MarauderAirRifle.com

[ran007]

I'm normally not long winded, but here goes.

Went to the range here today for the first time with my Mrod. I was equipped with all gear necessary to shoot at 25, 50 & 100 yards. Pyramid Air quickly sent me 4 pellets that I purchased. They are:
JSB Match Diabolo Exact Jumbo Monster .22 Cal, 25.4 Grains, Domed
H&N Baracuda Match .22 Cal, 21.14 Grains, Round Nose
JSB Match Diabolo Exact Jumbo Heavy .22 Cal, 18.1 Grains, Domed
Benjamin Discovery .22 Cal, 14.3, Hollow Point (purchased locally)
RWS Meisterkugeln Standard .22 Cal, 14.0 Grains, Wadcutter

Needless to say, I had plenty to try out, and a lot of trying out to do.

Before I jump into each field, each stall was equipped with a spotting scope, and proper sand bags, so most if not all shots were taken at a very stable shot.

25 yard results
JSB 25.4 Grains - 2 inch group
H&N Baracuda Match 21.14 Grains - 1/4 inch group
JSB 18.1 Grains - 1/2 inch group
Benjamin Discovery 14.3 Grains - 1 inch group
RWS 14.0 Grains - 2 inch group

25 yard thoughts - This is a shorter field, where guys are popping off their 45 cal hand cannons, so the sound pressure in the air would move me ever so slightly. I was sure to shoot after the guys to my left and right to make sure I had time to focus. I was simply amazed how accurate the 21.14 H&N's were. I never expected a heavy pellet such as this to really drill on the same hole. The 18.1 JSB's were great too. I shot those first and was happy, but then I shot the H&N's and was like "forget about it!". The others I don't even want to comment. Well, actually the RWS 14 wad-cutters really surprised me on how bad the groups were. horrible.

50 yard results
JSB 25.4 Grains - 4 inch group
H&N Baracuda Match 21.14 Grains - 1/2 inch group
JSB 18.1 Grains - 1 inch group
Benjamin Discovery 14.3 Grains - 1 1/2 inch group
RWS 14.0 Grains - 5 inch group

50 yard thoughts - Medium field where you surely need to use that zoom a little bit to get down on zero, then hit consistent shots. Again the H&N's blew my mind here. I was so impressed. I didn't even need to adjust elevation on my scope to keep this tight group. The JSB 18's came in close second with the 1 inch group - still not too bad in my world. The JSB 25's surprise me with its shenanigans. Flyers all over the place. I couldn't believe it! And the RWS? Those things were tumbling into the paper target, leaving perfect pellet profile outlines. No spiral there. I figured the wad-cutters could at least spiral out to 50 no problem. Guess I was wrong. By now I've already had about 4 people approach me asking how they can get their hands on a Marauder... So I took a little time out explaining why I have a scuba tank sitting next to me on the bench.. Many times...

100 yard results
JSB 25.4 Grains - 2 inch group
H&N Baracuda Match 21.14 Grains - 4 inch group
JSB 18.1 Grains - 3 inch group
Benjamin Discovery 14.3 Grains - n/a
RWS 14.0 Grains - n/a

100 yard thoughts - Ok, pretty strange here. The JSB 25.4's performed best, I guess because of the weight of the lead. That's my only thought. Maybe there was wind at the 25 and 50, but no wind at the 100... I don't know... =( So, I really would like to go back and figure out what the buck is, and get some real reasons why the 25.4's did it's best on the 100. Another note is that, I had to really use the last dot at the bottom to even get it to hit the target. Once I dialed into zero, things were fine, but hell, it took me about 50 shots to figure it out. By this time, the coil in one of my clips shit the bed on me, so I was down to 2 clips. No biggie. Back to shooting at 100, my scope is perfect for it. I love that thing... Get's me right up on the target, like it was right in front of me... Unfortunately, the gun didn't shine like I expected it too. I'm thinking I'll need to go back out with the hole drilled into the side so that I can adjust the psi on the fly... That will prolly help me out there with the 100's. As for the other pellets, they didn't even make it to the target, and I had 2 range masters spotting for me - those guys' jaws were on the floor when I was grouping well at the 100 with a pellet gun.. They couldn't believe it for some reason.

Other PSI thoughts - I noticed that the scuba yoke adapter would register 3000 psi, but the gun would only register 2800 psi. I'm not sure if that is normal or not, but I only took it to 2800 when I got to the 100 yard..

So there you have it. I spent about 500 rounds in about a 4 hour span, had 11 fills - filling to 2600 psi and running it down to 1600 or sometimes 1400 psi. Much of the time was spent satisfying the curiosities of the other shooters. Amazed with how quiet the gun is, but how deadly at 50 yards it is too. I must say, I love this gun, and will be buying a case of the H&N Baracuda Match 21.14's real soon. =)

[jeff1983]

Great post. Always like to read how others are doing with their Marauder and different pellets.

I did some initial tuning today to see what my rifle can do. In order of best accuracy and the FPS for each on my current setting: JSB Diablo Exact 18.1s (881), CPs from brown box (936), and H&N Barracuda Match 21.1s (829). I didn't get to shoot enough Kodiaks (828) to determine their accuracy.

Tomorrow I will work on shooting some strings to see what I have for shots and best fill pressure.

Jeff

[fronzman]

I've havent tried JSBs yet but have similar results with the others. Barracudas work well but CPs better. And RWS??? I think I could throw them more accurately. The Marauder barfs almost everything from RWS all over the paper. Thankfully my Dianas love em.

Thanks for that great post. I kind of felt like I was at the range myself. But seeing as how it's under about 5 feet of snow...that won't be a reality for some time

[joshheat25]

Nice thread that is very interesting how the jsb's grouped twice as tight at 2x the distance... your 50 yard test might need to be repeated.