.25 Cal Marauder at 100 yds....this thing will really shoot!

[USMCShooter]

I had a chance last week, a lull in the storm fronts moving through....nice, warm day, 60 degrees and dead calm.....I called a buddy of mine that has a rock-solid shooting bench, spotting scope and 150yds....but he didn't get home until 3 PM, so I weigh sorted and head sized a tin of JSB exact kings, checked everything out, shot some spinners and just got to know the gun better...

I haven't done anything to this gun out of the box except put it in Michael Chavka's masterpiece of a stock, moved the shroud forward, added a spacer at the back and two more baffles, reshaped the bolt probe a bit, did the trigger mod and adjustments, cleaned the bore, verified the tightness of all the bolts and screws, put a Hawke 4.5-14 tactical on it and have been running pellets and air through it at the cyclic rate....and I thought I was impressed with the .22.....this one's accuracy is a thing of beauty....and I haven't had it across the chrony yet or worked on it's consistency....

I got there, got set up, shot some groups at 50, then 75 and 100yds.....and was thoroughly impressed...without the chrony data yet, at a 3000psi fill, the gun starts low and climbs for the first 5-6 shots, then levels out for about 4-5 shots into amazing accuracy, then starts to drop....again, this is at 100yds, so any inconsistency will be immediately seen...at 25yds, this gun will put 24 shots into one pellet-sized hole, at 35yds, it will shoot 21 shots into one hole, at 50yds it will put 12 into a .395ctc group....75yds results in a full mag into 1/2 inch...

Now, at 25 and 35yds, it will put them all there from shot #1....at 50, on shot #5 it climbs up to center and stays there for 12, at 75 it starts at shot #5 and stays for 8.....at 100yds, it climbs up the target and lays 6 of them on top of each other before it starts to drop.....

After running numerous mags and fills through the gun, and totally wowing the hell out of my buddy, and stupifying his 65 year old father with my 'pellet gun', my spare tank was down to 2800psi....which I'd intentionally not filled for th purpose of trying this gun tethered....I tried this with my GD .22 and the results were not as good as fillng the gun and shooting it through it's sweet spot for some reason....

The .25, untuned however, was a different story altogether....the first 3 shots were not promising...and I'm not sure if the check valve needed to adjust to the constant charge, but they marched up the paper and settled right down...

This first pic is of a fill at 100yds...the one out the top was all me...had to add about a pound back on the trigger...i'd lightened it to ounces to bench it....but I'm used to about 1.5-2 lbs.....so ounces wasn't cutting it....I threw it up out of the group, but you can watch the group climb the paper, and settle into the sweet spot....



One thing I noticed with the gun was that it shifted POI to the right when I tethered it...don't know what that's about, except perhaps the larger volume pushed the tube somehow...the hose wasn't applying any tension...so after the first group, I moved the scope over a couple of clicks...this a full mag..




I shot probably 40 groups, but here are the best of the bunch...I'm going to add some of Greg Davis's goodies to this gun and play with it a bunch....the .22 is amazing....I'm expecting this one to be purely astonishing....Harry, I'm hoping this thing will run all the way to 200yds!











These are all one mag with the exception of the last two, they are 4 shots each..but out of the same mag...
This gun has the most long-range accuracy potential that I've had the pleasure of shooting so far...no, it doesn't have the smack of the Career or the Ranger...but I'm betting once I'm done tuning this thing, I'll run it against any unregulated .25 cal on the Market...

s/f

Jamie

[USMCShooter]

Gotta figure out how to post pics! Dangit!

[Lammy1000]

Can't wait to see your results. Thanks for sharing.

Lou

[USMCShooter]

let me know...this thing is a PITA to post pics to.....jumps all over the place!

s/f

Jamie

[Lammy1000]

Were these groups shot at 100 yards?

[Supercharged86]

Gotta figure out how to post pics! Dangit!

Jamie, pics look fine, (not to mention the groupings) your already running them through photobucket which is really the best way. The only thing I would mention would be to resize the photos to 700 x 525 pxls max., this seems to be the best setting for this forum. Cheers. Steve

[USMCShooter]

Yes Lammy,

The groups were shot at 100yds.....everything below that was just simply boring...as I stated in the post, these were the best of the lot, but none of them were bad at all, at 50yds it will shoot well under 1/2 inch.....my goal at 100 is .5 MOA....the two 4 shot groups reached that...but I want a full mag at that range, at that performance...eventually I will stretch this gun out to 200yds like Yrrah over on the yellow....I think it is capable of sub-MOA at 200 judging by what I'm seeing at 100yds...

Steve,

Thanks for advice on the pics, I'll try to resize them to fit here...the problem is, they fit well the way they are on other forums.....I'll just have to play with it and see what I can figure out....

s/f

Jamie

[steveinla]

Outstanding USMCshooter! Thanks for posting your groups.

[joshheat25]

seeing groups like that make me want a .25 cal. I can see the .25 cal marauders are more accurate, but Can you comment on how loud the .25 cal is compared to other guns and the .22 cal marauder. Thank you

[USMCShooter]

This .25 was twice as loud as my .22....that being said, I made a delrin spacer, 2.7 inches long and put it at the base of the barrel, moved the shroud collar out 2.7 inches, drilled a little divot for the set screw to bite, moved the shroud forward, added two baffles and it now shoots as quiet as the .22.

s/f

Jamie