Since releasing the Marauder we have had one accessory request more than any other, a single shot tray. Well we heard you loud and clear. The new single shot tray slides in the same channel that the multi-shot clip fits in and allows for a single round to be fired from the Marauder. The single shot tray is available in the PCP Accessories section of the site. Here is a link…
Keep your suggestions coming. We’re listening.
Joshua
Today on Croswords we are taking a few minutes to talk with noted airgun hunter and writer Jim Chapman. This past summer Jim took the Benjamin Marauder on a hunting trip to South Africa and carefully chronicled his journey. He collected all these notes and pictures into a book that we will be sharing with you over the next few weeks here on Croswords. Before we dive into the book I wanted to take a few minutes to ask Jim a few questions about his trip and his love for airgun hunting…
Jim, for our readers who may not be familiar with you and your globetrotting exploits, please introduce yourself and tell readers about your website.
Well I think my experience is not all that different in terms of hunting; when I was a young boy my uncle gave me an old BB rifle that I cleaned, and then used for the summer terrorizing sparrows and gophers. I went through the normal stages of rimfires for small game, shotguns for upland game, and eventually centerfires for big game. After college I left the States and moved to Europe for several years, followed by Japan then Australia, I was away for the better part of 20 years. It was while I was living in Europe in the early 80’s that I was introduced to adult airguns. I like to shoot and since you couldn’t own a firearm in those places I gravitated to airguns once I found out about them. I get to travel all over the world for my work, and have had the opportunity to hunt and shoot in many places. My wife is South African so I’ve been spending a good part of my summers down there for many years, where I always get in as much hunting as I can.
How long have you been hunting with Airguns?
I guess I really became serious about airgun hunting in the late 80’s. I was asked to run a couple projects in Asia and (what was then) Eastern Europe. I moved my wife and son back to the States to be near family, and I alternated between a month abroad and a month back in California. When I was back at home I had a whole month that I didn’t have to work. I hunted almost every day during that period, and often with airguns. That was a fun couple of years!
Why Airguns?
I do a lot of wingshooting and hunt a lot with firearms and bow, but airguns are my favorite. To airgun hunt the way I believe it should be done means getting in close (30-50 yards), which hones your skills as a hunter. I’ve always thought of it as a cross between archery and firearm hunting, as it uses skills from both. Another factor is that I have a busy life and airguns give me an opportunity to hunt closer to home. Because you can safely shoot them just about anywhere, it opens up property for me to hunt where a firearm, even a rimfire, is not going to work. Firearms generate too much noise, too much power; you’d be surprised how many places are opened up to hunt when you don’t have to worry about those two issues.
Do you have any favorite game you like to hunt with airguns?
There are so many species you can hunt in different parts of the country; but I’d have to say that tree squirrels in the Midwest and jackrabbits out West are my favorites. Both of these species require the same hunting skills I use when hunting big game. It’s funny, I get the same charge of adrenaline when shooting a squirrel I stalked, as when I’m lining up on a whitetail. But unlike deer where I might shoot three or four in a season, I can get many shots on a two hour squirrel hunt. Of all the small game animals I hunt with an airgun, guinea fowl in Africa are my favorite. These birds are big, they are fast and they are wary. I think they represent the ultimate airgunning challenge.
Tell us about your adventure to South Africa?
I have hunted in South Africa a lot, with firearms and airguns. I received special permits to hunt big game with bigbore air rifles, and have taken everything up to kudu and warthogs. We always choose standard caliber airguns to bring with us to hunt small game and for pest control at my friends farm, and it always turned out to be great fun. On this last hunt I decided to focus on the small game, and it was an excellent call! We had a great time and I think when readers look at my little Marauder Journal they’ll see why.
What led you to South Africa?
My wife is South African and we have family we like to visit there every year. But more importantly, I have two friends that are professional hunters named Rob Dell and Andrew Myers. Andrew stared hunting with airguns while living in the UK, and Rob is an outfitter (Hounslow Safaris). Rob’s family owns a large property in the Eastern Cape. These guys have become specialists in airgun hunting in South Africa.
