After exchanging my (my son's) .22 Marauder and getting back essentially another inaccurate rifle, I had to make a decison to either unload it or get it working correctly. My reasons for upgrading were many. I personally did not want to unload a crappy rifle off to someone else and I didn't want a rilfe sitting around with no purpose. I really wanted to know more about how these things work and was uncomfortable tearing apart a $1500 rifle. If I ruined this one, I was only out about $500. My son and I both liked the rifle, mags are only $20, and parts are easy to get, and one of the few rifles made in the US, …………...so I began this adventure.
I initally ordered a Malitia Marmot Barrel, and was able to replace that myself with little problems. I also order a HUMA Regulator and again took the rifle apart and installed it myself (unknowingly improperly). I set about tuning it myself but because I somehow turned the setting on the regulator installing it, it wasn't working properly. After several weekends and conversations with Aaron (AJshoots), I gave up and had Scott from Motorhead, install a lightweight hammer, work on the trigger,a do a power tune, and corrected the regulator. He was able to get the rifle shooting about 28 FPE and got the 35 shots I was aking for.
We finally got a warm enough day in the desert and little wind so I could sight my scope in. This rifle is still quite new to me and I am learning how it is working. Outside of tuning, I have fired less that a tin of pellets. Today I shot JSB's 15.89 gr. Here are all the groups I was able to shoot today. I was able to get 2 dime (penny) groups and all the rest were quarter sized. I will admit, I have not shot in in over 1 month and I was slightly rushing to squeeze this session in. The rilfe is shooting better than I am and I didn't get my scope all the way dialed in. Not making excuses, just stating that the groups were larger due to me not the rifle. So given a little more time with the rifle, these groups would be a lot tighter.
After all this I will confess that it takes a lot to get a rilfe to shoot well. I don't want to really badmouth Crosman as I am finding out how much it costs to get a rifle to shoot correctly and you can't do it for $500. I now have about $1,000 into this and it looks like it will be a very good shooting rifle. Not sure if it will match my Cricket but looks promising and will most likely be very very close.
If someone was looking to keep their costs down, I would highly recommend this route. In the end you will have a rifle that is easy to service, has lots of add on parts, inexpensive magazines, and a rifle made in the US. Most high end rifles are starting over $1500 and their magazines are around $100 (which adds up). It's a little more work to add to the Marauder, but in the end you can have a very good rifle for 2/3 the price.
Here are today's groups:
[url="http://i.imgur.com/Cokwubo.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/Cokwubo.jpg[/img][/url]
[url="http://i.imgur.com/saYQxvh.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/saYQxvh.jpg[/img][/url]
[url="http://i.imgur.com/2YtcKJG.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/2YtcKJG.jpg[/img][/url]
I initally ordered a Malitia Marmot Barrel, and was able to replace that myself with little problems. I also order a HUMA Regulator and again took the rifle apart and installed it myself (unknowingly improperly). I set about tuning it myself but because I somehow turned the setting on the regulator installing it, it wasn't working properly. After several weekends and conversations with Aaron (AJshoots), I gave up and had Scott from Motorhead, install a lightweight hammer, work on the trigger,a do a power tune, and corrected the regulator. He was able to get the rifle shooting about 28 FPE and got the 35 shots I was aking for.
We finally got a warm enough day in the desert and little wind so I could sight my scope in. This rifle is still quite new to me and I am learning how it is working. Outside of tuning, I have fired less that a tin of pellets. Today I shot JSB's 15.89 gr. Here are all the groups I was able to shoot today. I was able to get 2 dime (penny) groups and all the rest were quarter sized. I will admit, I have not shot in in over 1 month and I was slightly rushing to squeeze this session in. The rilfe is shooting better than I am and I didn't get my scope all the way dialed in. Not making excuses, just stating that the groups were larger due to me not the rifle. So given a little more time with the rifle, these groups would be a lot tighter.
After all this I will confess that it takes a lot to get a rilfe to shoot well. I don't want to really badmouth Crosman as I am finding out how much it costs to get a rifle to shoot correctly and you can't do it for $500. I now have about $1,000 into this and it looks like it will be a very good shooting rifle. Not sure if it will match my Cricket but looks promising and will most likely be very very close.
If someone was looking to keep their costs down, I would highly recommend this route. In the end you will have a rifle that is easy to service, has lots of add on parts, inexpensive magazines, and a rifle made in the US. Most high end rifles are starting over $1500 and their magazines are around $100 (which adds up). It's a little more work to add to the Marauder, but in the end you can have a very good rifle for 2/3 the price.
Here are today's groups:
[url="http://i.imgur.com/Cokwubo.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/Cokwubo.jpg[/img][/url]
[url="http://i.imgur.com/saYQxvh.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/saYQxvh.jpg[/img][/url]
[url="http://i.imgur.com/2YtcKJG.jpg"][img]http://i.imgur.com/2YtcKJG.jpg[/img][/url]