Hello everyone I am new to this site. I recently bought a Benjamin Prowler when my Remington Express broke. My 22 gauge Remington Express was extremely accurate and so much fun to shoot unfortunately the spring let go. I decided to give this Benjamin Prowler a shot and found that it cannot hit a Target Beyond 10 yards to save its life. I have spent probably about five to six hours over the last week and I'm shot probably a thousand pellets through it trying to zero it in and have found it is impossible. Does anybody have any experience with this or have I just made a big mistake buying this gun.
Benjamin prowler issues.
- Thread starter Dogo7912
- Start date
return the prowler use the money to fix your proven EXPRESS ,it seems it shouldn't cost much and you know you got a shooter in the EXPRESS good luck PAT
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I have thought of returning it Pat but the only problem is that I drilled holes in it to put my sling on it. I kinda screwed myself.
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be patiant theres a lot of knowledgable guys here they will get u moving in the right direction are the springs the same in each gun ,,even though the spring is broke u still may need a spring puller be careful ,if you choose to open rifle
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u never no about returning it just think the next guy gets sling studs for free,,, big box wont no the difference besides you modded it ,the gun is now better than u bought if you bought from a dealer call him ask can u make it shoot right ,bottom line is something is wrong ,dont just put it in the closet ,no your rights ,your doing nothing wrong by asking for a gun that shoots straight ,,it may just work put for you either that or call BENJAMAN themselves ,,good luck PAT
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I did send an email to Benjamin so I'm just waiting to hear back tomorrow when their office is open. So I'm going to wait and see what they tell me but I have seen a lot of people on the internet having the same problem as me not being able to zero in this gun even with my good scope. Unfortunately my Remington Express had a spring this gun has the Nitro piston so I can't take it out and put it in the other gun
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Well I just finally figured out one of the major flaws in the Benjamin Prowler. I would tighten all the screws get the gun to hit Target fire another 20 shots then the gun would be off Target. I went back and checked the screws and found that the barrel was slightly loose so if you don't tighten the screws every 10 to 15 shots the barrels going to be loose in your shots are all over the place. So I will go get some Loctite and apply it to the screws and that should hopefully fix the accuracy problem
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My magnum spring rifles really benefit from use of Blue Loctite, and plenty of it. Another key for me was to start using scope mounts that are much better than the mounts typically included with the packaged gun. Having solid mounts, especially with nothing but dovetail grooves to use as on the Prowler, makes a HUGE difference to a rifle's accuracy shot after shot. I typically cannot find good mounts for airgun use in stores near me so I turned to online shopping to find my mounts. Also, my Crosman spring rifles (Benjamin Titan, Crosman Fire, Crosman F4) all really needed droop compensating mounts. Without droop compensation my rifles each shot so low that I was adjusting my scope to nearly max elevation to get on target - with the result that the scope's reticule was essentially "floating" and not under good tension. A compensating mount keeps your reticule situated toward the middle of the scope's vertical range of adjustment. You don't say anything about droop but my experience with Crosman makes it worth mentioning here. Finally, I chose to get new mounts that locked down on my dovetails with at least three locking bolts, and more if possible, and provided a Picatinny rail in place of the dovetail grooves. This gave me confidence that my scope was on a rock-solid base and my sights weren't just wandering all over the place. I hope something here helps you sort out your rifle.
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Thank you so much for all of your information. I've only been into this air rifle thing for about 3 years so I'm not very educated on it. I started out with just a Gamo silent cat and got bored with it and wanted something more powerful so I moved up to the Remington Express synthetic. I love that gone but unfortunately the spring let go a couple weeks ago. My Remington was so accurate I could hit a Target dead perfect every single time. Then I decided I wanted to try this new Nitro piston that I see on the market and I thought I completely made the biggest mistake of my life. I'm learning and I saw a guy mention about putting Loctite on the screws because I realized my screws were coming loose literally every like 15 to 20 shots. As far as Barrel droop I'm not too familiar with or what you mean? Why would the barrel be drooping? I spoke with the guy at Benjamin this morning and he said if I keep having problems I can send it back and I'll either fix it or give me a new one but I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything right first before I get to that point I'm going to start with the Loctite today and I think that in itself will make a big difference. And as far as the scope mount I definitely know what you mean I feel like the ones that come with it are very inadequate. I would really like to find some sort of setup that's a little better than those crappy little dovetails. Any suggestions or advice on anything is appreciated so that I can become more educated with this as I really love break barrel rifle since getting into this a few years ago.
