Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Benjamin Maurader PCP ???

i have been looking at the Benjamin Maurader it looks like a very sweet gun. what are the options for charging it with air & about how much do the different option cost.
Thanks

Bascially a Hand pump, electric pump or a scuba tank.

The Hand pump is cheap. About $175 to $300. The factory Benjamin pumps work fine IF you do NOT abuse them. You also need to be decent in shape to use any hand pump but it's good exercise. The Benjamin pump comes complete. No additional fill nozzles ,yokes etc to buy. Just take it out of the box and Ari up your rifle.

I have only used a Benjamin hand pump for both my Discovery and Marauder rifles for the last 3 years.

For the physically lazy or folks that shoot a whole bunch, an electric high pressure pump runs $1,000 to $3,000.

A Scuba tank and filling yoke setup runs about $500. You also must have access to a dive shop for refills.

Yes, you can try to buy used Scuba gear on the cheap off Ebay etc.

The problem is ALL scuba tanks must have regular hydro inspections and have a finite service life. That is for a reason.

Basically A scuba tank filled to 4,500PSI of air is a PIPE BOMB. They are very very dangerous (as in explosion) if not in perfect condition.

I use a hand pump because -
A It's inexpensive.
b) It's good exercise
c) It's SAFE ever here of an explosion with a high pressure air pump?

There is also a fourth option and that is to run tanks filled with pure Nitrogen,which is comprises most of the Atmosphere we breath and is avaiable in large tanks from Welding supply shops.Pure Nitrogen is more thermally stable than breathing air. It is the best propellent for PCP guns when absolute accuracy is required. Most Olympic grade match Air rifle shooters use it.

The fill tanks operate at even higher pressures than Scuba tanks so special fill yokes and gauges re required.

Jim62,

I realize that a Maurader .177 will propel a pellet near 900 fps but can you just fill the tank enough for 500 fps? Is there any downside to doing this, such as lack of accuracy or much fewer shots? I have reason to want less velocity rather than more.

A precharged pneumatic's shot count and velocities are a result of interrelationship between the Fill pressure, valve /transfer port adjustments and the weight of the pellet. You just cannot lower the velocity by filling it to a lower pressure alone.

If fill the reservoir to top pressure(3,000PSI) and don't crack the valve open enough , you lock up the valve. The adjustments must be balanced to the fill pressure. The Marauder has a fairly wide adjustment range but there are limits to how low you can adjust the hammer spring, valve stroke and transfer port.

The good news is that using less air to get lower velocities usually gives you more shots. And yes sometimes accuracy can suffer at lower velocities. Many times heavier pellets do require enough speed to stabilize them.

By trimming the airflow on the valve /transfer port and filling to about 2,600PS you can tune the gun down to about 700 FPS and get great accuracy in a .177.

That is about 12 FT lbs with a heavy 10g pellet and the gun can be tuned to get about 60 good shots . It is how Feild Target shooters set up Marauders for 12 ft pound International class Matches.

You can also nail game pretty well out to 50 yards plus with it at 12 FT lbs if you can shoot well.