Page 2 - Crosman Valiant SBD Reviews

Overall, can be made into a good shooter. Stock is beautiful... Crosman wood stocks always seem to have good quality for the price; wish they offered more of them. Has excellent power within its range (.22), and accuracy is good after some trigger work, but suffers straight out of the box. Makes short work of local vermin. Iron sights are a welcome option... you'll need to use them after the scope fails and you are waiting for a replacement. Easily getting .750 groups at 20 yards without really trying, using H&N FTT 14.66gr, 5.55 head. Will pile pellet on pellet if I really try at that short range. Well worth the low price, overall... just needs a little love to get it up to par.

Trigger, trigger, trigger. It is hands down, the one single biggest detractor from accuracy on this gun. Long, heavy, crunchy. If you take the time to stone the sear faces and install a lighter spring, this thing really comes to life! Combine the poor trigger out of the box with the significant thump of that big powerplant, and it's a handful to keep consistent. We all know the Centerpoint scopes are paperweights, but honestly, mine lasted about 500 rounds before it came apart (reticle broke in the center). Dovetail mounts are inadequate; should have a welded Weaver rail to put up with shock load. Switching to a one-piece mount is a must if you shoot a lot. Keep an eye on scope movement; mine was definitely abusing the recoil pin with a two piece mount. Barrel is plenty accurate, but it looks ridiculous in my opinion. Thought it would grow on me, but it's still ugly. Squirrels don't seem to care. All screws need checked and tightened regularly... this thing is hard on stuff.

Seems to like H&N FTT 14.66gr, 5.55 dia, and JSB Exact 18.13gr, 5.52 dia pellets the best. Crosman Premier 14.3 (both Dome and HP) were the worst groups out of the 9 different pellets I tested. Almost all 5.50 diameter pellets I have tried group very loosely with this barrel. Trigger assembly needs all working faces PROPERLY dressed with a stone, then 1000 grit paper. Turn stage adjustment screw all the way in, and install a lighter spring. Trigger is now quite nice and very predictable, although I am down one Pilot G2 inkpen. Pairs nicely with a UTG 3-9x40 scope, one piece Weaver adapter, and medium height UTG rings. All from the wonderful folks at Pyramyd, of course. Make sure the recoil pin is fully engaged on whatever mount you use, this one needs it. As I said, iron sights are a nice option for some, but their quality leaves something to be desired. Front sight is huge, rear sight is flimsy. Mine needed to be moved almost full left and quite high to come on target.

Its easier to cock and more powerful and quiet than my benjamin titan. The stock is good quality and looks very sharp. .22 cal hits very hard.

I would include a front sling mount, or sell the parts to install your own. I would change the awful long heavy trigger pull(which i plan to do on my own) hence the 4 stars for accuracy. Trigger makes free hand shooting tricky.

Buy a better scope and try H&N FTT pellets in 5.55 head size. .375" groups at 21 yds from rest.

I bought the .22 caliber model. Most of my shooting is under 15 yards. Gun has to be benched as it is too heavy. It is powerful and accurate enough with the iron sights. I use it for backyard target shooting and pest control. It is not exactly quiet but it isn't as loud as it could be without any sort of integral suppressor. My suburban neighbors haven't complained, but i also don't shoot it at all hours. I also like that this model has "iron" (plastic) sights. I wish they were better or easily upgradeable. But they do work with modification.

This is where my review breaks off from the other reviews that were overwhelmingly positive. The scope is garbage. The tip off mounts are garbage. I'd rather they not include them and instead improve the iron sights. I bought this model specifically because it has iron sights. What a joke they are. Another user rightly pointed out that the front sight is so high, you can't adjust the rear high enough to compensate. I wish they had thought out the sights better. I also don't like that there is no sling mount. And mounting a bipod to the stock is basically impossible due to its design. The rifle is also very heavy. As in too heavy to shoulder accurately.

I genuinely like this rifle now that it has had the sights modified. I made the sights useable with modification. I took a good pair of linesman pliers and carefully trimmed the front sight down. It doesn't take much. Then i took a file to square the top of the front sight. Now at the lowest setting on the rear sight, POI is just below POA. If you are expecting a great rifle ready to go out of the box, look elsewhere. If you are handy, this rifle is actually very accurate once you modify the iron sights or I'm sure with a useable scope. If the rifle didn't include the essentially useless scope and instead came with iron sights that were of better quality, this would be a 4 or 5 star review. But no way to hit what you are aiming at without modification makes this a 3 star rifle at best.

