Wicked Airrifels Barrel Band

A new Marauder owner wrote to me, “Ron, I just got a gen1 .25 mrod and was wondering what settings to try for benchrest? Will probably be using JSB pellets.   Thanks

 Wicked Airriles barrel band 

I wrote back, “As far as shooting benchrest, The best thing I have done is install a barrel band form Wicked Airrifles.  This is the barrel band with three set screws that bear on the barrel shroud, and hold it steady. That really helped. Before, my rifle shot flyers at 10 and 4 oclock. After the barrel band the groups became more round. That helps me not only from lost points, but to spot hits that are the result in the change in the wind. It did reduce the group size slightly but the elimination of flyers in my gun was a big improvement for benchrest shooting”.

40 shots  at 75 yards

In the photo above the chickens are 1/2 size and the turkeys are 1/5. All shots with gen one Marauder with barrel band and HDD, They were shot left to right then left to right for the next clip. Each target's group were shot 8 shots apart. The rifle was refiled to 2.5 K after the second clip.

I went on to write about settings, “I have an HDD in my gen 1, so my settings are different from most of what you find on the forums. They are something like 7 CW on the hammer spring, 5 CW on the hammer throw and 4.5 out on the velocity screw. The HDD radically altered the way my Marauder handles air flow. Bottom line is I get 30 shots from a 2.5 K fill at 38 FPE. Above 2.5 I get valve lock and a lot of low shots. It is as though I over filled a stock Marauder to 3.5 K, which I did at Extreme Benchrest last year, and my first sighter was 8 or 9 inches low. I had to shoot it down to zero before firing my first record shot”.