Not that the Marauders with defective or faulty. It seems like most of the dissenting voices have been a very few vocal minority. Yes, I had issues with my July Marauder, and in the end it was beyond my limited skill and Crosman felt it had enough issues to warrant a replacement. I do not think that means that the Marauder is a hit-or-miss PCP. I think it means that it is a new product, and while there may be some issues with the initial manufacturing runs, Crosman has shown a willingness to correct any problems.

So back to my new Marauder – 009xxx248. I shot several clips with mixed results. It took me a few shots to get my Hawke 4-12×40 Air Max on a solid zero (at ~60 feet / 20 yards). As always the Crosman Premier pellets (14.3 gr.) shot extremely well and accurate. I loaded a clip of Beeman Crow-Magnum pellets s (18.20 gr.), and I was very pleased to see that these were extremely accurate without any spraying. My July Marauder would not shot these at all; in fact my new Marauder is my first airgun of any caliber to actually shoot these puppies accurately!

I tried a clip of Beeman Silver Ace pellets (15.74 gr), but these were all over the place; not at all consistent. Same story for a clip of RWS Superdome pellets (14.5 gr.), which surprised me because these seem to be a nice general all purpose pellet. Perhaps worst of all were the Napier Power Hunter pellets (15.6 gr.), not only were the first three shots inconsistent (think shotgun spray), but these pellets caused a clip jam, which was a bear to fix. I should have released that there were problems looming because the pellets were tight loading into the clip. These things are not going anywhere near my Marauder.

I do not have a Chrony, so I cannot report on all the facts and figures. I can just report what shoots well, and what does not (or is not accurate).

Today I will shoot another clip of Crow-Magnum pellets, just to make sure they were not a fluke. I am also going to give some RWS Meisterkugeln pellets (14.0 gr.) and RWS Superpoint Extra pellets (14.5 gr.) a go. While I do not generally like pointed pellets, the Superpoint Extra pellets work great in my .22 Beeman R1, so I have plenty on hand.

If I have time, I would also like to sort out some of the following pellets: Beeman FTS Double Gold (14.72 gr.), Beeman Kodiak Double Gold (21.12 gr.), and JSB Diabolo Exact (15.9 gr.).

Hopefully some of these others will work really well, giving me several different pellet options. If the results continue to hold for the Crow-Magnum pellets, it will indeed be a happy day. Not only will the October issue Marauder shoot a variety of pellets well, it will also give me multiple options for plinking, paper punching, and pest control. Good stuff indeed!

Happy shooting!

This was a super quick resolution by the fine folks at Crosman. I sent my July Marauder (709xxx357) to Crosman on Oct 6 via UPS, it arrived Oct 9, and by Oct 21 I received my replacement, SN 009xxx248.

I have not had time to try the Marauder yet; I did notice that it arrived with 0 psi on the gauge. The first order of business will be to pump it up and see if it holds a charge. I hope to have time to shoot some over the weekend.

Hats off again to Crosman for their fine customer service. I am a very satisfied customer.

Hope this arrives a few days after my new Marauder. I love the repeater magazines; in fact I have four. I like the idea of the Single Shot Tray for quick pellet sampling. I will of course provide a report in the coming days.

Crosman is shipping me a brand new replacement; should be here next week. Hats off to Crosman for being such a standup company and making things right for me.

So now the real waiting begins. Will be interesting to see how quickly my Marauder is repaired or a replacement is sent.

Stay tuned.

In a perfect world I guess you could make a case that a brand new $500 airgun should not have any issues, but considering that I have been able to enjoy the Marauder, learn about basic PCP maintenance, and Crosman offered me free shipping, I cannot complain too much. Hopefully the repaired Marauder or a replacement with be back in my stable fairly soon.

I know these results are not by any stretch great (probably average at best), but for my purposes I think they are pretty darn good. First, I was shooting in the 2200-1900 psi range, so I am not coming close to maximizing the potential of the gun. Second, I was shooting at about 65 feet from a sitting position. In other words I bet the results would have been better off a bench. The top view is a picture of ten shots. If you take the time to count the holes, you will notice that I landed five shots in the center hole around the crosshair. Not too shabby!

