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?
All Replies
No, I expect the last resort is calling us lying deniers…
I wonder why Daystate went with .303. Just a nice reference to a classic or really a .303 bore? If it’s named for the land’s diameter as Europeans were want to do, and they used a little license…maybe it really uses a LW .308 barrel?
Or maybe they got tired of LW (due to recent QA issues) and sourced a brand new .303 to keep anything from their particular ammo being used?
I hope they went with .308 and a naming game. Remember that .223 caliber gun? That was probably a decent gun but good performing ammo availability killed it. (Not sure if it’s dead but you never hear about it…)
I see it as more of a last resort…
Similar to claiming that the Rogue wasn’t built for people who actually shoot big bore airguns.
Unlike this new .303 Daystate big bore…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OkEneEEBCM 😉
What’s going to be really interesting is to see how the Evaniz bullpup does in the long run. This market is supposedly non-existent according to the “professionals” at Crosman. 😕
Ooops… ❗
I suppose that’s the best he can do.
Calling people “haters” is a childish bit of rhetoric to invalidate opposing opinions.
Well, I don’t think that L3 is TECHNICALLY a pro-staffer……just a really high-profile hunter that has been featured on Discovery Channel that they likely wanted to bring on board. So I think Crosman probably went out of their way to send him their best to shoot videos for them with. I’ve corresponded with L3 quite a bit…..even posted pictures for him on my photobucket so he could share them with us.
Last I heard from L3, he was telling me about going to Australia to work in the meat trade killing Kangaroo, and feral animals. He said that non-Australians can’t have firearms there, so he needs to use an airgun to be able to work that job.
Guess which gun he was talking about taking to Australia to earn his bread and butter with? I’ll give you all a hint to the answer: it starts with a 9, and ends with another 9 LOL!
LOL….i read that and it’s funny. There are 2 clear sides to these gun testers. The common folk and the pro staffers. I don’t doubt that JC’s gun is pretty good. I also don’t doubt the gun at the gun range in the very first ROGUE video was also pretty good. So is the gun that Chip himself shoots and promotes. So is the gun that L3 shoots (pig wragler in Texas). All 4 guns are owned/shot by PRO-STAFFERS. And smart advertising sais that “anyone who represents a company and sells it product, won’t look like an idiot on camera”. Crosman rushed out and did “FENCED” pig hunts starring CHIP to get the gun out there. To get it promoted. It’s so obvious that the gun was RUSHED into market. Just look at all the videos on the gun and how close they were all made. RUSH RUSH RUSH, SELL SELL SELL. No time for TEST TEST TEST….lol
Then you have the guns that go out to the GP (general public). And in those, you got about 4-5 OK (1)/bad (4) reports.
Now, what’s the difference between the 2 groups again?………………
“And whatever the haters say about the Rogue, 6 quiet shots off of sticks in an inch group at fifty yards, fired in less than a minute, warms the cockles of my predator hunting heart!”
Said the Crosman Pro-Staffer.
I think that guy is more out of touch than Mitt Romney.
Crosman put their own neck in the noose with every aspect of that rifle, not “haters” unless “hater” means “knowledgeable airgun enthusiasts”. From R@D, to design, to promotion, to customer service, etc etc.
Crosman Pro-Staffer Jim Chapman as of today STILL has that photograph of the readout screen on the Rogue included in his article written right after the 2011 SHOT Show……the one where the readout says “LOW 45shots”. When questioned on an airgun forum about the LOW 45Shots readout, he told the airgun forun fraternity that it was just a glitch.
Why is that picture still included in the article for the non-airgun forum viewing, powder burner community to see? What will the average PB shooter guy that looks at Jim’s Rogue article think after he’s looked at that picture a few times? I find what he says in there about his thoughts on how the Rogue would appeal more to hunters than airgunners or something to that effect to be a bit dis-concerting.
Then there’s this Chip character who, in my opinion, has never displayed even the most rudimentary knowledge of bigbore airgunning to those of us that know a thing or two or more about it than he likely realizes. The repetitive statements/claims/replies he posts on the airgun forums display, in my opinion, that he has has little-to-no hands-on experience with other bigbore airguns, has done little if any research on what is going on with the bigbore airgun market, and appears to me to have been hiding under a rock up until the point he crawled out from under it and started talking to knowledgeable airgunners about the Rogue.
Chip gets on here and tell us that introducing, and indoctrinating the PB shooters into bigbore airgunning is SOOOO important to them……sure. That’s why everyone (that isn’t Crosman) is just RAVING about this rifle, huh? I mean really…..I haven’t even seen any concrete, methodical shot string reports from anyone. Not even your own Pro-Staffers Crosman!
Chip posts on airgun forums about how we aren’t his target audience, yet the only forums of any kind I have seen him make posts and link Crosman Videos on at all, are the airgun forums (and I check a whole lot of hunting/shooting forums periodically…..probably most all of the major comprehensive ones where consumers from any aspect of hunting/shooting would be talking about the Rogue if there’s talk at all).
