over 30 yards after chattering at him to make him stop, permanently. The Striker is light weight enough to tote about all day and if you keep the ranges to 30 yards it’s more than capable of bringing home the contents of your next rabbit pie.

Conclusion

Having shot the Hatsan for myself I can see why it won the Shooting Industry Awards this year for Best Air Rifle and in its first three months on sale Edgar’s sold 989 of them to the trade!

  • Hatsan Striker 1000 - image {image:count}

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  • Hatsan Striker 1000 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

  • Hatsan Striker 1000 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

  • Hatsan Striker 1000 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

  • Hatsan Striker 1000 - image {image:count}

    click on image to enlarge

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