My Marauder arrived today

Jump to latest Follow Reply
L

Lightload

Member
Jul 4, 2019
37
2
PA, United States
Fedex dropped off my new Marauder today so I spent the afternoon playing with my new toy! Cleaned the barrel and then mounted a Nikon Prostaff scope. Tried to insert a magazine but found that the rings were too low and there wasn't enough clearance for the mag. Swapped out the Nikon for a Vortex with higher rings and I was in business.

This is the synthetic stock, pic rail, LW barrel model. Got on paper and shot some nice groups at 25yds so I moved on out to 50. The only pellets I had were JSB 8.2's and Polymags that I think are 8 even. At 50, everything was under 2 inches which is ho hum. Then I pumped it up some more and the groups tightened right up. Seems it likes operating over 2k psi. POI was bouncing around quite a bit and it seemed to be pressure sensitive. Dunno...more work needed.

Anyway, my takeaways from my first session was the the polymags shoot quite well and the rifle seems to do better at higher pressures. Also, pumping this rifle up is a workout! But that's OK because I need the exercise!

1587674890_9052148245ea1ff0a607ad8.58482292.jpg
5 shot groups are not much more than an indication but I have to admit that this one gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. This was the Polymags at 50 yards .
 
Wyshadow, Thanks for the pressure info. Early indications are that this rifle will like the same pressures. Thinking of a flatter trajectory, I could be happy with the Polymags but I do have some 10.3 pellets on the way. I understand they are sort of "standard" for the .177 Marauder.

It's supposed to rain here in PA tomorrow but as soon as conditions permit I'll shoot the rifle over the chrony and try to work out some pressure/group size correlations.
 
Upvote 0
Lightload. I have a Mrod in .22 cal and have been shooting it for about a year. !st thing I recommend you do is pull your magazine and with the bolt pulled back to the point it starts to cock get a measurement from two points. I use the tip of the bolt probe and breech face and I have mine set at .060". The reason I suggest you do this is that the Mrods are notorious for the striker adjustment screw rotating ccw. When this happens your velocity will change and accuracy can drop off. Many of us get the settings we like and pull the bolt and hammer and use blue loctite to secure. If you get a measurement and occasionally check it you will be able to see if it has changed. The further the striker screw is backed out the further forward your bolt will be when it starts to pull against the hammer spring. When I got mine it was boringly accurate out of box. It was shooting approx 830 fps with pressure at 2600 down to 2000. Accuracy fell as time went on and I chronied it and it was shooting the same pellets at over 900 fps simply because the striker adjustment backed out due to vibration.
 
Upvote 0
YO! Yes, the LW is an option with the Mrod syn. Also, comes with a pic Rail which I really like because I can move scopes around easily.

Profsrgary, sounds like excellent advice! I'll keep it in mind as I'm learning the details of.the rifle. Quite frankly, what you're suggesting is beyond my comprehension right now but hopefully I'll figure it out before things go south.


 
Upvote 0
My luck wasn't quite so good with my new Marauders. The .177 FT with Crosman barrel and Hawke Sidewinder 20x 42mm (pictured with the Airmax) is grouping only ok even with a half shroud mod eliminating the issues of the shroud pushing the barrel around.

.

https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/half-shroud-on-a-marauder-for-better-accuracy/

.

1587764042_5085969775ea35b4af0d961.89570583.jpg


.

The regulator works perfectly though. I can get 880 fps wide open with JSB 10.34. I tuned the spring and striker back down to where they are just under control for 860 fps/ 17fpe. With an extreme spread of 5 fps over the string. And installed a debounce device since it was burping even with the small reulator. But the groups are only ok. Here are three shots from the .177 (ran out of time working with the .22) benched, half indoors into my garage.

.

1587764240_15644267635ea35c107ff458.78494431.jpg


.

The .22 FT Lothar Walther with Hill tight barrel band and Hawke Airmax 32x 50mm scope doesn't like HN 14.66 FTT that I had on hand at all and the regulator design places it right against the valve with minimal plenum and a lowish pressure so 22 fpe is all you can get. Crosman Hollow points were somewhat worse. JSB 18.1gn heavies are too slow at 750 fps and don't group quite as well as the 15.89's

.

1587764831_13825030375ea35e5f1e8522.41005456.jpg


.

