 Fortitude. Courage and pain are adversity. Hmm. That makes sense. So, Crossman was in pain because Umarex released the gauntlet. So in the face of adversity, they courageously came out with the fortitude. I get it! Welcome to the Pyramid Insider. I'm Tyler Patner today. Hotly anticipated, fresh off the shelf, the Benjamin Fortitude. We have the 177 here. It's also available in 22 caliber. But let's get into it. Let's check out these features. I know you guys want to see them. So, starting at the front of the gun, we have a fully shrouded barrel. Alright, so that is going to be a very, very quiet shooting for those of you in the backyard. Or if you want, you know, the quietest pest gun out there, this is definitely going to be in that contender race to be one of the quietest out there. Dropping down below the shrouded barrel, we have our fill port, which is a standard male quick disconnect. I love the fact that Crossman does this on their PCPs. It just makes everything easier from my perspective, you know, having quick disconnects on all of my hose fittings and everything. And this cap just pops right on and off. Very small air cylinder on this guy. This is meant to be a lightweight hunter. So, you basically, guys, for those of you that maybe aren't familiar with the entire, you know, Crossman Benjamin PCP line, you basically have a discovery or a maximus lower half of the gun with a marauder upper. So, you have the multi-shot breech with the fully shrouded barrel. Of course, you have the barrel band here. This is a lot of features packed in. And of course, rolling back through the air cylinder, it is regulated as well. And that's the big feature that everyone wants to know about how well is that regulator working. We're going to, of course, find out for you guys. Taking a look at the stock itself, it's basically, like I said, a maximus stock. So, you know what you're getting here. You're getting a nice lightweight synthetic stock with swivel studs for a sling or a bipod if you want to mount that on the front one. So, you got a lot of things you can do with this gun. This is really meant to be taken into the woods, though, hunting or a great lightweight option for the youth shooters out there. On the bottom underside of the stock, we do have a pressure gauge. Now, the difference here between this and the maximus, it fills the 3,000 PSI, not 2,000 PSI. So, that is something to be aware of, especially if you're going to be hand pumping. Still is a pretty small air cylinder, not going to be terrible to hand pump. But my recommendation, definitely going to be wanting to fill this with a tank. And moving back to our breach, guys, we do have an 11-millimeter dovetail up top. We went ahead and mounted a Leapers UTG 3-12x44. This is the one with the glass edge reticle. Side parallax adjustment, a really nice scope. We use it a lot here and kind of compliments the price range. Well, you can get a really nice setup with, you know, a scope that's not going to cost you an arm and a leg and have this gun ready to go and kit it out. So, 11-millimeter dovetail on top. And, of course, rear bolt operated, so you pull that back. Not too bad, at least, off that initial feel in terms of the cocking effort there. And every gun's going to come with a 10-round magazine in both 177 and 22. This is a standard Marauder mag, slides right into the breach like so, snaps in nice and positively, so that you know you're in there and you're good to go. If you do want to de-cock the gun as well, you know, once you pull the magazine out, if you're done shooting, you simply go ahead, you hold the bolt back like that, pull the trigger, you kind of hear it go, and you're all good to go. Dropping down to the trigger, this is basically your standard discovery, your Maximus trigger, plastic trigger blade, plastic trigger guard, and a metal safety. So, on the left-hand side of the action here, you can see that red ring letting you know it's hot. You push it on through crossbolt-style safety, and it is safe, ready to go. That trigger is not going anywhere. So, nice, tried-and-true system. It's not going to get in your way. So, moving back from the trigger, guys, it's kind of texturing on the grip area here, as well as the fore end of the stock. But on the butt end of the stock, you have a kind of slightly raised cheek piece on both sides. So, this is an ambidextrous stock, which is really nice. Again, you know, kind of has a hollow feel to it, but, you know, it's synthetic. It's going to be durable. That's really what I care about. This is going to be a great gun that you're going to be able to take into the field. The