How many PB shooters did Crosman turn off to bigbore airguns in general by “turning them on” to the Rogue, and failing to fulfill the mind-boggling amount of hype behind this rifle? And at the same time hyping Nosler ammo that makes the expense of shooting the Rogue akin to the expense of shooting a Magnum CenterFire PB (seems the ammo sales would be where the real cash would be with prices like that).
OK guys, I just read this on the Yellow from Echochap:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/thread/1330391012/Great+weekend+shooting
“And whatever the haters say about the Rogue, 6 quiet shots off of sticks in an inch group at fifty yards, fired in less than a minute, warms the cockles of my predator hunting heart!”
Guess that you Rogue haters were wrong! 😆
Yeah, the CHOKE idea was just a thought. I simply don’t put common sense in with Manufacturers like Crosman. You simply never know. But Green Mountain and NOSLER should have been able to get it right. At least that’s 2 outta 3 of the companies (Crosman, Nosler, GM) that should know better. Nosler’s PB bullet are damned ACCURATE and Green Mountain has a rep for quality/accurate barrels. Crosman also has a rep…..lol
I honestly have no desire to test them. Done it once and it was horrible. SteveNLa had the same experience and he too can verify how horrible that particular guns accuracy was. Steve actually set it up for me to also shoot that gun and i thank him for it as it was an experience. But it only took a few shots to form an opinion….lol
My thing is, even if it was somewhat accurate or even VERY ACCURATE, I guess i’m more traditional as i want a big bore for all out POWER. Turning a big bore down in power is not appealing to ME but, i can admit that it’s a smart idea for the masses. Some people want the adjustability but I also believe that even with LOW/MEDIUM power settings, most will still mainly shoot the gun for what it should be…A POWERFUL BB gun and not a plinker. Just don’t see the logic in putting 1 dollar a bullet rounds down range on LOW POWER.
To be honest, a Condor made into a 308 or 9mm is a much more attractive package than a well built and accurate Rogue. The gun is long and heavy as hell. So even if it was very accurate, it’s still UGLY and HEAVY and LONG and the ADJUSTBLE power on that gun trully doesn’t “ADJUST” very far. Didn’t reports say about 10 FPS difference between LOW and MEDIUM then another 10 between MEDIUM and HIGH.
I say, put the gun back in the oven and let it finish cooking.
Chip also said that no one would be denied a Rogue for review or something to that affect. Well, Tofazfou has requested one for review…..can’t think of ANYONE more qualified to review an air rifle than Tofazfou.
Man they sure dropped the ball on this rifle in SOOOOO many ways.
Ya Jerry, crosman should have asked you and Tofaz. You guys would have sent them in the right direction. No BS, there are many experienced people here, like Tony, who could have helped them introduce a big bore airgun we could all be proud of. Oh well. 😕
I doubt the Rogue barrel is choked but who knows what they bought from GM?
It’s a damn shame that guys have lost faith in Crosman. The company came out with the Disco and then the M-Rod and while both had problems the jump into PCPs was to be commended. I bought a Disco for Timmy and he can nail anything out to 50 yards with it. I was very pleasently surprised by how well it shoots, especially given the price point, it’s a good gun. I guess the M-Rod was a good idea with flaws in execution that appear to be healed. No experience there, I just see less problems reported and kudos for service…
The rogue could have been so much better. They should have kept Lloyd in the loop a lot longer, I think. I think they could have done a lot more research on their premium ammo too.
With my 25 LBT I have best results with exact matches on the diameter of the bullet to bore.
The Ranger shoots best with bore diameter bullets but will shoot with .453 and 454 if you can force them in.
The Ranger is not choked, the 25 LBT did not shoot for shit with the choked barrels, and the choke portion leaded badly.
I am seriously considering removing the Leupold VXIII 4.5×14 30 MM LR/Holland reticle from the FX Royale and putting it on the 25 LBT, that rifle performs well with the 2×7 Burris, but I can’t help but think with the Holland reticle it would give precise accuracy out to 150 or better. I do need to send it back to Leupold and get a target elevation knob.
As for me and Crosman, I have no faith in them, I will probably never by another Crosman product.
The last Crosman Product I had was a very customised 2240, as I slowly replaced the Crosman parts with aftermarket parts, it gradually improved.
I realize that there are super accurate stock M and P Rods, but I don’t play the lottery.
Regards,
Roachcreek
Why would a .357 barrel need to be choked? My S&W is not choked, but it is very accurate. I think that the groove diameter of the rogue barrels are too big, or too small thus the bullets are bouncing down the barrel, or they are squeezed too tightly and are distorting the bullets. These are bullets, not pellets. I also wonder about the rate of twist that’s being used.
I think that the discussion of why the rogue is innaccurate is relavent, but the rogue itself is not worth talking about. :horse:
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Just noticed that video was not the same I’d seen before… Still wondering about the barrel…