Hatsan’s Sortie air pistol is semiautomatic!
The Sortie is a pre-charged pneumatic repeating air pistol. It has a circular magazine that holds 14 pellets in .177 and 12 in .22. Is there a .25? Not that I know of, but if the Sortie is received well, I would think it would be in the works.
The air reservoir is 62cc, which is on the small side. Rather than being bad, that’s actually a good thing because this pistol will be easier to fill from a hand pump. I will test that for you. The gun operates on a 200-bar fill (2,900 psi).
Power
The Sortie is not super-powerful. There are smallbore pistols that top 50 foot-pounds, but the Sortie isn’t one of them. It’s a nice shooter that the manufacturer claims will develop about 12 foot-pounds in .177. If that’s true, I expect it to be over 13 foot-pounds in .22, but that’s why I test these guns.
Perhaps the biggest thing the Sortie offers is semiautomatic operation. Every time you squeeze the trigger, it fires a pellet, until they are exhausted. I was most interested in this. Is it a true semiauto that cocks itself after each shot, or are they calling an airgun with a double-action-only mechanism a semiauto, thinking most people won’t know the difference?
Description
If you think the Sortie looks big, that’s no illusion. The pistol is 16.5 inches long and weighs 4¾ pounds. You know you’re holding something. There is a second place for a hand to grip, forward of the trigger. I think Hatsan made it for hunters, and I can already hear the question – does it have a shoulder stock? Not yet.
The pistol is all black with a synthetic stock/pistol grip. The
