I finally was able to squeeze in my initial testing of the Marksman 2004 I purchased not long ago. I purchased this gun due to the reviews posted here on the yellow, so thanks to all who posted from 2003 --> present day.
Anyways, like most of my reviews I'll start with the condition/equipment:


The gun is a marksman 2004 (M2004) purchased a month ago.
Ironically I put a red dot twice the value of the gun itself on it (don’t care for open sights). Its a bushnell trophy 4 reticle, 2 color:
http://www.bushnell.com/products/riflescopes/specs/73-0135.cfm
I don’t think I will ever need more of a red dot than this. Purchased mainly due to its diversity and very small 3moa dot.


The M2004 was held, resting the grip on the table and the barrel on the rest as pictured. I used the red 3moa dot which almost completely covers the black center of the targets which are 15/16" in diameter.
No direct sun on me or M2004, slight breeze of 2-3mph and heavier breeze every now and again of 5-7mph. Temp was low 60's, very pleasant.
Pellets were shot in a left --> right and top --> bottom, page 1 --> page 5 order. I feel this gives all the pellets a fair field to play in so I don’t end up grouping 25 shots of one in ideal conditions (2-3mph breeze) and another in less than ideal (5-7mph breeze). All groups are 5 shots. All pellets are weighed. Pellets used are:
RWS basic 7.2gr
" hobby 7gr
" R-10 7gr
Beeman H&N high speed 7.5gr
Beeman laser sport 8.1gr
JSB express 7.8gr

All pellets are wadcutters except the JSB express which are domed.
Spotting scope is a bushnell trophy 20-60X65:
http://www.bushnell.com/products/spotting_scopes/specs/78-2065.cfm
Group measuring device is a frankford arsenal digital caliper:
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=604242

Here are the 5 pages of 6, 5 shot groups shot RWS basic, hobby, R-10, H&N, laser sport and express, in that order. Then I would repeat on pg 2 - 5.











Here are the group sizes for each pellet. All groups measured center to center (ctc). All shots taken at a 100' tape measured 25yds (75ft).
RWS basic:
2.05
1.443
1.44 avg= 1.648" ctc
1.706
1.601

RWS hobby:
.983
1.419
1.431 avg= 1.593" ctc
2.161
1.971

RWS R-10
1.918
1.544
1.608 avg= 1.467" ctc
1.512
.752

Beeman H&N HS
1.154
1.333
1.614 avg= 1.266" ctc
1.01
1.22

Beeman laser sport
1.871
1.613
.614 avg= 1.408" ctc
1.289
1.654

JSB express
1.366
1.254
1.274 avg= 1.131" ctc
.798
.961

My conclusion was that JSB's are best. They also are easier to measure group sizes since they don't rip the paper like the wadcutters tend to do. This is good for me since my R7 absolutely loves them. They are also easier to load due to the domed head. I noticed that the RWS’s all were pretty equal in weight consistency (R-10 a bit better) but the head size varied far more for the basics vs hobby or R-10’s (while loading, stiffer/looser).
The M2004 is NOT pellet fussy as you can see. I have some left over gamo wadcutters that I will try but I think they will be just average.
I fully recommend this gun. For $45 plus S&H (cheaper at some sites) it is a steal. The red dot is great. It makes compressing easier too vice open sights. My fingers would get a bit sore/tired of holding either side by the rear site and if I pressed down onto the rear site, they would dig into my hand and the rear site would get misaligned as well. I took the rear site off, removed spring, flipped rear site (nice and smooth on other side) and screwed back in. I shot this yesterday, over 150 shots and no marks, bruising or soreness on my hand. That alone, to ME is worth the $96 with tax for the red dot. The green dot makes the 3moa seem even smaller, unfortunately, even with the brightness on 5 it is hard to see on paper at 25yds in the middle of the day, but you can still see it.
Hope this helped some in one way or another. Tempted to get another one of these. Think I'll put that towards a izzy 46 though


greg in WA

now it will either leak air (audible hiss) on closing or fire when the safety is touched!

It used to be accurate too.

Anybody fix 'em or tune 'em?

"The only path to true knowledge is through wasted money" copyright postban forever!

I can't tell you why the saftey is bad, but the leak when closing is almost for sure the o-ring on piston. when mine did that I pulled the piston and seeing how bad the ring was chewed up I looked thru my o-ring collection and found one same od, but thinner cross section. I installed it and it works fine. since I have bought a duplicate ring and one slightly thicker but I aint going to fix what works good. the orig. equip ring I think may be too tight in the groove. I keep hearing that an o-ring needs to be a little sloppy and be able to move around in its groove. John

it's the gun that got me back into airgunning after a 15 year hiatus .
read some reviews about it on the web 2 years ago.. went to the local wallymart.. plunked down $36 bucks and bought me one . took it home and started shootin' . i must've gotten one of the good late-2004 ones(i read that some people had issues with their earlier production pistols) because i was quickly impressed with mine after several shots . the reviews weren't lying . though it's low powered , it has excellent short range accuracy(i'd keep my shooting to a 15-20 yard maximum for this gun) . bought a scope for it the next day .

i still have the same pistol . one of the best airgun purchases i've made(and i've made quite a few more since then because of it )




p.s.- thanks for the good review BTW . not bad for a 2-3fpe gun , esp. at 25 yards .

I was typing this before i had to go to work. Anyways, the point of aim remained the same throughout. I did not chrony that particular session but I did when i first shot it. It does 380 - 411fps with 6.9gr - 8.3gr pellets.
I have chronied a shot string of 30ish shots. If I remember correctly SD was either 1 or 2, Extreme spread was like 8 or 9. Very good. Not sure what pellet I was using or if it was weighed or not.

greg in WA

I've been thinking about buying one of these or the P17 ,which I'm sure is the same model, for some time now. I used to own a P3 that would colver leaf at 10M using a rest so it would be nice to be able to compare apples to apples.
Jesse

nt

I think we're all Bozos on this bus.