Video: Ataman AP16 Regulated Compact Air Pistol

Fine craftsmanship and excellence are evident in every aspect of this compact pistol from its Lothar Walther barrel, to the adjustable trigger, lightweight versatility, and power.

Ataman AP16 Regulated Compact Air Pistol Video Transcript:

Welcome to the Pyramyd Insyder, I'm Tyler Patner, and this is the Ataman AP16 pistol in .22 caliber. 

The AP16 is Atamans latest offering and this is the black compact version. It's also available in a silver compact as well as their black standard version, which has a barrel that's about 2 inches longer, as well as about double the air capacity of the compact here. Now the cool thing about the AP16 as a platform is that you can actually interchange all of those parts. So if I own a compact already and I want to go ahead and put on a standard length barrel or a standard length air cylinder or both, I can do that and basically convert my gun into a standard as opposed to the compact. So really neat and a lot of forethought from Ataman there in terms of utilizing the same parts to give the end user the ability to interchange them. Now starting with the barrel on top here, we do a low through Walther barrel which is shrouded. Now you'll notice there are some vent holes cut in the sides of the shroud and that is present on both sides there. The gun is quite loud, this is not a shroud that's going to suppress the noise, those vent holes are purely there to mitigate a little bit of the muzzle flip. And it is fairly stout since you're talking about a six and a half inch barrel roughly and a lot of air passing through it so it does kick a little bit when you do shoot it. Now on top of the shroud unit here we do have our front sight unit as well as an 11-millimeter dovetail for mounting optics, so whether you have a red dot or you want to put a pistol scope on it, this 11-millimeter dovetail is gonna accommodate that. 

And just below the barrel in the shroud is the 60 CC air cylinder. Now you do have your gauge on the end here and it does read and bar. This is a 300 bar fill gun like all the rest of the Ataman rifles, and as we've seen before it actually comes with two fill probes. So you have your eighth inch PSP probe and your quick disconnect probe. Both of them. Now we're gonna use the quick disconnect here but just to show you guys how this fills. You do have your fill port in the back of the air cylinder so you don't have to remove your cylinder if you don't want to. All you need to do is just take your fill probe, slide it on in, and you're good to go. You fill it up to 300 bar and you're all set to go. Now Ataman rates this for 15 good shots. We're gonna see obviously what pellets gonna work best and what kind of energy it's going to give us as well as the shot count, but I would expect around that 15-16 mark, maybe two to two-and-a-half magazines before we're gonna run out of air. Now the cylinder does attach directly to the regulator here and that's one of the nice features of the Ataman line, in general, is that they are all regulated and it is one of the reasons you're gonna get a lot of shots out of such little air is because you know for a 14 foot-pound gun and 60 cc's of air capacity A. you need that higher 300 bar fill pressure, you don't have to fill that high but to maximize that shot count you need that higher pressure to get up there and that regulator is gonna save you some air, you're not gonna be wasting anything as you go through your shot string. There's also going to create very consistent shot to shot velocities which are going to give you obviously good accuracy downrange, as long as the barrel’s up to it and you are. And aside from the barrel one of the other big contributing factors to accuracy, especially in pistols in my experience, is the trigger. Now the AP16 does have Ataman’s two-way adjustable trigger and it is a very light trigger. 

We do have a side lever action now it's a very sleek side lever you can see at the top here that there is a recess for your finger. Now this is not going to be something that's unusable for a left-handed shooter but definitely purposed for the right-handed shooter to operate with the left hand. Let me show you how that works. So we're gonna go ahead and point it downrange so we would take our shot and then we would just come up here in cycle, take our shot, come back up, and cycle, it's very easy, very intuitive as well, and puts you right back in the right position to go ahead and reestablish a good grip on the pistol. And of course you guys will also notice that there's a seven round magazine with the AP16, now extras are available, it only comes with one and I would definitely recommend picking up an extra or two because you're gonna need it because this pistol is a ton of fun to shoot, and just slides right into the side of the gun, snaps in, and then you go ahead and you close your breech. Decocking is very simple just pull the trigger, let the lever come forward and you are good to go. And the other thing I should point out about the AP16 is that you can only turn the safety on and we do that by pushing this in here. It's a cross bolt style safety. The only way you can turn that safety on is when the gun is cocked. So I'm gonna decock it here and you'll notice I can't push that through okay. So the gun can only be put on safe when the gun is cocked. And rounding it out on the back here we do have our rear site, now it's just a notch and BladeSystem, very easy to use if you're not familiar. With a nice six o'clock hold I found that I didn't need to adjust the sights at all, although they are windage and elevation adjustable so something to keep in mind depending on what pellets you use, you know you may have to change or what distance you go ahead and cite it in that you're gonna obviously have to tweak those sites a little bit.

