I purchased a Hatsan Escort semi-auto 12g shotgun with a 30” barrel and wood stock back in January with the money I received for my birthday along with some of the residual money left over from what I received for Christmas.

My first impressions of this gun were the following, it was well made and the action was still tight as it was a second-hand gun. The wood work is well finished with chequering to the grip and forend.

I’ve had several trips out with it to my local clay ground and it’s been a real eye opener to me, I thought I could just go and shoot it the same as my SKB 500. This was certainly not the case as I missed most of what I shot at to start with until I twigged that a semi-auto is a little slower than a conventional shotgun. The major benefit of a semi-auto is the recoil is lighter, this combined with using cartridges that are a light load, is I can have a 100 clay session and not feel too much pain the following day unless I shoulder the gun poorly.

At first it would not cycle anything other than 28g cartridges, a quick field strip at the clay ground revealed that someone had added an extra ‘o’ ring between the piston and the bolt carriage this had the effect of leaving the handbrake on, after this was removed things improved enough to allow it to cycle 24g’s.

After some further fettling it now cycles most 21g cartridges without any fuss.

The fettling consisted of
1. Going round all the sharp edges of the barrel/breech with a diamond deburring/ sharpening tool. This was done after I noticed plastic shavings in the receiver after several jams
2. Cleaning out / gas flowing the two gas ports in the barrel/cocking cylinder as I found the holes to be mis-aligned when I inserted an Allen key to remove any powder residue during cleaning.
This was done with an ordinary HSS drill bit being rotated between my fingers.
3. Fitting a heavy duty ‘O’ ring seal in the cylinder. A light smear of good quality light gun grease seems help it to seal better.


I’ve also learnt that it is essential to keep the guns mechanisms clean & lubricated in order to reduce the chances of the shotgun failing to cycle properly. This means a full strip & clean after the end of every day’s shooting regardless of whether it has had 25 or 250 cartridges through it.

All in all the Hatsan semi auto shotgun is a lot gun for not a lot of money which is what you should expect from a clone of a Remington 1100 series