17 replies to this topic

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Well, my daughter has been bugging me at least once a week to take her cottontail hunting with me. I know it wouldn't be a good idea to take her where I hunt for Jack Rabbits because there is too much land and too much for her to get hurt or get into trouble on, but I can take her to our relatives property and hunt with her there. She could use her modified 1322 carbine that I built for her, but it takes about 15 pumps to get it to shoot around 585FPS and of course, I get to do all the pumping. That leads us to the title of the post.

Anyway, to keep the story rolling, I was looking through the classifieds of a forum I visit and noticed that someone was selling a used Marauder Pistol. It came with the pistol and 1 magazine, no skeleton stock. They guy wanted $300. I couldn't justify spending that right now, but I did make him an offer of $250. He came back with $265 shipped and so I purchased it for her.

Here a picture from the posting:
 DsP-Rod.jpg   74.79K   1 downloads

Once it arrives I'll go through it to make sure everything is working properly, it's holding air as it should and so forth. I'll also put her modified skeleton stock on it and a 3-9x40AO CenterPoint scope on it that I have so that she'll be able to see her target better. She'll be so excited when I present it to her. She'll probably be the only 7 year old with her own PCP airgun in our area. I did make sure to tell her, while she was shooting her 1322 carbine, that I won't take her rabbit hunting until she shows me that she can be responsible while holding, operating and shooting the airgun and she must be able to hit the bullseye from 20 to 25 yards pretty consistantly. Once she can do that, I'll take her cottontail hunting on our relatives property.

Once I get it and set it all up, I'll take some photos of the completed gun and post some information on the FPS, FPE and accuracy of the gun. I can't wait to see the smile on her face!

[Brant]

Cool. I think the Marauder pistol is still my favorite PCP. I hope she enjoys it.

[Thumper Dunker]

[ShooterJohn]

Wow! You are a good dad! I take back everything thing I said about you Ray.

[ratassassin]

Neat. Is it .177? How fast does it shoot?

[Bisley]

That is great and I am sure she will have the time of her life out there with dad
And not trying to turn on the rain clouds during the parade, but you do know that even at 7, on private property, and with an air gun, she still needs a license right? Would hate to see her first experience be a horrible one. Lots of guys mistakingly think that hunting licenses are like fishing licenses and not needed for kids until 16. It is an easy mistake to make, espescially when we get so excited about taking them out with us.

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Neat. Is it .177? How fast does it shoot?

The Marauder Pistol is a .22 caliber air pistol that can be converted into a carbine using the Crosman skeleton stock (#1399). I have my own P-Rod already and it shoots 14.66 grain H&N Pellets at a low of 618FPS at the start and peaks at 642FPS around the 14th shot and then by the 24th shot it is back down to 613FPS. It is a pretty accurate little airgun too and will easily take down a rabbit out to 35 to 40 yards with a head shot. I've even bagged a cottontail with mine at 49 yards with a head shot and it went right down.

It can be tuned to shoot faster and I have read of P-Rod owners tuning them to shoot around 750FPS, but your shot count will suffer significantly. I think it cuts it from being a 24 shot count to around 13 to 16 shots per fill. That isn't bad, but if I want more power I'll use one of my more powerful airguns.

[Air Rifle Hunter]

That is great and I am sure she will have the time of her life out there with dad
And not trying to turn on the rain clouds during the parade, but you do know that even at 7, on private property, and with an air gun, she still needs a license right? Would hate to see her first experience be a horrible one. Lots of guys mistakingly think that hunting licenses are like fishing licenses and not needed for kids until 16. It is an easy mistake to make, espescially when we get so excited about taking them out with us.

Aww Man! My parade float was just washed away straight down Main Street by a flash flood and swept down the local river.

Well, I guess it will just have to be teaching skills, common sense and rules, as well as shooting targets for now until I can get her certified and licensed. She's not going to like hearing that at all.

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Wow! You are a good dad! I take back everything thing I said about you Ray.

In all honesty do try to be a good, if not "great" dad, bit I'll admit that I dont' always succeed and I'm sure I fall short of that constantly. I do really try hard though.

[ShooterJohn]

That's what counts, you make the effort. I see so many families where the kids have hardly any parental contact. Keep up the good work.

[Bisley]

Sorry partner, didn't mean to bring the rain clouds, just didn't want to see you fork out a several hundred dollars either. I only know because I went through it with the first nephew and going through it now with the second one. The youngest one (7) bugs his parents every day to "teach him to read read so he can take the course and get his hunting license".

