Benjamin Marauder .25: Review

Introduction

I have shot and hunted with many air rifles in the .25 caliber, taking down small to medium-sized game effortlessly. But the one that stays with me is the Benjamin Marauder PCP, a superb, lightning-fast and accurate air rifle.

An air rifle, you say? Is that a serious hunting gun? Let me tell you all about it.

Not only will you bring home anything from guinea fowls or rabbits, but the .25 Benjamin Marauder air rifle can handle groundhogs and even nuisance coyotes. This is the most popular gun in the PCP niche, with a Hard Air Magazine performance rating of more than 89%. 

The Rise of the Benjamin Marauder Air Rifle

When I shoot with a PCP or Pre Charged Pneumatic rifle, I am seeking accuracy and performance. I am also careful about affordability and ultimate costs-to-use. 

These are factors that have led many like me to prefer PCP over centerfire to hunt. Many hunters save up a pretty penny to buy a rifle and then shell more dough for the rounds and a proper scope.

The minute you take your gun to the range, it’s expensive to shoot commercial rounds, and your wallet becomes lighter. So you lock up your firearm in its gun case, taking it out only when you’re going hunting. 

When are you ever going to have fun shooting except for the limited shots you fire off during a hunt? You can have a powder-burning firearm with the flexibility of price that allows you to shoot in more than one place.

Pre-Charged Pneumatic rifles cost half what you spend on a regular centerfire. The only other cost is pellets; since air is free. 

You can put game meat on the dinner table without the cracking of sounds of cartridge rifles, not to mention the powder smoke. My Marauder has an in-built pressure gauge, which tells me when it needs recharging. 

Its match-grade trigger can be adjusted twice, and this PCP has the capacity for self-tuning. I can tune my Marauder’s muzzle velocity, ideal fill pressure, trigger settings, and shot count depending on my shooting.  

A Brief History of the Benjamin Marauder PCP Air Rifle

Some years ago, the biggest name in the air rifle niche was Crosman, with Benjamin in a distant second place. So Benjamin was bought out by Crosman, but the name was maintained for the already popular air gun line. 

One of these is the Benjamin Marauder PCP air rifle, offering reliability and serious power. 

The Marauder PCP is an all-weather .25 caliber air rifle that also comes in .22 and .177 specifications. A pistol grip version with a shortened barrel completes these rugged synthetic or wood stock air guns.

This 7.12-pound air rifle has a barrel affixed with a choke, firing pellets at high muzzle velocities. Accuracy is the middle name of Benjamin Marauder, and the .25 has a mag capacity of 8 pellets. 

With its auto-indexing feature, I can fire lead pellets at over 900 ft. per second on the Marauder. The air rifle’s design accommodates both CO₂ and compressed air. I can connect and disconnect the stock to allow faster re-pumps of pressure, reading levels from an inbuilt pressure gauge. 

An 8-shot repeater in the .25 caliber, the Benjamin Marauder PCP Air Rifle, is packaged to unleash 3,000 PSI of compressed air. 

How Did the Benjamin Marauder Air Rifle Become the Number One PCP?  

Previously the .25 caliber featured underperforming and underpowered rifles, used sorely for near range plinking. The largest of the standard commercially available hunting calibers, the .25 rifles have been around since the early 20^th century. 

What attracted me to Benjamin Marauder is the ability to personalize it to my weapon. This is not a common feature in the PCP sector. 

I recharge my Marauder using an air tank, or you can use a high-pressure hand pump. With a hand pump, I can shoot 16 pellets with just 800 PSI, bringing the gauge down to 2,200. 

You can bring it back to 3,000 PSI with around 75 pumps. I fire dome pellets at 854 feet per second, a velocity that efficiently dispatches backyard vermin to meet their maker.

The Crosman Effect on the Already Competitive Benjamin Marauder PCP

You make a product better by listening to the customer. Crosman has done just that with the Benjamin Marauder .25 air rifle to produce the best hunting gun. 

By complying with consumer reviews, the Benjamin Marauder now has an added synthetic all-weather stock. It’s also been given a vertically adjustable comb while retaining the powerful shots that won’t scare off the prey. 

Stand out features of this versatile bolt-action PCP rifle include having an eight .25 round magazine capacity. Pellets are encased by a rotary clip, or to be pedantic, a clip-azine. 

Great for follow up shots, the Benjamin Marauder air rifle works as fast as you can work the bolt action. 

Escapades with My Benjamin Marauder .25 Caliber Air Rifle 

Pesky birds and blithering critters don’t stand a chance when I put this PCP in the hands of even the youngest and frailest shooters. An improved air valve lets you quickly refill the gun, while the ambidextrous synthetic stock comb adjusts vertically. 

The Marauder’s trigger is set back to give you comfortable positioning and hand freedom. A raised breech helps when I have to stack my magazine rounds, which is made more durable with aviation-grade aluminum.

Crosman has managed to keep the price reasonable despite its full-fledged premium features. The Marauder makes an outstanding easy to use hunt companion, scoring 3.4 on the RateAGun scale for usability. 

A depinger or internal shroud quietness the air rifle even further, turning the PCP ping into a silent thud. Setting the .25 air rifle to max velocity extends shooting range while taking game as large as bobcats or foxes. 

Things I Particularly Love About the Benjamin Marauder .25 Air Rifle

Though many features of the Marauder PCP are to like, its accuracy is very much to my taste. The Benjamin air rifle is made of high quality materials and has a comfortable trigger.  

With high-velocity adjustments, this air gun hits hard. The Marauder is also up to the task for all manner of pest and predator control.