question is if the performance is there. The stock is rounded out with a plastic butt pad, not a rubber butt pad. Would have liked to see rubber there. Overall, guys, the fortitude's got a pretty nice feel to it. Nice and lightweight, which I like a lot. But without further ado, let's head out to the range. We'll get it aired up, full of lead. Let's see what we can do. All right, guys. So, accurate see-out of the Benjamin Fortitude at 45 yards. Pretty much all JSBs today are Air Arms. So, basically the same thing. So, this is with the JSB branded 10.34, the heavies. Three-quarters of an inch, all 10 shots. Pretty good. Definitely the best one, though, that Air Arms variant, the Air Arms heavies. It's a very similar pellet. This is right around 5-8, so just a little bit smaller. And, obviously, you can see a little bit tighter grouping overall. Those JSB or Air Arms variants of that 10.3 size, definitely going to be the way to go. There were some other heavy pellets like the H&M Barracuda matches that did okay. If we were doing five-shot groups, they would have performed fine. You know, sub one inch every time, but that 10-shot group just opened up a little bit too much. So, JSBs are going to be the way to go in the 177.42. Guys, one thing I wanted to address before we chronograph the gun here. You'll notice on Pyramid Air, it's a 70 shots per fill. And, I think previously, like when the gun was first announced, Crossman says it's 90 shots. There is a difference there, and there's a reason for that. To say it bluntly, our standards are a little bit higher than what Crossman's are for a regulated gun. So, really, to me, a regulated gun should have, you know, no greater than a 20 to 25 foot per second spread from shot. You know, the first shot you take after a fill to when it falls off the regulator. And that's being generous, to be quite honest with you guys. Crossman and I've talked to them about this, gotten that information from them. Their standard for when they set shot counts, and this is across their PCP line, is anything within 10% of their highest velocity. So, if the gun's rated at 900 feet per second, or 950 in this particular case for the 177, anything within 95 feet per second of that 950 is an acceptable shot within that 10%. So, again, that's a much larger spread. And for a regulated gun, again, probably doesn't make sense. Now, by those standards, though, we'll know if this gun does 90 shots per fill. But we have a little bit higher standard, so that's what we're going to use. 70 shots, let's find out. So, using those JSB heavies, the 10.3 grain pellet, you're looking at about 15 foot pounds, an average of 810 feet per second. And that's over 71 shots, guys. All 71 of those shots are within a 24 foot per second extreme spread. So, pretty tight, you know, and really looking at it closer, they're shot, you know, two to shot 65 or so are all within 10 feet per second spread. So, really great numbers here. Not quite as many as Crossman claims of what we knew that going in. And a standard deviation of only 4 feet per second means you're going to be getting very consistent shot-to-shot velocities. So, the regulator is certainly doing its job a little bit lower powered than I like, but certainly good enough for pest controller hunting in the backyard, whatever you're going to be doing with the Fortitude. So, pretty good results. We're backyard friendly. Obviously, it had the accuracy in this 1.77 caliber gun that we have in front of us today. JSBN Air Arms 10.3s, you know, about 15 foot pounds, 70 shots per fill. You know, it's not the most powerful thing out there, but overall, guys, the performance was there. You're getting a tried and true, you know, breach in magazine system. Really, that regulator was the unknown, but it seems to be doing its job just fine. And you know with Crossman, you've got parts and service and all that stuff at your fingertips, which is phenomenal. My gripe with the gun in particular is the trigger, guys. It's really the one area that's overlooked. I know there are ways to modify it to make it better, but for me, that was the one big drawback I feel like this gun's probably capable of even better accuracy than we showed today if it had a better trigger on it. Just my opinion, though, guys, again, Fortitude's a really nice offering from Crossman. I'm glad they're throwing their hat into the, you know, entry-level ring with a gun that has a lot of features. So definitely check it out if you're interested in getting into PCPs. This is going to be a really nice option for you guys. For The Insider, I'm Tyler Patner. We'll see you guys at the next one.