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Barrel droop refers to the (unfortunately) common habit of spring rifles, most especially break barrels, to have a barrel that does not run in the same horizontal plane as the air chamber of the gun. What this means is that the scope, which is usually mounted on top of the air chamber, has a horizontal line of sight based upon the horizontal plane running through the center of the air chamber. You can change the scope's line of sight of course, but generally the scope's line of sight will mirror the air chamber's line when the scope is in a neutral set-up. Now, picture the barrel of your spring rifle extending out from in front of the air chamber. That barrel only needs to be oriented a fraction of a degree downwards to dramatically affect the flight of the pellet by launching it along a horizontal plane that is angled slightly downward from the plane in which the scope points. Often the droop is not noticeable to the naked eye but becomes readily apparent as soon as you shoot the gun. If not recognized, droop can cause the shooter to start cranking up the elevation on the scope to overcome the downward angle of the barrel. Note, this is not a condition that results from the barrel not seating properly after being cocked, but is the result of slight imperfections in the manufacturing process that result in a barrel/air chamber pairing that is not "true". The best way to resolve this issue is with droop-compensating mounts or rail bases that have a very slight cant, or downward angle, built in. With compensating mounts or bases, the scope can be set up and zeroed without having to crank the reticule to the extreme upper limit of the scope's mechanism. Another approach is to "shim" the scope, meaning to place a very thin piece of material directly on the rear scope mount, just underneath the scope itself, and introduce a downward angle on the scope that way. Shimming works but you must be careful not to add too much material below the scope or you will like damage the scope's structure when you tighten down the mount tops. YouTube has a large number of quality videos discussing both air gun droop and scope shimming - well worth a look.
By the way, three of my current six spring rifles are Nitro Piston rifles from Crosman/Benjamin. All three have some degree of droop and I've used both shimming and compensating bases to correct the problem. I still love the Nitro Piston system; I find it smooth to operate and powerful for the class of gun. That said, if locking down those screws doesn't seem to make a difference (and be sure to lock down all the screws, including and especially the mount screws for the scope) then definitely take up Benjamin's offer to replace the rifle. Life's too short to waste time sussing out a problem like this unless you happen to enjoy that kind of mechanical sleuthing. My 2 cents.
By the way, three of my current six spring rifles are Nitro Piston rifles from Crosman/Benjamin. All three have some degree of droop and I've used both shimming and compensating bases to correct the problem. I still love the Nitro Piston system; I find it smooth to operate and powerful for the class of gun. That said, if locking down those screws doesn't seem to make a difference (and be sure to lock down all the screws, including and especially the mount screws for the scope) then definitely take up Benjamin's offer to replace the rifle. Life's too short to waste time sussing out a problem like this unless you happen to enjoy that kind of mechanical sleuthing. My 2 cents.
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Dogo I have a Remington Express synthetic .22 also and it is the most accurate Springer I've shot,it can keep up with my maximus.22 in accuracy. I've heavily tuned mine,it is a mashup copy of the Diana 34 and HW95 with a copy of the rekord trigger,if you rebuild I highly recommend the vortek Diana 34 PG2 tuning kit,you can also use the stock 34 spring as replacement,and Diana 34 28mm seal .spring size is .810" OD x .125" ID x31 coil. The stock spring only has 27.5 coil and the max coil you can use is 33 before binding if you want more power. I strongly suggest the vortek kit as it will make your gun amazingly smooth and a pleasure to shoot. The trigger is tricky to get out because of the safety but there is a PDF guide online if you Google it. Good luck! P.S. you absolutely need a spring compressor for this one
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New spring from vortek is about $18.50,new Diana 34 breech seal .50¢ 28mm vortek piston seal is $10.80 so pretty cheap to fix, Vortek kit however is around $89 but is absolutely worth it if you can't tune your own guns. Go with fixing the express,I can also give you a step by step guide to tune and adjust the trigger,it is very adjustable if you know what to do,the manual mentions nothing about the trigger being as tunable as it is,it is a rough copy of a HW rekord trigger but every bit as good when adjusted properly
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I would love to get my Remington Express rebuilt but unfortunately I have no clue where to even begin on how to rebuild the gun. And unfortunately I don't think there is any place around where I live that rebuilds air rifles. I found a major flaw in the Benjamin Prowler today when I was trying to zero it and I found that the screws keep coming loose. So I went out and got some Loctite put that on the screws and I'm going to let it set for 24 hours and then try and zero it in again. But I'm not giving up on my Remington Express I will search out someone who will rebuild it for me. If you know of anybody that rebuilds these guns please let me know I would love to be in touch with someone who could help me. Thank you for all of your help and advice I appreciate every bit of it
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