 And one other thing I want to point out to you guys as far as features goes, right in the back here you'll notice a little recess. Now this is actually a hammer spring tension adjustment. Now what that gives us the ability to do is by either decreasing or increasing the hammer spring tension, we can actually influence how hard the hammer hits the valve, therefore determining how much energy we're able to develop, so this is basically you know push the pellet faster or slower depending on your setting. Now they say it's about a 14 foot-pound gun I'm not sure how high you can go and we didn't adjust it here, but my experience with the Ataman guns is that you have a little bit up that you can adjust, you know you can get it a little bit hotter but really most of your adjustments gonna be coming back, so if you wanted to get more shots or maybe you were working in really close ranges and you wanted to get you know more shots out of the gun without having to worry about maybe overpenetration, something you might want to think about. But definitely a nice feature and easily accessible as well. And last but not least, before we head out to the range, you'll notice that this has a very 1911s grip frame here and it is very comfortable. Reminds me of the 1911 I have at home and I like it a lot. Even down to the beaver tail that comes over the over the hand here. It just with the finger grooves for my hand you know they're perfect, I don't have very big hands but I don't see this being an issue for someone that does, and honestly just it doesn't feel too wide here at no point does this feel like a non-conventional air pistol, I mean this feels just as real as some of the replica 1911s that we have here on Pyramyd Air. And even a real 1911 you know it's got a lot of weight to it but about just under two pounds. But a very realistic feel at the end of the day and I think that's what a lot of people are gonna like about this gun. It's the first pcp air pistol that I've seen in a really long time that has a very traditional feel and isn't too big and bulky. So on that note, we're gonna go out to the range see how it does on paper as well. We're gonna shoot with the open sights ten yards probably mount an optic on for further distance testing, see how much energy it's doing, and obviously checked that shock out and see what this AP16 can do. Let's head out.

We're gonna start at ten yards. Got all JSB's, we tested about eight pellets and JSBs definitely are doing the best. We’ll start at 10 yards and then take it out to 25 yards with whatever our best pellet at 10 is and see how it goes. Let's get to it. 

 
Alright guys so 10-yard results here. The JSB 1589 is not very good. I'm not the greatest pistol shot in the world, full disclosure if I'm just being honest with you guys, but but these 1589s didn't do very well. The Predator GTOs did a little bit better, but still not great. And then the JSB heavies 1813 s which are going to give us a little bit more knockdown power anyway did probably the best, so we're gonna go ahead and mount a red dot here, I got a Hawk red dot we're gonna throw on this gun on the 11-millimeter dovetail. Take it out to 25 yards and see how we do. 

Alright guys so you could see just by the group here a big difference, and obviously the red dot had a lot to do with that. I was using it on the lowest setting so I was just getting a nice faint dot that I was just placing in the middle of a black here at 25 yards. Definitely gonna need an optic if you want to push out the distance on this unless you're a crack pistol shot, which fully admitting I am not. So but about an inch group out of the JSB heavies pretty damn good guys.

With the JSB 18 1 heavies we're getting just under 14 foot-pounds of energy and immediately looking at the shot string here you can tell it's a regulated gun. You have a super flat string. 23 of those shots within 8 foot per second spread is about as good as you're gonna get on any regulated gun I don't care what it is. And a standard deviation of only 2.09 feet per second means that each shot is going to be your fault if you're not putting it on target. So very very good numbers and more than the manufacturer even stated out of the AP16 compact. 

Alright guys so that about wraps it up for the AP16 here today. I'm pretty impressed with this little pistol. I'm doing 20-plus shots when the only claim 15 is nice. Obviously would definitely get some extra magazine so you can quick change out during that. We found the JSB 18s did the best at 10 yards you know with the regular open sights not a bad group, that's going to be a squirrels head all day. And then when you put an optic on it I think it just gets a ton easier, and these are obviously all 7 shot groups at 25 yards here you know the AP16 can still deliver at least off bags. Definitely go ahead and get yourself an optic though if you want to stretch things out. I did find the open sights a little tough to use on these black background targets because you have the black on black with the front and the rear sight. So if I was gonna buy this pistol you know I'd probably take a little touch of red nail polish or white nail polish or something just to that front sight, just to give me a little bit of contrast make it easier to see my target. Very very loud though that would be the only other consideration there. Outside you're probably gonna be okay but just be cognizant, definitely not a backyard friendly gun so keep that in mind. But overall you know plenty of accuracy, good power, right around 14 foot-pounds. You know for something that is an actual pistol sized gun, the AP16 I think is a really really solid offering and the AP16 is getting a definite thumbs up from me here, so check it out on pyramydair.com. For the Insyder, Tyler Patner. We'll see you guys at the next one.