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Sorry partner, didn't mean to bring the rain clouds, just didn't want to see you fork out a several hundred dollars either. I only know because I went through it with the first nephew and going through it now with the second one. The youngest one (7) bugs his parents every day to "teach him to read read so he can take the course and get his hunting license".

It's not all bad. Maybe if I tell my daughter that she has to be able to read well in order to take the course to get her license, maybe she'll start learning faster so that she can go hunting. I'll try that and see if it works. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. I know she really wants to go hunting so it might work.

[Air Rifle Hunter]

The Marauder Pistol arrived today and in great shape.

I cleaned it up real good and filled the reservior with air to see if it had any major leaks. It seemed to be holding air good so installed the shorted carbine stock from my daughter's previous airgun and a Leapers 4-16x40AO MD IR scope I had and I showed it to my daughter. She was jumping up and down and clapping her hands, giddy with delight (she stayed home from summer camp today). She said "Wow! That is just like your's right?". I said "It sure is. Do you like it?" and she replied "It's awesome!" I'm glad she is so happy about it. I love it when she's that happy.

I'm going to be watching the relatives house again this weekend, but the family won't be going with me because the daughter has other parties to go to this weekend so I'm going to zero her new carbine in using H&N FTT 14.66 grain, 5.53 diamter pellets and see how it does accuracy wise. I did shoot it over the chronograph to find the sweet spot and to get it's velocities for zeroing at optimal yardages. With a starting fill of 2400PSI it starts at 622FPS for the first shot and peaks around the 17th shot at 651FPS and by the 24th shot it is back to 622FPS with an ending fill pressure of 1600PSI. It uses 800 PSI for 24 shots just like my P-Rod does, but it also shoots faster. That is a good thing since it will be used for ground squirrels and rabbits in the future.

I also ordered two extra magazines/clips for it and a soft case so that we'll have a shorter soft case for taking it places and I can use the case for my P-Rod when my daughter isn't taking her P-Rod cabine with us. I'll take some photos of the completed carbine and maybe some target groups after this weekend. I'm really hoping it is a consistant and accurate shooter.

[Bisley]

Daddy's little girl sounds like a very lucky young lady to not only have that gun, but the great dad that goes along with it

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Well after getting to shoot the new P-Rod a little over the chrony with the mounted Leapers 4-16x40AO MD IR scope, I easily sighted in the scope.

After getting the new scope sighted in, I practiced with it a little. Then I set up a table and got the P-Rod as steady as I could and took eight shots at 30 yards to see what kind of group I could get. You'll see in the photos below that the group wasn't too bad. One shot went low because of my error (let loose of the grip when I pulled the trigger) but all of the others hit for a decent group at 30 yards with a P-Rod. I think it was right around 3/4" center to center for seven of the eight shots. This was using the H&N FTT 14.66 grain, 5.53 diameter pellets.

Photo of target:


Close up:


I think it is going to be a great airgun for her once she gets to practice with it and understands the mildot system. Here are some photos of the completed P-Rod.









Next time we head out to the relatives house I'm going to start her on PCP airgun training and hopefully she'll get the hang of it.

[screwwork]

ARH,

That is a nice looking & shooting Marauder Pistol for your daughter.
Good for you and have a great time with her.

All of the boys are going to want to shoot her gun because it is not your standard little BB gun..

[Air Rifle Hunter]

Daddy's little girl sounds like a very lucky young lady to not only have that gun, but the great dad that goes along with it

Thanks Bisley. I think she is going to have allot of fun shooting this one compared to the one I built her. This P-Rod is easier to cock and even though it is a little heavier with the scope, she'll be using shooting sticks that I made for her and she'll be able to steady her shots. The trigger is also lighter, which can be a good and bad thing. I can adjust it to have a heavier trigger pull if I find that she is prematurely firing a shot. She does know to keep her finger off the trigger until she is ready to fire, but even I forget how light the P-Rod triggers are compared to my M-Rod triggers.

ARH,

That is a nice looking & shooting Marauder Pistol for your daughter.
Good for you and have a great time with her.

All of the boys are going to want to shoot her gun because it is not your standard little BB gun..

Yeah, I'm sure all the boys will ask where she got it and want to shoot it. It will be funny to see how she is at sharing it when that time comes.

[Stan]

Nice setup
It might be just the thing as my kids get bigger