Marauder field & target is awsome but not what I thought.

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Raden1942

Raden1942

Member
Feb 15, 2018
1,757
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California, United States
Hey guys some of you have been following my progress on the barrel issues ive had with the marauder field and target. A few of you helped me accurize the barrel and it is lights out with jsbs. Im super happy with the results. I got one ragged hole at 20 to 25 yards and thats awsome. However I was planning on using cheap ammo, cph. Well theres the rubb even tuned down the crosman premiers just fire a 3in group at 20 to 25 yards. Disappointment is the order of the day. I wanted a gun i could use jsbs in for competition between my club buddies and cheap walmart ammo for backyard fun. Its annoying to me that a gun made by crosman wont shoot thier own ammo, its why i bought it. The problem is not the power as some of u might suspect its the thin diameter of the barrel. Its resizing cph pellets at the choke and when pushed through by hand it hits hard resistance the last inch of the barrel. I would highly suggest waiting for the green mountain or lw barrels to come out for the field and target if they are not out already. However I can absolutely attest to its accuracy with jsbs. Just a friendly heads up. I know most of you airgun snobs only shoot jsbs but i love me a 6 dollar tin of 500. I gueas im just low rent. 
 
@Raden, I do love the increased accuracy of the JSBs, it undeniable, but like you I like to plink on the cheap. My Compatto shoots the Crosman Premiers good enough to hit wine corks on end at 60 yards... not all the time! I’ve been smoking a lot of pieces of sidewalk chalk from 30 to 60 yards. I buy the chalk at the dollar store, break each piece into four and have at it. When you get a solid hit you see chalk dust as the target explodes.

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My .177 Marauder (standard Crosman version) was not happy at all with the 10.5 CPDs either. I tuned my rifle down to around 12.5-13 fpe and figured it just didn't want to heft those heavy pellets. OTOH, both the 8.64 H&N FTTs and the 7.9 CPDs out of the brown box shot extremely well out of that gun at that tune. If I paid attention to my shot curve I could get sub-1" groups at 50 yards all day long. I often spent time answering questions and allowing others to shoot it at the local range once they saw (and heard) the accuracy on bottle tops and hi-viz paper. And I often found the H&N FTTs at really decent prices online, often at under $.03 per pellet. That compares pretty good to the cost of the CPDs in the box.

You may very well have a barrel with a lemony-freshness to it, but I still encourage you to experiment a bit more with lighter pellets. It may be your gun is trying to tell you that it's a burro and not a mule and it just wants a lighter load.
 
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Raden,

My .177 f&t shoots several pellets well at 30 yards, including crosman ultramag 10.5's and cphp 7.9's. Half inch groups for these as well as AA 10.3's jsb monsters, AA 8.4's and h and n sniper mediums 8.5's. At 50 yards the AA 10.3's are best, followed by the crosman utltramags; both are at or just under one inch 5 shot groups. I bought the brown box 10.5's and they shoot worse than the 10.5's in the tin. I have not adjusted the power settings and the AA 10.3's shoot at 895 fps and the crosman 10.5's at 875.
 
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Yeah i will continue to break it in but i doubt any amount of break in will make a 3in group at 20 yards good enough to hunt or do anything worth while. The last post makes me want to request another barrel but after i grinded down thier mistakes i doubt they will honor thier warranty. To be fair i absolutely voided my warranty and jsbs are right on and I think I will just wait for the lw barrel. 
 
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So ranedouglas let me know about crosman premier piranhas were likely the case. When i checked sure enough they weren't cph they were in fact piranhas. After polishing the barrel a bit more i tried real cph 7.9s They are now shooting just as well as the jsbs at 20 yards. Im sure when i stretch it out farther the jsbs will do better than the cph but this is perfect for me. I can hardly believe that the piranhas were so different from the cph but they are. Anyway I had to polish out some pitting in the barrel as well but the main issue was the ammo. Problem solved. Thanks guys especially ranedouglas for his correspondence. 
 
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Barrels like what they like. I’ve tried shooting the junk ammo and you may even get a tin that shoots lights out. The next tin won’t. Not worth the frustration to me. My LW barrel likes H&N cuda hunters, JSB’s, and certain lots of CPH’s-that’s it. I’m not going to change out 5 barrels to find one the will shoot junk ammo, if that’s even possible. Don’t take this as a dig-you just have to decide if “saving” a few bucks is worth going thru all that
 
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It is worth it definitely. I shoot jsbs and many other expensive ammo when hunting larger game or competition settings or when I want to show off. However I shoot 100 to even 500 pellets daily just getting in trigger time. I am disabled and on a fixed income. If i only shot jsbs or h&n I just wouldn't get even half the range time. I love expensive ammo but frankly I need to do more with less and a flier here and there wont hurt my feelings. 3in groups at 29 yards is dumb tho. Anyway I am doing great with them now so sweet deal. 
 
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