Benjamin Rogue Bullshit detector ringing!

Does anyone here have a Rogue? Please don’t be bashful, I’m not trying to belittle anyone or call them out for anything. I just want to get some actual information from someone who bought a Rogue retail and hopefully can shoot worth a damn!

As far as I can tell, Crosman (via Chip) has backed off on initial performance claims (though in a mealy mouthed way) and are now all about versatility.

Crosman appears (to me) to have delighted in all the pre-release hype on the airgun forums but is now claiming the lack of any positive reports via airgun forums to be because they market the gun to PB guys.

There are claims that hundreds of guns have been sold and yet the buyers are strangely silent. Oh yeah, the PB guys that bought this gun would never think to ask airgunners about all that airgun stuff like tanks, fills per tank, where to get fills, best prices, best gear etc… no they get all that info from Crosman… a company with one big bore to it’s credit. Right.

I was a defender of Crosman when they announced the Rogue and still appreciate the guts to move into a new market with new technology. In fact, I’d be proud of a company that did that and failed on the first attempt! Taking a risk and losing reveals a far stronger character and work ethic than playing it safe and having mediocre success.

But now, I smell BS and I hate that! I’m not saying that new tech is suddenly bad or even that the Rogue is a bad gun, I’m saying that Crosman appears to have let bogus initial claims stand despite knowing the actual product didn’t deliver per hype. The so called “actual” performance is not well defined but doesn’t appear all that bad (energy numbers only), but it’s not close to original hype.

Way back when, it was claimed that the gun would get 20 shots at 150 FPE and 4 shots at 250 FPE. Yeah, now the gun gets 21 shots at 133 FPE (not badf at all) and 3 shots at 195 FPE. The 21 at 133 doesn’t fall that far short but 3 at 195 is a damn far cry from 4 at 250! The latest explanation from Chip (Crosman’s rep) is not satisfactory. He claims that the initial claims were based on different weight bullets. Right, a gun that shoots 175gr bullets at 250 for 4 shots can only manage 195 with 170gr bullets for 3 shots… I might have been born on a rainy night but it wasn’t last night! Shit, I’ve got more big bores downstairs than Crosman has even seriously considered but they are going to tell me (and you) what’s what?

I’m also curious about Crosman’s claim via Chip that this gun is intended to bring hunters to airguns vice airgunners to hunting. Sounds like a BS strategy to me. You can’t get a airgunner to like the gun but maybe a guy who knows no better will? Let me get this straight, sell a gun that needs air tanks and fittings and fill sources etc to a PB guy and ignore the guys that already have all the gear to support the gun? Yeah, ignore the guys that already have all the gear and are used to the hassles that airguns bring but focus on PB guys that can buy super consistent ammo from big guys or custom reloaders? Got it. It’s a good thing the Rogue only costs double what a match grade varmint rifle with a tax stamp for a silencer would cost!

OK, maybe I’m totally f’d up here, it’s happened before! So, does anyone have a link to a PB site where the Rogue is reviewed by an actual customer? Has anyone in Crosman’s self declared target market actually posted any results? Really, after hundreds of sales to these hunters that routinely post on topics like head space measurements, best powder loads, best powder types, effects of temperature on powders, bullet designs, and every other esoteric thing you can imagine about shooting, shouldn’t there be a few easily found reviews?

BTW, I did notice that Jim (echochap) has a wonderful specimen that his buddy can shoot little groups with off-hand. Yeah, my BS detector has not been silenced! This is where I gather some hate mail… Jim has a habit of going quiet on guns that suck. He also has a habit of ignoring great guns that don’t pay his way. If he ever manages to “find the time” to gather actual numbers on the Rogue, they will probably be reported accurately. However, if the numbers and accuracy are crap, I doubt we’ll ever know that he found the time…

So, I’m looking for retail customers that Crosman was unaware of to relay actual results! Has anyone besides the Crosman team shot anything with a Rogue?