Hammerli AP20 Air Pistol

Its a quality gun for the price point there are some cheaper parts such as the plastic barrel shroud and the gray painted finish. Mostly cosmetic things that don’t impact function. Off the bench, it will put shots right through the same hole, and I don’t get any better 10M scores with guns over twice the price.

The grip is slippery and too narrow even for a medium size hand. Kinda swims in your hand. I upgraded to the Walther grip which including the grip and having to custom order a swivel screw mount for the wood grip, paid about $300 for the upgrade. Unless you really need an adjustable ambi grip, youll be much happier with a properly sized wood grip. The downward angled air cylinder brings the center of balance quite far back. This makes the muzzle quite light. Comfortable to hold over longer sessions, but I believe the muzzle wanders more, magnifying any shooting errors. You can rotate the cylinder forward, changing the balance, or Hammerli sells an under-barrel weight rod. Pistil doesn’t come with the weight rod, which costs another $40.

Its a great gun, it’s my go-to 10M gun when shooting at home. For the cost of a grip upgrade, and the air cylinder lacking a pressure gauge (annoying), I’d suggest considering the AP-20 Pro, which comes with the Walther wood grip and a pressure gauge.

I take good care of the gun, have not had any problems with wear or breakage after 3 years and 10K+ shots. Haven’t had any problems with air leaking, even when storing for months.

Light and handles easily. You can add weights for stability if you like but they haven't made much difference for me personally. A great price for a great gun.

A second air cylinder would be nice.

Shoots well. Unless you're planning to go to the Olympics (are you consistently shooting over 570?) this is really all the gun anybody is going to need. It's plenty accurate - way more accurate than 99% of gun owners out there.
Between 200 and 100 bar you can get about 125 shots. I haven't had any problem with leakage when I've stored the gun with the air cylinder attached.

Great price.

Our school have 3 AP20's and 2 AP20Pro's. We have experienced a number of issues with these pistols. Firstly the cocking handles loosen with use and we had two break off. Parts were ordered at a hefty price and took months to arrive. One of our Pro pistols had the trigger assembly slide out. It is a pressure fit, not screwed so re-fitting was problematic. On balance these are not robust enough. We are now only buying Steyr pistols.

We use Krale in Holland as UK suppliers are too expensive

Price/value/quality ratio. To those not accustomed to 10 meter match air pistols the price may seem high. I assure you it is not. While 10 meter die hards might consider this an entry level 10 meter match pistol, it is not. It is packed with features (see the advert for details too numerous examples to list in this review) and the AP20 will be far more precise than most of us will be for a long time to come I.e., hundreds upon hundreds hours of practice. And it is upgradable. I started back in the very early 90's with a Crosman Model 88 CO2 match pistol which, back then, was considered cutting edge in a true entry level Olympic class air pistol. The AP20 seriously surpasses it. I'd like to say it is light years ahead of that most excellent Crosman pistol but that might be pushing it just a bit. Bottom line? The AP20 will out shoot you for a number of years to come.

Not a whole lot without impacting the price. That said, I would like to see it supplied with two on-board air cylinder tanks (rather than one, and I wish other air gun manufacturers would take heed of that recommendation) instead of those silly neon barrel slip-over tubes. The plastic adjustable grips are pretty darn good but they could allow for a bit larger hand.

An excellent Olympic grade entry level match air pistol for the price along with arguable excellent well thought out features.

Do not leave the on-board air cylinder tank screwed fully in place. It will bleed down and empty the on-board tank. I know this for a fact/first hand experience. I thought it was a problem with the AP20 cylinder leaking so sent the pistol and on-board tank back to Umarex for warranty repair. While they did replace one part I was also told by Umarex not to leave the cylinder screwed fully in place on the gun between matches. The cylinder holds the pressure just fine OFF THE GUN but the AP20 pistol will leak the cylinder down over time if the cylinder is screwed fully in place on the gun. In my opinion only, that is no big deal as long as I am aware of it.

One should be aware that costly accessories are required to fill the AP20's on-board cylinder... but then if you know anything about PCP air guns you're already aware of that. If not, educate yourself.

Very light handling characteristics (can be good or bad depending on individual preferences). This is, to me at least, the TOZ-35's of Air Pistol: it's more forgiving of slight fundamental errors as compared to other High-end AP's I've shot. What should've been a bad "8" with other AP's usually ends up cutting the 9 ring with this one, and shots that should've been weak 9's sometimes clip the edge of the 10 ring. This could be due to the clean, slight-roll breaking 1.9lb. trigger (as it's set from the factory), and maybe the balance of the gun AND the tiny OEM plastic grip not having full contact with my hand so if any slight muscle twitch when I trip the trigger the barrel doesn't seem to move away from its intended aim as fast and as much, which gives you a better "value" shot than other AP's.

I think it'd be great if Hammerli offers adult-size grip (plastic is fine) as factory option if buyer chooses so, and still keep it under a grand. For most adults they will find the out-of-the-box gip rather tiny. However, one must take into account (and understandably forgive) that this gun was conceived to meet the goal of introducing youngsters into the Olympic disciplines at the grassroots level without incurring sizable debt in pocketbooks of sponsoring shooting clubs, and still have an uncompromising tool with the potential to shoot world class scores. And it can, as I've shot many 570's with it (and I'm no Olympic hopeful- just another middle age dude plagued with failing eyesight :-)). Personally I'm too cheap to spend another $300+ for a Rink grip, so I'll live with the dinky grips. If you have Male Medium adult size hands or larger, and for the ladies, if you have a decent size hand, may I suggest you purchase aftermarket grip to better suit you. :-)

This AP comes supplied with DIN 200 fill adapter. Unless you have your SCUBA tank fitting set up to accept DIN 200, then you have to buy necessary adapters before you can properly and safely fill your cylinder. My SCUBA tank was purchased from the local dive shop and they only have DIN 300 fitting, so the supplied DIN 200 won't work at all. Please do a search for pilkgun's excellent write up on scuba fittings for airguns before you go further. A very required read as knowledge of knowing how to SAFELY set up to fill IS A MUST! All in all, You won't be disappointed with this fine precision shooting machine. :-) Cheers, be safe with proper air filling, and good luck!