More Bad Barrels From Crossman

[WNCmotard]

Some of you already know the issues I've had with my refurb Srod, some may not. Long story short, I bought one of the refurbs from R&L (and they've been great BTW), and it's been a scatter gun since day one. They had Crossman drop ship me a replacement barrel, and I installed it over the weekend, and while a bit better, it still wasn't grouping consistently after 100 shots or so. After seeing silentbutdeadly's thread, I decided to check my barrel, and this is what I found. Not to mention it arrived looking like it was drug behind the UPS truck to get here. They're going to get one more chance to fix this, then I'm going to give up on Crossman products for good, as it's obvious from the recent forum posts that they're QC and quality overall has went drastically downhill. The worst part is, I was really excited to own a made in the USA air rifle, but oddly they don't say that on them anymore. I'd be willing to bet why that is.

This is the condition that my entire barrel is in, very beat up



And this is the pitiful excuse for a crown job

[454 Big Block Chevy]

mine likes to scattergun pretty good some days.  makes me super aggrivated.

but, if i do my part, she'll hold smaller than a dime... good luck with it!!! 

.22 or .177?

[Big Bore Bart]

  WNC, do you have access to a lathe?   If so, counter bore the barrel ~1/2" and crown the inner step.   Also it could be cut back the 1/2" then recrowned.   That's probably the reason your gun was a return in the first place.

[Big Bore Bart]

   The tool that's doing this is a piloted crown reamer.   The problem looks like it's a pilot for .22 PB's.     It's probably closer to a .216 pilot than a .210-.212 for an air rifle.

[Rocko]

I think Crosman is getting lazy & content. Content to sell cheap stuff to the Walmart crowd, where Mom & Dad buy Jr. his first air rifle and if he can hit a 3 lb. coffee can at 10 feet, all is good.  If they are satisfied with that, thats up to them.

[WNCmotard]

@454 big block chevy - it's a .177 Srod, same as yours. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty decent shot. I can one hole 'em with my 10/22 at 50yds from a bench rest if I do my part. So bench rested I figure at most 1/2" (factoring in for any errors on my part) with this at 20yds as there are plenty of guys getting much better than that.

@ Big Bore Bart - I do not have access to those things unfortunately, so I'll simply make Crossman keep sending barrels until they get the point, and figure out it's much cheaper on them to do it right the first time than to keep paying two way shipping on barrel after barrel.

Again, I really want to love this gun, I waited quite some time to be able to buy everything I needed to take the PCP plunge, and waited even longer to be able to have a Marauder. I just want it to shoot like the many that I've seen groups posted from. And more importantly, I want Crossman to fix their issues so that I and others here can have faith in buying their products again.

[Nomadic Pirate]

Crosman needs to spend less time and money in celebrity advertising, over hyped videos and all that over the top marketing C**p they been doing the last couple of years and focus on the basics.

[silentbutdeadly]

It's obvious they are crowning the .177 and .22 barrels the same. I'd like to see some .25 sRod barrel crowns to see if its also the same process. Worst case scenerio we need to cut these barrels down and have them recrowned.

I wouldn't blame this on overseas manufacturing as there are many products that are made better outside the inflated labor costs of the US. Also, for every 25 marauders sold I'm sure there's only one of us who cares enough to join a forum, post pictures and demand a quality product and sub 1" groups at 50yards.  The money is in the masses but if Crosman wants to capture the whole market they will make sure their best guns reputation isn't tarnished. But on the flip side, this is America and it's not about the product it's about how it's marketed. They probably have the two best selling PCP guns out there even with the issues, so what do I know. 

[Sfttailrdr46]

I have the Synthetic Marauder in .22 and .25 and both are capable of 1 hole 10 shot groups at ten yards and Saturday weather permitting I will take them to the range and see how tight I can do at 25 and 50 yards then report back. That does not mean that I don't have issue with some of the QC I have seen from several AG manufactures in the past year

[azoutdoorsman]

Few things. Crosman has only one "s". Had to say it, sorry.

