Finally arrived. The P-ROD.

[BeeGee11]

After two long days of waiting, it finally came in. It was like it was in the slow boat over and I didn't think that it would ever show up.

Meet, my new personal favorite, my Benjamin Marauder .22.

After getting the red dot sighted in, at 20 yards I can (not always, but with a little bit of patience and a steady hand) hit quarter sized groups of 8, which is the magazine capacity. She's shooting great on the cheapo Crosman Premiere hollow points. At $7/500ct, you can't beat it.



I'm loving the red dot sight. It's so ridiculously fast to zero in on the target. So far it's a perfect pairing with the marauder. It keeps everything nice and light and nimble.

Trigger pull is light and smooth. Fit and finish of the gun itself are on point from what I can tell.

My only gripes so far are these two: 1) the stock carbine stock has a little bit of wobble to it. I don't notice it at all when shooting but when holding the gun it bugs me. The stock plastics feel a little cheesy. 2) the pellets don't load as smooth as I'd like from the magazine. It feels like it isn't perfectly aligned with the barrel. From the 80 or so pellets that I just shot, I don't think it affects accuracy any....At least not enough for my uses at <30 yards.

 

[BeeGee11]

Refilling via hand pump isn't bad at all. It took a bit for the first fill, but topping off is no problem. Every 8 shots (a full magazine) uses about 500psi. So two mags worth drops it to 2k psi and I was refilling every two mags. 25 quick pumps gets it topped off and ready to rock again.

I'm using the cheap $35 hand pump from Amazon. So far so good.

 

[biohazardman]

Easiest way to stop the stock from wobbling is to shim it. I used plastic cut form clamshell wrap. It comes in different thicknesses. Quick and easy and lasts forever so long as you don't loose it when you take the gun apart.

 

[Raden1942]

Biohazard gave me the same advice. It worked pretty good. I also put some epoxy filler into the grip and then sanded it down until it had absolutely no wobble. Took a long time but now it feels like a rock solid stock. The clam shells definitely get the wobble out of the screw area tho. 

 

[BeeGee11]

Good idea. The handle design should have incorporated 4 screws instead of two.

This summer I'm going to make time to make a nice stock out of wood. I really like the designs of some of the custom laminates 

 

[BeeGee11]

What psi are you guys running your guns down to before refilling?

 

[BeeGee11]

Biohazard gave me the same advice. It worked pretty good. I also put some epoxy filler into the grip and then sanded it down until it had absolutely no wobble. Took a long time but now it feels like a rock solid stock. The clam shells definitely get the wobble out of the screw area tho.

I thought about glassing right over the stock plastic with some medium weight cloth, but man I really like the look of those laminates.

 

[esingle]

Hello Another stock option is the one Mike at TKO22 has, it screws into the back of the receiver, it gives you the perfect cheek height for a red dot or scope( no chin rest like factory stock) . It also makes it a nice backpack gun (just unscrew it ) and you can put on a variety of different pistol grips if you choose. Well just another option, hope this helps Eric

 

[Vetmx]

Here are what my settings were when I first bought a Prod. I think I filled to 2,800 and shot 3 mags then refilled. This was a very accurate tune for the 14.3’s. On the spring I backed it all the way out and went 6 turns CW. On the hammer throw from full CCW, I went 1 turn CW.

 

[Calbarry]

Put size 006 O rings on the alignment pins, tighten it down and the wobble is gone. Also, fry the H&N FTT in 5.53. Extremely accurate out of my P-rod

 

[Kowalski]

Ditto on the H&N FTT 5.53mm, best pellets out of my p-rod

 

[RAMJET66]

Put size 006 O rings on the alignment pins, tighten it down and the wobble is gone. Also, fry the H&N FTT in 5.53. Extremely accurate out of my P-rod

yes , i have used this method on all of my P-rods (except 1 that has a metal tube stock when i purchased it )& 2240's

 

[BeeGee11]

I first tried the o rings and that helped but didn't eliminate the wobble. Then I added one shim and then another. Wobble is gone and the stock is solid! Good ideas here guys, thanks.

 

[BeeGee11]

If anyone is interested, the internal threads on the marauder's barrel shroud are 11/16 - 24.

 

[BeeGee11]

I'm still really surprised at the accuracy of this guy right out of the box, man what a fun gun to shoot. I've been watching some videos about various settings and I was playing around with it tonight. It looks like most guys are taking it down to closer to 14/1500 psi before refilling.

On the spring I went with 6 turns and on the hammer throw 1 turn, if it's not raining tomorrow I'll give it a shot () and play around a little.

Check out these graphs, these are not mine, they are from a pretty helpful YT video:

 

[Hawkeye51]

BeeGee11

I remember that I did a little light reaming (sanding & smoothing) of the sharp edges of each hole on my mags. Especially the inside edge of the bottom plate (looking down). You have to take the mag apart to get to this, but it's easy. I also think it helps to have a quick positive stroke loading the pellet. I was pushing too slow at first, and this works against you. 

 

[Vetmx]

See, a YT video confirmed I wasn’t misleading you. It’s a good tune and nice for hand pumping.

 

[JimNM]

Is that from a stock P-rod air reservoir? There is no way I could even get close to 60 shots from mine from one fill.

 

[Vetmx]

I never tried for the 60. My accuracy started to diminish after the 3rd mag so that’s when I refilled. Not saying that a pellet still wouldn’t come out of the barrel at shot #60. I was only concerned about accuracy and consistency.

 

[BeeGee11]

Everything looked to be stock. Good video overall but skip to 6:20 for the graphs.This is the video that I pulled that screenshot from:

https://youtu.be/IjtnIAiVxKc