You can see all the results at the Extreme Benchrest site, but lets talk about Marauders. There were several Marauders at EBR. Some were stock and others were modified to increase capabilities for the match.
I saw several Gen 2 marauders. They all had synthetic stocks, and they all appeared unmodified. The Marauder I shot in the speed shoot was a unmodified Gen 2. I suppose that the wood stocked Gen 2s have not been out long enough to be worked up for a big match.
The Marauder that did the best was a .30 caliber shot by John Bergquist. John shot a 227 4X that was second place in the Sportsman’s class at 75 yards. I don’t have notes from my conversation with John, but this is what I remember. The rifle had a .30 barrel liner slid into carbon fiber tubes. His .30 magazines were 7 shot. The air tube was augmented with an HPA bottle and a regulator, the valve and transfer port had been ”opened up” by John. The rest of the modification were off the shelf items that he purchased from various sourced. A score of 227 is like shooting 7 tens (7/16”) and 23 nines (1 14”). Although, I suspect there were more tens and a few eights (2 “) to even things out.
Of the four Marauders I saw with obvious modifications, all were modified to increase shot count. Three had bottles or extended air tubes. One, a .177 used in the 25 meter event, had been retuned to a 2400 psi fill.
I think that to do well at EBR your rifle should get at least 30 shots on one fill. You can air up any time in the 75 yard match, and between the 16 target runs in the speed shoot. You can only refill after each 25 shot target in the 25 meter event. The point is that the more you refill the less time you have to shoot. This can be especially bad when you have a condition where your are shooting ten after ten and then have to fill because your gun is losing power.
Interestingly, all the custom Marauders I saw were Gen 1s with their blond finish, original stocks.
by blueflax » Sun Nov 23, 2014 11:07 am 