You took the Benjamin Marauder with you. What did you think of the gun and its performance?
I wanted a gun that offered excellent performance (accuracy and power), that was multishot capable, and that was reliable. And even though noise was not a huge issue on the farm, I wanted a quiet gun as I also had the chance to hunt on friend’s vineyards back near Capetown where noise was an issue. I had four guns with me, a .22 caliber, two .177 caliber Marauders and a .177 Discovery. We shot thousands of pellets between the three of us, and the guns functioned perfectly.
Is it difficult to travel abroad with an airgun?
Of course depends on where you’re going, but in the case of South Africa it is easier to travel with airguns than with firearms. What made it much less complicated was shipping the airguns over in advance, which you cannot do with firearms. That step made the whole process (outside the 32 hour travel time) much easier.
What game did you hunt?
We hunted wild pigeons, guinea fowl, carrion crows, Egyptian geese, hyrax, mongoose, springhare, rabbits, and many pest birds. What was wild was not only the types of animals, but the sheer numbers of them. My friend’s property is about 10,000 acres with hundreds of thousands of acres of reserve and farmland around it. You should understand that in South Africa all properties are called farms; they are what we would call ranches. Even though only a portion of the land was used for livestock, areas where there was feed drew pest species from far and wide. I left two Marauders on the farm where they are used every day for pest control. It’s kind of cool, Rob lives in a place surrounded by all kinds of big game and he carries his Marauder in the back of his truck for pest control when he heads out. I tell you, I made big points leaving those airguns behind as gifts!
Was the trip successful and would you take the Marauder again?
I love the Marauder. Sure, there are a lot of good products out there but nothing comes close to the rich feature set, the performance, and the quality of this airrifle, anywhere near the price point. I’ve taken several small game guns out over the years and the Marauder would be high on my list to use again.
What is your next big adventure?
I’ve got several hunts lined up this year; I’ll be airgun hunting in Texas, California, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, California, and Colorado for all kinds of game. But I think the next long trip will be somewhere in South America. I’m looking for a place that offers
something unique …. But I don’t know what yet.
I would like to thank Jim for his time answering these questions for us. Look for the first chapter of his book here on Croswords starting next week and follow Jim’s continued adventures at his website, American Airgun Hunter
Thanks for reading everyone.
Joshua
In this report I’ll show you the accuracy and velocity I achieved with my test Marauder. Remember, I have a .177.
Crosman asked me what velocity I would like with which pellet before they sent the test rifle. So I was fortnate to have the rifle arrive set-up the way I wanted it. I asked for a gun that would shoot the 10.5-grain Crosman Premier at about 900 f.p.s.–give or take. Anywhere between 875 and 920 would have been okay with me.
When I competed in field target several years ago I shot a Daystate Harrier, using a 10.5-grain Premier at 915 f.p.s. And I did very well with that combination. Now, the .177 Marauder is advertised to get up to 1100 f.p.s. in .177 and 900 f.p.s. in .22, but if you are reading this blog you are probably savvy enough to know that speeds above 1,000 f.p.s. are not where the best accuracy lies. Field target competitors usually keep their guns shooting around 900 f.p.s., and of course all FT rifles are in .177 caliber.
I also asked for the test gun to be set up for a 3,000 psi fill level, but it turned out that the gauge at Crosman and my own fill gauge disagree by 500 psi. I proved that with my chronograph that showed when I filled it to 3,000 it took many shots for the velocity to climb into the useful range. But by stopping at 2,500 psi, the gun was on the power curve with the first shot.
I get 25 good shots from one fill. They range from a low of 912 f.p.s. to a high of 940 f.p.s. That’s a spread of 38 f.p.s. The average is 925 f.p.s. Of course all of this information is meaningless without accuracy data to confirm that it has value, so I went to the range straightaway.
I sighted the rifle in at 10 feet and once I knew where it was shooting (took two shots) I went straight out to 50 yards. Another five pellets got me zeroed. The first group after that measured 0.674″ for five 10.5-grain Premiers. The very next group was the best one shot thus far. It measures 0.443″ center-to-center, for five shots.
