the crossman marauder is a damn lazer beam

[sellersm]

Crosman/Benjamin makes a Marauder model, the "Dual fuel" that takes both CO2 and air. Every company makes adapters to fit scuba (K-valves) tanks and/or SCBA air tanks. Most companies also make adapters so you can run them off of CO2 tanks (at lower velocities), at least I know that AirForce does.

The beauty of PCP air rifles are the high pressure/velocity that they can shoot at, but the downside is keeping them filled!

I've got an AirForce Condor PCP in .22 and I'm looking for a scuba tank for it. Yes, the pump will give you a good upper-body workout!

[SAnd]

My Marauder can use CO2 or air.

Some paintball guns run off of air or CO2. You can get the tanks filled at paintball shops inexpensively.

[SideShow Bob]

These cool, and I would like to have one, but at $360 - $510 each, no thanks.

[Jer]

I'm returning a Crosman Nitro Venom Dusk NP tomorrow because I can't get that turd to group to save my life. I wasn't expecting much for my $150 with scope and I wasn't let down. I'm reading some good things about some Chinese knock-offs that are then hand inspected and selected and customized by some well-known dude here in the states. From the web searching I'm doing it sounds like those in the air rifle community talk pretty highly of these. They were like $160 or so at one point but it looks like they're just shy of $200 now. Just deciding if that's worth it to me. I just have a bit of a rabbit & pigeon problem and live in an neighborhood near the edge of town so I can't just bust out the other rifles I own unfortunately.

[gnihcraes]

I'm returning a Crosman Nitro Venom Dusk NP tomorrow because I can't get that turd to group to save my life. I wasn't expecting much for my $150 with scope and I wasn't let down. I'm reading some good things about some Chinese knock-offs that are then hand inspected and selected and customized by some well-known dude here in the states. From the web searching I'm doing it sounds like those in the air rifle community talk pretty highly of these. They were like $160 or so at one point but it looks like they're just shy of $200 now. Just deciding if that's worth it to me. I just have a bit of a rabbit & pigeon problem and live in an neighborhood near the edge of town so I can't just bust out the other rifles I own unfortunately.

Careful with some of the Chinese guns, someone gave me one that looked ok, but after about 500 shots, it was pretty much junk. Pins and Screws falling out, worn pins etc.

[Jer]

Careful with some of the Chinese guns, someone gave me one that looked ok, but after about 500 shots, it was pretty much junk. Pins and Screws falling out, worn pins etc.

I realize that but I wasn't talking about buying one and just risking it. The version I was talking about is hand selected by an outfit that goes through them and then they break them down and customize them and rebuild them. The odds of having one fall apart as you've described must decrease exponentially if there's a reputable outfit that goes through them and optimizes them before shipping them out. I get what you're saying but this isn't going to be something I need to trust my life to.

[sellersm]

Care to mention the vendor that offers this hand-selection service?

[Jer]

Care to mention the vendor that offers this hand-selection service?

Hold on, let me see if I can find the information again...

Found it! Here's the quote from a forum I found and it echoes some of the other things I was reading about these types of rifles:

"Get a BAM B26 from Mike Melick at Flying Dragon Airguns. Mike buys the Chinese guns by the case, goes through them, and discards the crappy ones. He will clean and lap the bore, polish the trigger sear, and lubricate the air rifle and ship it to you, ready to shoot for a base price of $140. There is no better bargain in a basic air rifle. The B-26 is a Chinese clone of the Beeman R9 and has an excellent trigger. A MM B-26 in .22 will shoot 14.3 gr pellets at about 625-650, and .177 8.3 grain pellets at about 825-850 FPS. Either will be entirely sufficient for small game like birds, squirrels or even rabbits. I ordered another fully tuned MM-B26 last week (I have three). With tune, trigger work, a new Maccari spring and seal, the front sight removed and a custom muzzle brake installed, the rifle was $240, shipped to my door. Add a BSA 2-7X 32 mm AO or 3-9X44mm AO scope and mounts, and for just over $300, you will have a tuned ChiClone that will hang with any Di 34 Panther or Beeman R9 Goldfinger. I know -- I have both of these, custom tuned. These are excellent knock around hunters. The will be quieter than a Whisper. They shoot smoothly. They have a solid hardwood stock instead of a hollow plastic synthetic stock (which with the springers, adds to the noise significantly), and they are heavy enough (around 7 pounds scoped, as I recall) to absorb some of the recoil and not destroy scopes in short order (another drawback of the Whisper and light, synthetic stock springers."

I was going to order one but I couldn't seem to find this $140 mystery rifle anywhere. This post was a few years ago so maybe things have changed since then.

[sellersm]

Try here for Flying Dragon and Mike Melick...

[Jer]

Try here for Flying Dragon and Mike Melick...

Yeah, I found that website but it was a bit confusing to an air gun novice like myself and I didn't find what the person was talking about in that quote I copied above.