If like me you like having variety, the Benjamin Marauder PCP has a pistol version with a shorter barrel. Apart from maintaining the adjustable comb, synthetic or wood stock, customizability, accuracy, and shot quality is the same.  

The pistol .25 Marauder also called the woods walker, does lose a significant amount of pressure. It can be configured with a non-adjustable skeleton stock or with a pistol grip.  

This PCP’s combination of removable clip-azine and its bolt action offers more than half a dozen shots before recharging pressure. 

Other vital features for considering the Benjamin Marauder.25 PCP air-rifle

Laser Beam Accuracy

Near competition-grade accuracy is delivered by the Marauder’s factory barrel out of the box. You could spend hundreds of dollars on more expensive rifles and still not achieve as much more accurate air rifle. 

Benjamin Marauder’s accuracy is not dependent on how well you fine-tune it.  I have repeatedly punched tight groups 50 and 60 yards, soon after unpacking a new Marauder .25.  

My Marauder has shown me its capacity to kill at 100 yards with the proper scope and little practice. Therefore there’s no competition for its one-hole accuracy across its price range.

Multi-Shot and Powerful Killing Machine

I am concerned with getting the best value for money when purchasing an air-rifle, and so are you. With the Benjamin Marauder PCP air rifle, you have the capacity of multiple rounds at the .25 caliber.

I can place anywhere from 17 to 30 shots for each pressure refill, not to mention with near-surgical precision. 

The Marauder delivers a downrange knock-out power that most air rifles only aspire to. A 45 FPE is reported from the .25 caliber hunting PCP, powerful enough for large pests and game. 

You can chase down turkey while plinking on the chance groundhog, and any coyote that responds to your bird calls gets it. This Marauder is also a long-range bird gun, and I am to be found bragging about my 100-yard groups.  

Upland birds like pheasant, grouse, quail, squirrel, rabbit, and springhare are part of the adequate haul I bring home during in-season with my Marauder. 

Quietest of Shots 

According to my reputable sources, the Benjamin Marauder PCP is by far the quietest air rifle by consensus. An integrated full barrel is shrouded with a resonance dampener for very stealthy shot sounds.  

I always play with my Marauder in a safe, wooded area close to the neighborhood without anyone noticing. This works very well when I am on the trail, silently edging closer to my quarry. 

The Marauder enables me to fire off several shots before my prey becomes aware, and they start squirreling. I can have multiple turkeys killed, and take out a couple of ducks before they take flight.  

A real action hero, the Benjamin Marauder quietly devastates prairie dogs and hyrax at 70 yards. 

Stock Match-Grade Trigger 

The Benjamin Marauder air rifle has a two-stage adjustable trigger that provides a lot of leeway for users without modifying it further. My Crosman users guide also gives me modification tips and tricks to set the air rifles trigger for a lighter pull. 

Hunting with the Marauder is further embellished by how lovely to use the trigger is; one of the best that I have used.  

Tuning and Personalization Opportunities

One of the most magnificent points about the Benjamin Marauder air rifle is how many aspects of user adjustment there are. Crosman also offers legendary support instructions and resources, making this the most uncomplicated dial-in PCP to use.  

Any part is accessible for the Marauder; even the outside Crosman made barrel for the .25 caliber. This is unlike its compatriots in the PCP range for that price tag.

You can precisely tune your highly acclaimed Marauder to any customize settings, using resources from Crosman’s website and other forums. 

Unbeaten Value for Your Money

There’s more bang for your back with the Benjamin Marauder multi-shot repeater, as opposed to similarly quality PCP rifles. With a roughly $500 price tag, even you can agree that it’s the most affordable, especially seeing as it doesn’t require post-purchase upgrades. 

Letdowns and Weaknesses of the Marauder PCP Air Rifles

I have to think about the faults of this affordable and quality PCP because they are hard to find. I’ve heard complaints about the stock not being up to par, or how it could use deeper bluing.

Aside from insignificant gripes from grumpy hunters, there have been reports of users receiving wild shooters. These are dud air rifles that, for one reason or another, do not deliver the reliability and accuracy that’s synonymous with the brand.

The misfits are not, however, typical in the .25 caliber of the Benjamin Marauder PCP, possibly due to its foreign-made barrel. Regardless of caliber, the first thing you do out of the box is to test for poor accuracy or pressure issues.

Another weakness inherent to PCP rifles and the Marauder, in particular, is dealing with a wounded animal and not having enough pressure to finish it off. If your tank is not full when you start the hunt, running out of pressure in the reservoir will cause frustration and the inability to kill your prey ethically. 

As the air becomes depleted in the Marauder, the muzzle velocity falls to the point that your pellets only annoy the target. The high-pressure SCUBA tank re-fillers or hand pumps are sold separately.

I particularly don’t enjoy the hand pumping, which can last anywhere between 3 and 5 minutes before you hit 3,000 PSI. 

Shooting with the .25 Marauder pistol version, I found the grip not to fit the stock properly. I used a shim to fix this problem but found it uneconomical as a $400 pistol on shims is the lower end of the air rifle version. 

Thoughts and Recommendations

Whether the Benjamin Marauder is your first or fifth air rifle, you’ll love this insanely accurate, stealthy kill-machine. Other than some spotty manufacturers quality control issues that I’ve heard of, the Marauder has no weak point for me to dwell on. 

The sophisticated but potent weapon also happens to be going for a steal, compared to higher-priced compatriots in performance or features. Unusually easy to use, the Marauder .25 caliber PCP is sizzling, purring hunting power in your hands. 

I would be extremely grateful if you used my affiliate link here if you choose to buy this awesome rifle. Happy hunting my friend!