It likes the JSB 15.89 slightly better but is still looking like 2 MOA at 12 yards indoors in my attic. I haven't had the chance to shoot them at 25 yards yet (still snowing every day at the end of April! What the hell.) Maybe tomorrow.

.

1587765045_3080167085ea35f35d94083.48594168.jpg


.

It's frustrating because my half shroud Marauder .25 with Green Mountain barrel and debounce device shoots through one hole at 25 yards. JSB 25.4 at 840 fps 5 shots each through a cheap Leapers 32x 56mm scope. So this tells me the Marauder platform can group but this LW barrel on the .22 isn't producing. I have a full selection of .22 pellets coming in the mail (Pyramyd took 10 days to pick the order) so whenever I get those I am going to document all of them to Crosman with the Airmax 32x 50mm and again with the Hawke 50x 60mm ED off of my Creedmoor to see if they will swap barrels.

.

1587765521_9865117935ea361113de857.95833852.jpg


.

1587765604_6594736395ea36164b39f43.27403958.jpg


.


 
Upvote 0
The .25 is a laser. The .177 is probably fairly representative of a Crosman barrel. The .22 Lothar Walther needs help. I tried it without the tight barrel band and it wasn't any better. I didn't buy that one new but it is only 4 months old so I am hoping they will let me try another barrel if I document the poor performance well enough to show it is not the scope. Or the bench or rest or my ability as evidenced by the results of the .25. I haven't taken that barrel out yet or anything more than to just fire a few Ballistol wet cleaning pellets through it.Which came out just as clean as they went in. Years ago I bought a new Crosman Challenger which has a Lothar barrel. Fortunately I took it apart before ever even firing it to clean the bore and discovered a big burr hanging off of the hole where they drilled the transfer. So I cleaned it up with with a small precision round file up through the hole That rifle shoots nice and I added a regulator and set it for 65 shots at 12 fpe even with the low 2,000 psi fill limit. I should get that out and group it tomorrow also. I should sell that one since I don't have tome to shoot with the FTT group and it is not as quiet for my neighbors since it is unmoderated.

.

1587778120_21202248565ea39248e779c3.66554281.jpg


.

10 shots at 12 yards indoors

.

1587778289_15561575935ea392f14c2f19.49268796.jpg


.

Burr

.
1587778315_4386221225ea3930b4306d5.95045433.jpg


.


 
Upvote 0
1587920364_9736299975ea5bdec3f6407.17498833.jpg


Yesterday's target. All shots at 50yds.

#0...There's 20 shots of 8gr Polymag in there but they formed two groups. Pressure was 2850 when I started and the first 5 went into the small group, then the group shifted for the next 15. Dunno what's up with that.

Next up was AirArms 10.3's, group #1. Pressure started at 2510 and went down to 2480. This I like!

Group #2 was Exact Heavy 10.3's starting at 2480 and on down to 2390.

Went back to the AA's for group #3. Pressure was 2350 down to 2270.

Not exactly sure what this is telling me but I sure hope I can work it out to get a lot more groups like #1!
 
Upvote 0
Aimright, thanks for the link. This Marauder is very new to me and I'm deep into trying to find out what makes it tick. I've done extensive long range center fire shooting and I'm familiar with the effects of canting a rifle. I'm not going to say that I'm not canting the rifle because I don't have a bubble on the scope but I dont think I am.

I've got like 150 pellets down the tube of this rifle so I'm just getting started but early indications seem to be telling me that it likes a certain pressure range. Now today, it was too windy to shoot at 50 yards so I moved in to 25 yards and fired seven groups total with three different pellets. This time there was no POI shift and all the groups were reasonably nice. Three of the seven were one holes. All the groups were centered windage wise and were about three fourths of an inch high with my fifty yard zero. 

It's too early to come to conclusions but early indications are that at fifty yards at least, it has a very narrow pressure range where it shoots really well. Dunno, just have to keep playing with it.

Thanks again for your input.
 
Upvote 0
I think you have a real shooter there and it will only get better with more experimenting. After taking another look at all your groups it sure appears like you had a right to left wind that pushed the pellets a little. A fairly light breeze can make quite a difference at 50 yards - I have had many misses in Field Target Competition to prove it 😖.

A chronograph would help speed up the process of finding your rifle’s sweet spots with various pellets and velocities.




 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back
Home
Forums
Resources
Menu