On the internet, no air rifle gets trashed as often as the .22 Marauder. We have heard all the comments. “Shoots like a shotgun”, a statement that is truly meaningless. “It’s not up to my standards,” well, excuse me, your lordship. Lastly, “Don’t expect me to buy one,” this guy usually has a flock of $1500 to $2500 air rifles. Does he consider it “slumming” to shoot a $500 Marauder? The heart of an Armada is a Marauder. In this small sample, the Armada shot the tightest group.
Deal with it.
I shot three air rifle at 25 yards. The rifles were a .25 second generation Marauder, a .25 Daystate Air Ranger, and a .22 Benjamin Armada. I had chosen each one for a specific match and range in a club tournament, but here they were going to be shot at 25 yards to test their performance with different pellets. I chose 25 yards to reduce the impact of wind on the group.
Groups were recorded on the green United States Bench Rest target. These targets are meant to receive one shot in each bull, but here they would serve as aiming points for five shot groups.
I had 4 tins of pellets. .25 JSB Kings, .25 Benjamin Domes, .22 Crosman Premier hollow points, and .22 BSA Wolverines (these were marked “made in Czech Republic”). In the following table, Crosman Corporation pellets are marked with a * and the others are marked with a #.
Groups size is expressed in inches center to center. The USBR target has 5 rows of 5 bulls and the table is in the order that the bulls appear on the target.
Rifle
|
average *
|
average #
| |||||
.25 Marauder
|
DNF
|
0.4 *
|
0.7 *
|
0.4 #
|
0.65 #
|
0.55
|
0.60
|
.25 Daystate
|
0.75 *
|
0.6 *
|
0.55 #
|
0.45 #
|
DNF
|
0.68
|
0.59
|
.22 Armada
|
0.73 *
|
0.68 *
|
0..23 #
|
0.38 #
|
0.53 #
|
0.71
|
0.38
|
Without going into a lot of numbers, the overall average of all groups in 0.56”. There are too few data points for statistical analysis. If you want to compare numbers, a pellet’s width is a significant number.
The third Armada group in the table stands out. It certainly stood out when I shot it. I had thought, based on some 50 yard shooting, that the Armada shot these two pellets about the same, but it looks like the Wolverines have a definite edge. I hope that they are the same as the 16gr JSB.
More to come.
After the above target I fired another on 5/19/15. I shot the same pellets at all five bulls in each row. The range was the same 25 yards and all groups are center to center are in inches. I had thought that the JSB 15.9s would do better, and I was pleased that my old favorite Barracudas did the best.
.22 Armada
|
5/18/201
|
25 Yards
|
Average
| |||
JSB 18.1
|
0.63
|
0.88
|
0.38
|
0.43
|
0.48
|
0.56
|
JSB 15.9
|
0.73
|
0.68
|
1
|
0.63
|
1.03
|
0.81
|
Trophy
|
0.58
|
0.83
|
1.08
|
1.23
|
1.28
|
1.00
|
FT Trophy
|
0.38
|
1.03
|
0.43
|
0.48
|
0.28
|
0.52
|
Baracuda Match
|
0.33
|
0.58
|
0.23
|
0.83
|
0.43
|
0.48
|
Overall average
|
0.67
|
I can say that when the planets are aligned, this Armada in a sub 2 MOA rifle at 25 yards. Also that tight group in the first target was not a fluke.
Fifty yards and tuning the power up form 21 fpe to 30 will be the final test.
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