Also, a lot of barrels that don't look great will still shoot fine. Crown does not have to be pretty to make good groups.

Air rifles are not rimfires, different techniques can be effective.

And Crosman makes relatively inexpensive PCPs. Expecting MOA out of one of the least expensive repeater rifles may not be reasonable.

[WNCmotard]

Few things. Crosman has only one "s". Had to say it, sorry.

Also, a lot of barrels that don't look great will still shoot fine. Crown does not have to be pretty to make good groups.

Air rifles are not rimfires, different techniques can be effective.

And Crosman makes relatively inexpensive PCPs. Expecting MOA out of one of the least expensive repeater rifles may not be reasonable.

My apologies for the misspelling.

It shot poorly, as noted above with both barrels.

PCP air guns from my research are fairly easy to shoot accurately, much like a rimfire. And much easier to shoot accurately than springers and nitro piston guns. And I've had plenty of pellets (roughly 400 or so) downrange to get used to it as well.

There are plenty of sub MOA Marauders around, a lot on this very forum, including many (perhaps the majority) with factory barrels that are obviously free of these defects. Not to mention the ding in the end of the barrel, and the fact that it looks used, or at the very least beaten up pretty good before arriving to me. If others are happy with a gun in this price range that produces 2" groups at 20yds, then so be it. But I for one expect more for my money, but to each their own.

[milo]

I have seen that as well, the barrel on my .22 disco (bought it used) was chewed up the last 1/4 inch.  Looked like they put it in a jig after rifling and trashed the rifling at the muzzle.  I cut 1/2" inch off, trued it up in the lathe, and recrowned it.  Now it will put 5 jsbs in .400 at 30 yards, but really?  you have to fix their barrels to make them shoot right?

[HYspd]

surely technique will more than make up for a completely trashed barrel....it had to be said..


Crosman appears to have a serious aggrieved Union issue...that's not poor work..that's intentionally bad
and for garbage like that to get out of the factory and into the customer's hands is inexcusable..i can do
a better crowning job than that twisting a rock off the ground into the end of a barrel and I'm far
from alone in that capability...not that anybody would want to, BUT....anybody reading this thread could
literally pick up a rock out of the yard and grind it back and forth in the fresh cut end of a barrel for a few
minutes and get much better results than those embaressments...

[Oldnoob]

surely technique will more than make up for a completely trashed barrel....it had to be said..


Crosman appears to have a serious aggrieved Union issue...that's not poor work..that's intentionally bad
and for garbage like that to get out of the factory and into the customer's hands is inexcusable..i can do
a better crowning job than that twisting a rock off the ground into the end of a barrel and I'm far
from alone in that capability...not that anybody would want to, BUT....anybody reading this thread could
literally pick up a rock out of the yard and grind it back and forth in the fresh cut end of a barrel for a few
minutes and get much better results than those embaressments...

looking around for good rock

[Sandspike]

Crosman's new "Stone Crowned Barrel"....sounds good.....almost.

[jeffharper47]

Why not buy  LW barrel? If the rest of the rifle is fine I think I'd just buy a nice aftermarket barrel.

Luckily, my new srod shoots like a dream.

[FuzzyGrub]

The 177 synrod was the last to be released, but seems to be the 1st or more plentiful on the refurb market. 

Call crosman, have them issue a ticket (and shipping label) and get a new gun. 