This is a solid gun for the price. The entire purchase process went smoothly and shipment tracking was spot on. The gun is well made with good attention to detail. All parts accounted for, and all connecting screws firmly tightened. I like to option of using open sites or the scope. Having the open sites available in the event of a scope malfunction while hunting is alway a plus.

The open sites work fine, but they are made of plastic, alloy sites would be a nice option. I would also opt for an adjustable post front site. I would also like to see sling mounts.

As others have commented, it's a idea to pass a few patches through the barrel prior to shooting for the first time to remove the heavy oil build up from the factory. I find sighting in the open sites prior to mounting the scope is good a practice. They sighted in quickly and seem to be very accurate. Take your time mounting the scope. There are several good videos on the internet regarding scope mounting for air guns. The scope took some time to get adjusted and I mounted and re-mounted a couple times before getting it correctly positioned for me. It took some tweaking, but seems to be working fairly well and has stayed firm on its mounts after ~500 rounds. The rifle kicks like a 20g for about the first 50 rounds. As it breaks in the recoil settles down and the sound decreases notably after 100 rounds. As others have commented, consistency of hold, trigger pull, and breathing result in the tightest groupings, (and practice shooting from varied staces/positions).

I like the adjustable trigger, my "Gamo" did not have one and lead me to buy the Crosman Valiant. The provided scope was not to my liking as I could not adjust a point of aim that was consistent. I addressed that issue with Pyramydair and they concurred that the scope was not very good and maybe should have been left off of the rifle. I did contact Crosman about what i believed to be a defective scope. They were great to deal with and gladly sent me a replacement scope. I did find that the most accurate pellets I shot were the 10.5 gr. Ultra Magnum Crosman pellets. I am sure there are many other brands but as I said in my case I really liked the 10.5 gr. pellets.

Have to add a better one.Crosman either leave off the scope or adjust the price higher to add a better one.

The Crosman Valiant SBD Air Rifle, Nitro Piston Elite, .22, packs a nice little punch. Sure there's larger caliber and more powerful, but in this price point, I really see no downside to this rifle. I purchased this to step up from a .177, and I'm glad I did. The wood is far from spectacular, but it is good and looks great. Siting was quick, and so far, even during break in, it seems to be very accurate and consistent. In addition, I'm glad I went through Pyramyd Air, for my purchase. They are responsive and quick to resolve issues. I'm glad I went through them and not settled for what the box stores had in stock.

Crosman quality control may have an issue or two. My scope mounts were missing screws, but Pyramyd Air was top notch and corrected the issue with replacement mounts. With the help of Pyramyd Air in this matter, I decided to maintain the five stars.

I would definitely recommend this as a daily/entry level rifle. I am far from an experienced airgunner, but am new and interested in what's out there. It took a little time before committing to this rifle, but I'm glad I did.

Love the price. This rifle can be accurate if you take the time to learn how they work and how to hold them. Growing up with a multi-pump, changing to a CO2 and later purchasing a PCP the breakbarrel has fast become my favorite hunting rifle.

I did change the scope. There were too many bad reviews to bother mounting it. Changed the trigger spring with an M-CARBO trigger kit for the Benjamin line.

Crosman did a POOR job assembling this rifle and used substandard fasteners for an air rifle with type of recoil. I had to remove the stock to install the trigger kit. Best thing I ever did...all three bolts holding the barrel to the stock were loose. Two screws near the end of the stock were not finger tight. I only wish the assembly and torque specs were available.

Very accurate with the open sights and pretty quiet, it seems to have a lot of power. I have only shot about 60 or 70 rounds through it but so far I really like it.

The only things I Think i would change is it would be better with fiber optic sights and mabe a picatinny rail because the dovetail mount lets the scope slide back from the recoil.

