Hi Folks,
I have Marauder Gen1. I'm thinking of getting another PCP. My main use is squirrels (I eat 'em), other small game, target plinking, general fun. There seems to be a lot of Benjamin PCP's under a grand (my price point). Is there really any significant difference among them, other than the stock configurations and so forth?
TIA.
JN
In my opinion it's hard to beat a Gen 1 .22 Marauder with a good barrel. As to the different new models, the "craftsman" guns are made in Turkey by Kral. They're heavy, usually have good barrels and nice Walnut stocks, OK triggers and are warrantied by Crosman for 5 years. I have no experience with the semi-auto Marauders. I could see myself falling for a Marauder with a sidelever breech.
I have a Gen 11 .25 with a Green Mountain barrel...very accurate.
Thanks for the responses. Two things I did not know - that Benjamin was having guns made in Turkey (I thought Benjamin guns were made in the US), and that you can get aftermarket barrels for the Marauder. I looked on the Green Barrell website just now and didn't see any listing for airguns. ?
I did not know - that Benjamin was having guns made in Turkey
The Turkish Lira is circling the drain, tons of stuff being made in Turkiye now. For years really, but the downfall of the Lira has increased the importance of foreign currency (the US Dollar) and the arms export machine is running full tilt. Their NATO membership insures them against the winds, and we should expect production to continue increasing, as US companies jump on their production curve.
This year there have been $109 12ga pumps, and $230 CZ75 clones. Dumping, into a saturated market, and it's only getting worse (for them!)
I say buy. Buy it all! Worst case, it's still better than Chinese production. (market term "reshoring production")
That's a 20 MILLION Lira note circulated before the 2005 re-valuation when they dropped six zeros. I tried to figure out how to explain this simply, to non-currency-minded individuals. You see the 20%-40% price increases lately? That was annual inflation in Turkey, 38%, EVERY YEAR since the '70s! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revaluation_of_the_Turkish_lira#History
Roy at MountainAir has aftermarket barrels if that's the way you want to go- http://mountainaircustomairguns.com/
Are you unhappy with your rig as it is? Sadly the Marauder forum has fizzled out-used to be a ton of info there on mods and troubleshooting. You might also check out Tim Hill's Ebay store-he has a lot of tuning kits and parts if you get into to modding.
Funny you should mention Roy, he just finished going through my Marauder. It had sat for years unused, while Life Happened. Life seems to have slowed a bit, so hoping to get back to shooting it. Thanks for the notes, I will check out Tim Hill.