[SeanMP]

Interestingly enough some years ago Industry Brand was using the same technique to crown their QB barrels. It became widely known that it you had a bad shooter all you had to do was look in the end of the muzzle and 99 times out a 100 the rifling would be thrashed for an 1/8" down. However they paid attention and started producing some very fine barrels. I've attached a pic to compare with the OP

If you look beyond the obvious on the OP's barrel you can clearly see the problem is not just the crown. The rifling looks like it's been cut with a cheese grater. Whats happen here is when they pulled the mandrel core it has ripped the core of the barrel to shreds. I was doing custom cut and crown for some unnamed canadian distributors. I have worked on 1000's of crosman barrel units and the quality took a big nose dive about two years ago. First I started breaking tools and the metal started machining like sand. All indications would say their using a powder metal matrix similar to what got Winchester into hot water back in the 70's....ultimately this led to their demise folks.
Then I noticed the rifling lands were dull. Bore scope inspection clearly showed the metal in the lands looked like shag carpet at high magnification. They were not being forged enough for the lands to fully fill out in the grooves of the mandrel.
But I did some testing of my own and their is no fancy tool causing this damage to the end of the barrels. They are simply shoving the barrels onto an ordinary countersink drill by hand and the barrels are chattering back an forth. I have recreated the exact condition here at the shop.

At this point I wont touch a Crosman barrel. I wont have my name associated with such poor quality.

However the complacency that surrounds the Crosman QC issue is absolutely mind boggling. To hear things like " ya buy a gun and order three extra barrels...keep changing them until you find a good one" ....REALLY. If any other manufactuer did this they'd be run out of dodge. It's time to start demanding your american manufacturer show some quality and leadership. They only way to do this is with your wallet and your voice. Chip I know your reading this.
I do give them credit for an awesomely effective marketing campaign though. To remove the very nice looking wood stock off the flagship rifle and replace it with a $5 injection molded piece of garbage was one thing but they managed to convince a good portion of the market that it was better.Bravo!

So why is this Canadian guy getting so fired up about Crosman. Because anybody with a little grey in their beard should remember that some of Crosmans finest guns were produced in Dunnville Ontario. In fact some of the most highly collectible guns were produced there.

As a person that works in both PB's and AG's the idea that their is a different level of quality that that will work fine in an airgun is utter nonsense. There is no difference. Barrels are barrels. They have the same functions in airguns or in powder burners. We apply the same mathematics and manufacturing techniques to produce either. SImply put junk is junk, doesn't matter what you put it on.
And there are lots of options out there at the same price point that don't seem to have issues of such continuous gross neglect. However these companies have yet to sell their soul to the Big Box and still rely on individual consumers and small retailers

[azoutdoorsman]

Few things. Crosman has only one "s". Had to say it, sorry.

Also, a lot of barrels that don't look great will still shoot fine. Crown does not have to be pretty to make good groups.

Air rifles are not rimfires, different techniques can be effective.

And Crosman makes relatively inexpensive PCPs. Expecting MOA out of one of the least expensive repeater rifles may not be reasonable.

My apologies for the misspelling.

It shot poorly, as noted above with both barrels.

PCP air guns from my research are fairly easy to shoot accurately, much like a rimfire. And much easier to shoot accurately than springers and nitro piston guns. And I've had plenty of pellets (roughly 400 or so) downrange to get used to it as well.

There are plenty of sub MOA Marauders around, a lot on this very forum, including many (perhaps the majority) with factory barrels that are obviously free of these defects. Not to mention the ding in the end of the barrel, and the fact that it looks used, or at the very least beaten up pretty good before arriving to me. If others are happy with a gun in this price range that produces 2" groups at 20yds, then so be it. But I for one expect more for my money, but to each their own.

I was viewing this from my phone, and the pictures were small, but that does look pretty chopped up.

I guess what I was suggesting was too spend a little more and buy a rifle with a known quality barrel. Crosman sells their barrels for thirty bucks or so, not exactly and indicator of precision machining techniques.

Our buy from Mac-1, or another vendor who will tune up and shoot the rifle before shipping it to you.

[MITWill]

With all this talk about these bad barrels, I had to be sure my two week old .25 Marauder wasn't in the same boat.
I took the barrel out today and inspected it.
I was happy to find a nicely blued and straight barrel with a very nice crown.
Someone asked for pics so here are some.
Will