I got my new Marauder today and when I looked in the undamaged box the barrel looked out of alignment at the bore end of the rifle. Looking further I found the barrel band which is attached to the air chamber fill fitting by a couple of set screws was pushed side ways making the end of the barrel be to the left of center by about 1/2 ". I gently pushed on the band and the barrel started moving toward centerline of the air chamber. On further inspection I found the (I will call it a plug)plug in the end of the air chamber where the foster fill fitting is screwed in was loose and moved when I moved the barrel band. I loosed the set screws in the band and tightened the plug then positioned the band back and aligned the barrel (eyeballed it) with the air chamber and tightened the set screws.
Now I don't have the mounts to install the Hawke Eclipse 30 scope yet but when I do, my thoughs are, I know the scope has the recticle perfectly centered. If I mount the scope and shoot it, if the pellet hole is right or left of center I thought I would loosen the set screws on the barrel band and push the barrel left or right to bring it into aglinment. The barrel seems to free float in the barrel band so I think every thing will be ok.
The first thing I did was call Crosman and told them about it and he said to try pushing it over in alignment. If that did not work they would send me a mailer to send it back to them and they would fix it or give me a new gun. What do you guys think about my scope alignment idea.
Thank You Mike
It seems like the barrel gets misaligned in shipment. No one has stated whether or not the packaging looks like its doing it, just that it happens. (i.e. its common to be out of adjustment, so sending it back won't do you any good unless there is something else wrong).
IMHO, I would secure the barrel as centered as possible and use the scope adjustments for the rest (as opposed to trying to do fine adjustments on the barrel). My logic is:
1. The barrel has its natural place where it wants to align and will be trying to move there if you move it to another place.
2. The scope has the precision adjustments, not the barrel and after a certain point, it will be difficult, if not impossible to adjust the barrel like that.
3. I haven't had any success at minute barrel alignment adjustments with other Crosman guns.
4. There are more forces at work here with the floating barrel as the barrel clamp is moving the outer barrel and the effect on the inner barrel may be to disrupt its floating nature (i.e. if you move the outer barrel too much, it is contacting the baffels, which contact the inner barrel).
I understand the Marauder barrel clamp is metal, is that correct?
If so, you could get the barrel more or less in alignment to the scope, once you have checked that the scope itself is centered by revolving it in V Blocks.
Make sure you FILL the gun first. I've read of tanks dilating as much as 0.005" between "empty" and "full" and this can throw off a good amount of work done before it.