The first group after sighting-in at 50 yards (left) measures 0.674″. That’s five 10.5 Premiers! The group on the right was the very next group fired and measures 0.443″ It was the best of the series.
I continued shooting and the groups ket on coming. Nothing was as large as seven-tenths of an inch. This is very good accuracy for 50 yards. You can often get a few groups this good and maybe a little better, but there will be others the measure three-quarters of an inch. The Marauder just wants to shoot the tight ones!
I next tried other good pellets that in other rifles can sometimes be even better. Beeman Kodiaks are a wonderful .177 long-range pellet in many PCPs, but in my test Marauder they didn’t shoot nearly as well as heavy Premiers. The same for 10.3-grain JSB Exact domes. So Premier heavies are definitely the pellet of choice, so far.
After about a dozen more groups I ended the session. A few days later I was on a different range under wet and misty conditions. Once again the Marauder shined, giving 5-shot groups of less than seven-tenths of an inch.
This day was cold and wet. Once again the Marauder performed very well at 50 yards. The groups were all under seven-tenths of an inch, and averaged about the same as on the first day.
This group of five Premiers at 50 yards measures 0.526″.
The largest group shot during the second range session measures 0.662″. That’s pretty consistent shooting.
One interesting side note to the second range day was that all of my blued-steel firearms rusted while on the range. The Marauder no only didn’t rust, it didn’t even need to be wiped down after coming home. I just stood it in the corner until the next time!
In an interesting twist, Crosman sent me the parts to upgrade my test rifle to the production specification. I will be busy with my new television show for the next several weeks, but I will install and test those parts for you and report the results here. The rifles will go on sale before then, so others around the country will also chime in with their thoughts and opinions. But as of right now I believe Crosman has a big hit on their hands!
Without question, our most exciting announcement at this year’s Shot Show was our new PCP gun, the Benjamin Marauder. This gun generated a ton of excitement and just as many questions. There has been a great deal of information hitting the web during the past week and not all of it is correct, so I would like to take a moment and do a full report on the Marauder and its features within this report
The Marauder is not only a culmination of our own internal development, but more importantly a direct result from the feedback we received from you, our loyal shooters. Our engineers, in conjunction with product development did not want to just re-engineer the Discovery, but wanted to create a completely new platform for our PCP line up of guns and accessories.
The first thing you will notice about this gun, or rather you won’t notice is the lack of noise at the shot. The Marauder features an internally shrouded barrel that captures the sound and makes this gun significantly quieter than any gun we have released and makes it one of the quietest guns on the market today. In the coming months before its release I will get an audio or video file up so you can see what I mean. Additionally the barrel is choked, to give you more repeatable accuracy with every single shot.
Moving back from the barrel, the next feature you will notice is the multi-shot clip. This air rifle offers a self-indexing 10 shot clip, so each time the bolt is drawn back, the next round moves into place. This clip easily slides out to the side for a quick reload in the field.
The trigger pack has also been significantly upgraded to a fully adjustable,match grade trigger. This will allow each shooter to not only adjust the sensitivity level of the trigger pull, but be able to adjust the position of the trigger within the trigger pack.
The Marauder has been designed to operate at a starting fill pressure of 2000 PSI. However, this gun can be filled to a higher fill pressure of 3000 PSI for even more shots at a sustained velocity of 1100 fps with .177 caliber and 1000 fps at .22 caliber. The Marauder offers our Dual Fuel technology so it can be filled with CO2 for more shots at a lower velocity.
This is going to be an outstanding gun for both target shooting and hunting/pest control. Lastly, this gun comes equipped with a beautiful, ambidextrous hardwood stock, complete with custom checkering and a built in pressure gauge.
Our engineers really listened to the feedback we got from the Airgun community and worked hard to create what we feel is a very special gun. We will be releasing this gun on April 15th right here at Crosman.com for $529.00. There will be a very limited number of 100 rifles available in the first release. More information on the launch specifics will be posted as we get closer.
If you have any questions please ask away. I will be here with answers.
Thanks for reading.
Joshua
