New to PCP - Synthetic Marauder .177 LW barrel on the way!

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cmburkhalter

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Aug 21, 2020
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CT, United States
Hi all!

Second topic post here :).

After some (not so) arm twisting from a buddy of mine, I decided to get in to PCP with the Synthetic .177 Marauder with the Lothar Walther barrel.

I know springers and PCP's are quite different, both from a shooting and maintenance perspective, but I wanted to ask those more knowledgable than I about the SynRod specifically.

Should I clean the air rifle prior to cleaning? I'm seeing/reading that prior to shooting I should also perform an over-night leak test. I plan on mounting a CenterPoint 4-16x40 AO scope on it. I have a Leapers 3-12x44 AO, but I was hoping for at least 16x magnification. Maybe I should return the Leapers and get something different?

Thanks all!

Chris
 
Congratulations on the gun, should be a very nice shooter, did you get the regulated or non regulated model? When I got my new Marauder I did clean the barrel by running several patches through with a DIY crownsaver using some Ballistol. I think it is a good practice just in case there is some oil and gunk leftover from the manufacturing process. In my case it was not terribly dirty. Here is a link to an old post on it: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/my-new-gen-2-marauder-22-startup-and-impressions/ As far as scope magnification I would think your 3-12 Leapers would be fine for most shooting. If you are planning to compete in field target, than yes you would need a higher magnification scope with a minimum 16x and good parallax focusing down to 10 yards. 

Also...I am curious how your LW Marauder does in the accuracy department, particularly in the 40-55 yard range. Let us know.
 
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Always a good idea to clean a new barrel. No need for a brass brush, just cotton patches and a solvent (WD-40, Goo-gone, Hoppes #9, or similar) to remove rust inhibitors and any potential swarf or other contaminants left over from manufacturing.

A leak test can be done any time. Don’t deprive yourself of it on the honeymoon day just for the sake of checking for a slow leak. If it has a big enough leak to matter, you’ll know soon enough.
 
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The general consensus is to clean the factory gunk out of the barrel before shooting it. However, some online stores give you a 5 shot test target with your new gun and I always wondered if they clean the barrel before those test shots. I was so excited setting up my last new gun I shot 28 pellets through it before realizing I forgot to clean the barrel. It was shooting Crosman 10.5s into nickel size groups at 40 yards. I was ecstatic thinking I had a gun that likes cheap ammo! Then I cleaned the barrel and those nice groups (with the crosmans) went away with the gunk. I must have pulled 50 patches through that barrel before they started coming out clean. Oh it still produces great groups, just not with the Crosmans.

Still, I would suggest cleaning it before shooting it.

Congratulations, you picked a great rifle that you'll enjoy for years to come! 
 
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Congratulations on the gun, should be a very nice shooter, did you get the regulated or non regulated model? When I got my new Marauder I did clean the barrel by running several patches through with a DIY crownsaver using some Ballistol. I think it is a good practice just in case there is some oil and gunk leftover from the manufacturing process. In my case it was not terribly dirty. Here is a link to an old post on it: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/my-new-gen-2-marauder-22-startup-and-impressions/ As far as scope magnification I would think your 3-12 Leapers would be fine for most shooting. If you are planning to compete in field target, than yes you would need a higher magnification scope with a minimum 16x and good parallax focusing down to 10 yards. 

Also...I am curious how your LW Marauder does in the accuracy department, particularly in the 40-55 yard range. Let us know.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it's the unregulated Marauder, here's the exact rifle:

https://www.pyramydair.com/s/m/Benjamin_Marauder_PCP_Air_Rifle_Synthetic_Stock/3139

Good points about the scope. I'll try both scopes out and see which I like better in my situation :).
 
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Congratulations on the gun, should be a very nice shooter, did you get the regulated or non regulated model? When I got my new Marauder I did clean the barrel by running several patches through with a DIY crownsaver using some Ballistol. I think it is a good practice just in case there is some oil and gunk leftover from the manufacturing process. In my case it was not terribly dirty. Here is a link to an old post on it: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/my-new-gen-2-marauder-22-startup-and-impressions/ As far as scope magnification I would think your 3-12 Leapers would be fine for most shooting. If you are planning to compete in field target, than yes you would need a higher magnification scope with a minimum 16x and good parallax focusing down to 10 yards. 

Also...I am curious how your LW Marauder does in the accuracy department, particularly in the 40-55 yard range. Let us know.
Click to expand...

Wow! Lots of reading to do now, thanks for posting!
 
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I was wondering about this too. I got my marauder pistol from Pyramid with the 20 for 20 deal, mostly to have them put on and zero the scope for me. So they fired 20 rounds already. I figured they must have presented the gun to me ready to go, if they were going to be showing me an accuracy test. Could be wrong, though.

I also read someone saying they push a copper pellet through every once in a while, to clean gunk out, as well as cleaning pellets. I bought both but have yet to use either after having shot over 100 pellets. I also have a cleaning kit ready. I had a few shots going a little wild, so maybe it's time.
 
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I have the same gun in .22, with a Crosman barrel. it's 8 or 9 years old and I love it. Good trigger, good accuracy out to 75 yards, Clean the barrel, put a scope on it and start sighting it in. I have an older CP 4-16x scope another gun, works fine.

