Benjamin Trail NP XL Air Rifle

I bought this gun about 18 months ago and remain very frustrated. Are all of these "tack driving" 1" group reviews BS, or is something wrong? Is it possible that the gun ate the scope? Drastic changes to elevation produce little or no change in impact at 40 yards - everything is 12" high. I know I can shim the scope but if the adjustment doesn't move the impact at all what's the point? Windage is fair, I can hit a 4" wide pole 9 of 10 times at about 40 yards shooting off-hand. Oddly this gun seems to shoot better off-hand that from a rest. When I try to zero this gun in using a bench rest I get nothing that looks like a decent group at 40 yards. I'm using Crossman Premier .22 pellets. I tried other pellets, tried cleaning the bore, etc. No groups that are sub 4" with frequrent flyers. I'm tempted to put it in a Ransomes rest, but this is not a competition rifle, it's intended to be a plinker. Unless I can get some signs of life I'm not willing to put in much more time. Is there a benching technique for air rifles to reduce the effects of recoil? I know the MV is very slow and this could be causing some jump. Is it worth replacing the scope that came with the rifle and if so what's a decent reasonably priced option? I don't want to throw good money down the tubes but since there are no iron sites... How accurate should I expect this gun to be? Is it reasonable to expect a 2' group at 40 yards? I like the fact that this is quiet, but if I can't figure this out i"m going back to my arsenal of .22s, even the cheap ones (much cheaper than this gun) can hold 1" at 50 yards. Anything less than that's pretty useless for varmint and small game as far as I'm concerned.

• Mark from USA:

  You have a 5 year warranty thru Crosman, 800-724-7486. This sounds like a defective gun.

I want to add an after market scope to this rifle but need to use high scope rings since the objective lens is 50 mm. The rings that come with the package are too low to allow the scope to be installed. What size rings do I need. The replacement scope is a 1" tube.

• Mark from USA:

  You need weaver/picatinny 1" high rings.

I bought the .25 cal version and am on my 4th scope, the gun is consistent but with almost every scope i try with the elevation maxed out upwards the pellets are still hutting 6 inches low. Is there something i can do? Im lost here and i dont want to have to get a whole new gun. Ps its still blowing through inch plywood so i know it hasnt lost its power.

• Mark from USA:

  You need to shim the scope. Put a thin shim under the scope tube on the rear ring. Raising the rear end of the scope. This will give you "up" back on the vertical adjustment.