Performance Pup!

Dave Barham reveals the exciting new bullpup from Turkish manufacturer Hatsan.

After last month’s glowing review of the Nova Star PCP, I thought it would be a good idea to see what else they had got in their new line-up at the opposite end of the scale, so I made a quick call to UK importers, Edgar Brothers, and arranged for this synthetic stock FlashPup QE to be sent to the office. When it arrived, my first impressions were good, but there was one thing that really niggled me, which I will come to later.

LOTS OF EXTRAS

When you open the main rifle box there’s a small white cardboard carton inside, which holds a complete set of replacement seals as well as the fill adapter and two magazines. I like that Hatsan provides this with all of their rifles. It saves having to search out and buy spares should one of the seals need replacing. If you can’t do the job yourself, you can simply pass the spares to your local gunsmith when you take it in.

It’s a joy to shoot whilst standing, and extremely well balanced The fill port is located at the front of the cylinder and it’s on a horizontal plane. The plug simply pulls out from left to right in order to expose the fill port. It’s only tiny and has a tiny rubber ‘O’ ring to help keep it in place. The 165cc air cylinder has a max fill pressure of 200 Bar, which gives ??? shots in .177 and ??? in .22.

On the top of this rifle there is a Picatinny rail, which has been milled for both 11mm and 22mm scope mounts, so you can attach pretty much any scope you choose. There’s also a small Picatinny moulded into the stock just in front of the fore grip at the very end of the stock. You can use this for attaching a bipod or even a red-dot laser – which would be perfect for some close-quarters ratting in a barn.