A Hatsan 135 offers the simplicity and usability of a traditional break barrel air rifle. But when it comes to its incredible power, the Hatsan 135 is far from traditional. This technically completely up-to-date air rifle resides amongst the most powerful break barrels on the market.
A Hatsan 135 has power!
If you’re talking about powerful break barrel air rifles, the Hatsan is really up there with the most powerful ones. A 135 most certainly isn’t the lightest to cock break barrel airgun, but regarding its power output, the cocking effort really isn’t too bad. Hatsan has really thought about that in their design.
Compared to the Hatsan 125, the 135 has a bigger diameter piston (30 mm versus 29 mm). This gives the Hatsan 135 a 7% larger capacity, but otherwise both models are technically similar. A powerful air rifle like the Hatsan 135 has some significant recoil and the amount of air that’s forced out quite aggressively means it’s not one of the quietest either. For these reasons, Hatsan has developed multiple shock absorbing and noise reducing solutions for the 135 series.
Take, for instance, the QE models (Quiet Energy) that have a moderator integrated into the barrel shroud. The moderator also doubles as a cocking grip, providing a comfortable large diameter for your hand to apply pressure to.
Hatsan also offers its SAS system (Shock Absorber System), where the fore end is attached to the action with a dampening bush inside a vibration reducing bracket on the action. This dampens a part of the vibrations that otherwise would travel through the whole air rifle. And some Hatsan 135 models feature a TrioPad butt pad of which the perforated rubber will take a lot of the recoil. As the name suggests, this system also offers three spacer plates with which you can adjust the stock length to suit you perfectly.
A Hatsan 135 with spring or Vortex gasram?
We’ve got multiple Hatsan 135 models on offer, and you’ll notice some of them have springs, while others feature a Vortex gasram. The difference in price will be noticeable, but not everybody will know the actual difference. Not to worry, we’re here to explain it all to you. It’s quite simple, as they both push a piston forward, the only difference is the way how it’s done and the influence that has on the shooting cycle.
So, both will push a piston forward at great speed, which in turn forces a certain amount of air under high pressure through the barrel. Cocking is done the same too: by breaking the barrel, the piston is pushed backward -compressing the spring or Vortex gasram- until it latches in place.
When you pull the trigger, the piston is released and that’s when you’ll notice the difference between a Hatsan 135 with a spring or one with a Vortex gasram.
A spring is a spiral wound length of spring steel. It’ll twist a bit when being compressed and will do the same when decompressing again. This torsion will result in a small amount of friction and tension that’s inherent to the design of a spring. As the spring is always under tension of compression and some remaining torsion, it has the tendency to vibrate after a shot has been taken. These vibrations can be felt and heard and this is the twang airgunners always talk about when it comes to springers. It doesn’t necessarily result in poor accuracy though and lots of people actually like the charm and feeling of a spring powered airgun. It’s a reliable power source that’s also cheaper to produce than a gasram.
The Vortex gasram is Hatsan’s own version of a compressible, pneumatic cylinder. Think of it as two tubes with their ends plugged off that’ll slide into each other. The open ends that slide into each other feature an airtight seal. This way, no air can escape when pushing the tubes together, resulting in compressing the air. When you stop pushing, the compressed air will expand and the tubes will slide away from each other. Just like the gas spring that’ll keep the lid of the trunk of your car up.
As you can imagine, the power with which the air will push the tubes apart will be bigger when you pressurise the air inside in advance. This way, you can make a gasram as powerful as a spring. The advantage of using a Vortex gasram lies in the decompression cycle. Since the Vortex gasram won’t twist, no power is lost to torsion friction. But the biggest advantage is the smooth cycle without any vibrations. So no twang, which makes for a smoother and quieter cycle that also gives less stress to the air rifle’s components and mounted aiming devices such as a rifle scope.
Hatsan 135 top tip!
When sporting a high-powered air rifle with piston like this one, we highly recommend using the artillery hold for the best accuracy. To do this, you rest the butt pad against your shoulder with just enough pressure that it won’t slide down. The fore end should rest loosely on your hand. Don’t grip it tightly, as it should be able to follow its own movement pattern caused by vibrations. Fighting these, will only result in loss of accuracy. Using a piston powered air rifle this way, is the best way to learn how to shoot any air rifle (or rifle for that matter) with great accuracy.