I like this rifle alot seems to be a step up from the Titan. It is solidly built. Shoots just as hard as my Gamo Magnum 22 of which I did a penetration test of shooting at 3 heavy metal empty food cans one in front of each other and touching at 50 feet away using H&N FTT 14.66gr, the Gamo Magnum went through all 3 cans so did the Crosman Valiant. I had a Trail NP2 that only went through 2 cans....It seems that Crosman has increased the power of the NP2 in FPS and FPE of the Elite series as I can attest to.It is the 2nd generation NP2

What I would change of which I did was to change the trigger spring to a lighter one for the trigger pull weight is 5lbs I put in a lighter spring now it is 1.8Lbs

It has abit of weight to it most likely because of the wood stock and the gas piston. It shoots as hard as my Gamo Magnum. The pellet it likes is the H&N FTT 14.66gr head size 5.53mm. One thing to note is to use locktite on the scope mount so the scope won't creep back and sheer off the stop pin, also check the 3 screws that hold the stock to the action and use locktite on them

Gun has a great feel to it, backyard friendly, has some serious power but very quiet. My favorite break barrel thus far.

Needs a better scope. Not bad but not as good as this gun deserves.

Gun is worth every penny.

I like the look and the feel.

Everything about this rifle I like. Even the included scope, although lets face it, it is a pretty cheap scope. With that said, right out of the box and cleaned, once sighted in, I am getting some size groupings at 25 yards. Packs a good amount of hitting power. No doubt what so ever, that it will humainly take down these pesky gray squirrels that I seem to be infested with. Weather has not been very cooperative lately for me to find out for sure.

The only thing I would change on this rifle is, included a better scope with a AO feature.

When you receive this rifle, or any other rifle for that matter, before you shoot it for the first time, clean the barrel. Took me a good half hour to 45 mins to get the barrel clean from the manufacturing process. Ran my first patch down the barrel with bore cleaner, and the patch came out black with just one pass from the breach to the muzzle. Spend the time to clean it, and you will be much happier with your groupings.

The feel of the rifle is comfortable. It is pretty accurate after a few pellets. The sights are nice and easy to adjust. The price is good. The warranty is excellent. The trigger is okay, but not great.

The scope is only 4x32 which is a cheap one.

Not sure it's as powerful as advertised until I chronograph it. I can't imagine it having 26 for when the Benjamin Trail Elite had 22.5 for at the muzzle.

This rifle in .22 is very satisfying to shoot and a significant improvement over the earlier Crosman breakbarrel offerings such as the Titan. It is relatively quiet and has good accuracy out of the box with the sights. With the proper optics I was shooting dime sized groups at 20 yards and consistently hitting a a 1.25" metal bell at 30 yards using a sandbag rest. The trigger is nice in such a low priced air rifle. It is a fine looking rifle.

Not much except to not waste my time with that scope which I discarded when it would not hold zero due to the NP harmonics which some refer to as recoil. Instead I used a 2x15 Carl Gustov optical sight used in many European anti-tank weapons. These devices which fit 1" rings, are totally immune to "recoil". The Swedish made Carl Gustov or German Panzerfaust optical devices have etched in crosshairs and can only be zeroed by using an adjustable base such as on a Russian AK 47 or M9130 Mosin Nagant or by careful filing of the scope mount dovetails which is what I did.

Once an anti-tank optic is zeroed it stays zeroed. For the .22 version the suppressor is unnecessary as the gun is subsonic with both lead and alloy pellets. With the suppressor removed the report was exactly the same. I reinstalled it as it is also the front sight mount. I chronographed it with RWS Hobby 11.9 gr lead pellets at 840 fps and Gamo Raptor 9.9 gr alloy pellets at an average of 1000fps. While these are not as fast as Crosman claims they are plenty fast for me. The Hobby pellets proved very accurate, but the Raptor pellets were not. I like this rifle.

Adult long gun with healthy break barrel draw. Precision firearm, directly outta the box.

Break barrel demands healthy draw back!

Not a juvenile weapon. Minor kick on trigger pull. Dense and serious feel. Good, solid long gun.

Strong and powerful punch at target. I was surprised with the scope, better than others I have received with air guns. Easy to sight in and so far still holding accuracy. This is my first "Nitro-Piston" rifle. I like it!!! This gun is heavy, most likely due to the gas piston. Use a shooting rest to sight in.

I don't think I would change anything.

Again, this gun is heavy. Use a good shooting rest to sight in the scope. Definitely a good small game gun. Keep the Squirrels out of our Pecan trees.

very quiet, powerful as my pcp, with less than hundred shoots accuracy seems very good Crosman Premier .22 Cal, 14.3 Grains, Domed pellets

better scope ok once sighted ii seems to take few shots for each change to stick

i like it so far hard on tree rats out over 40 yds