Clean the gun, put a couple hundred rounds through it before doing much tuning. The parts need to break in a bit. Hammer needs to slide back and forth, trigger needs a touch of wear, etc. It'll settle down pretty quickly.

The beauty of the Marauder is that so many people started with one. If you have questions, just post and someone will probably have the answer.

Your model is unregulated. I started the same way. I added a regulator last year mostly for efficiency. You'll probably get about 30 shots per fill. Magazines are pretty inexpensive, so I bought 3 magazines to start. Fill magazines, shoot, refill with air, refill magazines. Worked really well.

With the regulator, I get 50 shots per fill, though at a bit lower power. 5 magazines, refill. Same routine, makes counting easy.

You can adjust for more or less power, but I'd wait to do that for quite a while. you really need a chronograph to play with the power settings and from the factory, it works fine. If you do decide to play with the settings, it's easy to work with, after market parts are plentiful, and like I said, people can answer many questions here. It's an excellent start!


 
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Congrats on the new Marauder. I started out with a 25 caliber Armada four years ago. I shot it in the factory configuration for two years before I did anything to it. They are great guns and very easy to work on or upgrade. There is a fair amount of aftermarket products available too. One that I would suggest is the Tim Hill barrel band, he is sold out right now but should have some in Sept. Also keep in mind the more power you chase the less shots you will get and accuracy can suffer. 
 
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Hi all,



Just wanted to follow up here on today’s results.

I received the box which had a small amount of damage near the bolt. I found this to be superficial and went on with the process.

I cleaned the barrel with two dry patches reversed for 4 pulls. It would appear this Lothar Walther barrel was cleaned at the factory prior to their test shooting :).

My sight in was pretty eventful, I discovered my Leaper 4-12x44 to be defective, as there wasn’t enough elevation available in the turret to properly zero the scope. I switched to an older BSA 2-7x32, sight in was quick and I was off!

This rifle *loved* the H&N Baracuda Match pellets! I was getting stacked pellets at 30 yards fairly consistently, and plinking 1.5” targets at 50 yards with ease. I setup a plinker target at roughly 70-80 yards and things started getting interesting, since that range with 7x magnification and a 1.5” target is the best challenge I’ve had yet, but after some practice I found I was able to hit those reliably 9/10 shots. I also had similar results with the Crosman 10.5 Ultra Magnums. The Baracuda Hunter Extremes also produced neat, tight groups and were reliable to 50 yards for me. I’ll soon be starting a Google Sheet like this one I did for my now failed and returned Gamo Swarm Maxxim: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jS6EPqPSV_M_5bZQv65rG7gcIiBqnhWWqZiIbYav-Cs/edit

This SynRod produces 60 accurate shots per fill, much better than I expected, and if I care to stretch to 80 shots I can do it with a slight hold over at 30 yards :).

Very happy with this! Thanks all!
 
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Hey @aimright, here’s what my groups look like at around 63 yards (edited to correct distance once measured). Top target was shot with the 13.4 JSB Monsters, bottom target with the JSB Beasts. Last pic is a 5 shot group and got me *really* excited! Pictures with the quarter are the Beasts. The wind was blowing quite hard, 10MPH gusting to between 15 and 20. The last 5 shot group that’s slightly more than 1” CTC was me waiting for things to calm down between shots. I’ll be borrowing my friends chrony and range finder to verify distances and and energy, but the way these Beasts sound when they hit...it’s quite fun :). The Monsters seemed to shoot OK, but nowhere near as tight as the Beasts! Good think I have about 1500 or them :). In the pic with the targets, it’s easy to see which groups are tighter. Thanks all! Happy camper here :).
1598823344_20849620725f4c1bb0b54834.10901738.jpeg
1598823345_9589982445f4c1bb1652c95.65926916.jpeg
1598823346_18006379135f4c1bb20dfaa7.53998420.jpeg
1598823346_12263250965f4c1bb2a5efe5.26507803.jpeg
1598823347_19894417925f4c1bb35f8271.98567818.jpeg
1598823348_9567028925f4c1bb404b460.45463645.jpeg
1598823348_18845316275f4c1bb4c3e729.52603809.jpeg



 
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Cmburkhalter, 

Good that you got it going, and you are happy with it, but........

Your Leapers scope is NOT defective!!!!!!

If you ran out of elevation, that is a very common thing with airguns. You just need the proper scope mounts.

First, you need to optically re center your scope. On my channel, Field Target Tech, on YouTube, I describe how to to that on one of my videos.

After that is done, you need adjustable scope mounts. They allow you to put the impact of the pellet very close to where you want it . NOW use the scopes adjustments to get to your zero. It's as simple as that.

I'm glad you got it shooting, but don't get rid of your Leapers scope, there's nothing wrong with it!!!!!

In my opinion, the Leapers scope is a better quality scope than the Centerpoint, any day.

Hope this helps you a bit,

Tom Holland 

Field Target Tech 
 
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Cmburkhalter, 

The Leapers has 30mm mounts, which gathers more light than a 1"tube. You can use several different brands of mounts, i prefer Sportsmatch. I show them at the end of my scope video. You can also use FX no limits mounts, i like Sportsmatch better, but the FX ones will work also.

Have fun, shoot straight!!!

Tom Holland 

Field Target Tech 
 
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