In the early days of the Marauder I was getting a load failure about 1 out of 20 shots. This eased to 1 out of 30, and now I cannot think of the last time this happened. The problem occurred when the bolt got stuck and did not load the pellet properly, or maybe even loaded two pellets! I am not sure if this was a breaking in period, or maybe just user error since this is my first repeater.

All in all, except for the problem with the leak, I am pretty pleased with the Marauder. It is a real treat to shoot in the backyard.

It looks like any time I pump the gun over 2000 psi, the pressure slowly (or not so slowly depending on how these things are suppose to work) dwindles down to 1800-1900 psi. This is a very consistent pattern. I have pumped the crap out of the Hill hand pump the last 18 hours just to verify the problem.

Instead of sending the gun straight away to Crosman for repairs, I decided to take things into my own hands to see if I could actually get thing leak beat. First, I tried to tighten the nipple fill area, and while it could be tighten a little, that did not help things. Next I separated the action from the stock, and then got really brave and barrel band. I decided to degas the gun and remove the gauge (really just removed the gauge assemble). Everything looked in order; o-ring was there, so not sure what else needed to be inspected.

I then started pumping from 0. 25 pumps followed by a brief period of rest. It took 250 pumps to go from 0 psi to 2300-2400 psi. Good grief was that a lot of work!

• 001-025
• 026-050 (50 bar; 700 psi)
• 051-075 (just under 1K psi)
• 076-100 (just under 100 bar)
• 101-125
• 126-150 (~140 bar; just under 2K psi)
• 151-175
• 176-200
• 201-225 (185 bar; 2400 psi)
• 226-250 (180 bar; 2300 psi)

Notice that at the very end the psi started going down; leak city, which is more than enough to make me no I am not crazy – the gun does lose pressure rapidly. I left everything alone to take my middle boy to soccer, and then the family to lunch. So after about 3 hours of rest, the Marauder gauge now shows just a tad under 2K.

I am not sure where to go from here. I was hopeful that the degassing (it was very loud) would blow out debris that may be causing a problem, but it looks like that did not fix my issue. I do not think the fill nipple is causing the problem, so maybe that means I need to mess around a little more with the gauge and gauge adaptor.

I am too damn sore (seriously) to do any more pumping today; that Hill pump will put some hair on your chest! I hate degassing again just to play around with the gauge, but short of that I am not sure what else I can do other than sending this to Crosman and letting them sort out the problem.

If you’re reading this review and you’re like me, you’ve already read every other review you could find on the internet, so let me attempt to describe just how quiet it really is. The “ping” of the hammer and spring releasing the valve is LOUDER than the discharge. Or to put it another way, you’ll be able to HEAR the vibration in the hammer spring as it makes a cute “ting” sound. I accidentally blank-fired a BSA Sportsman HV .22 in a sporting goods store in Phoenix, AZ the other day and the report’s echo slapping off a nearby wall made my ears ring. The BSA wasn’t fully charged. Popping off the Marauder the same way, at 2500 PSI, in the much closer confines of my garage won’t make enough noise to frighten my 4 year old daughter! The blast of air will effectively eliminate a black widow spider! Yes, you WILL wonder if the rifle isn’t working right… until you shoot through your pellet trap, as I did! Mind you, I’m using this just as it came from the box, with the recommended valve, spring tension, and hammer-length adjustments. I’m not firing it remotely close to its maximum velocity! My pellet trap is (was) rated for .22 rimfire rifles. I’m going to need a sheet of battleship armor plating very soon. That’s no exaggeration. If you’ve got a pigeon or squirrel problem, you’ll be dropping them so fast, and so quietly, the live ones will be walking around wondering what happened to their buddies.

I like the description on the “ting” sound, and the rest seems to be pretty spot on. I am still shooting my Marauder at around 1500-2000 psi, but hopefully I will be able to go higher once my replacement screws for the Hill pump mount arrive from Straight Shooters.

I look forward to the author following up with a full review and/or subsequent reports.

Too bad for me that I am going on vacation and will probably not get to some serious shooting for another couple of weeks, but I have to give SS kudos for getting me the replacement screws so quickly.