Definitive Guide to Benjamin Kratos

Benjamin is a name synonymous with high-quality and also affordable airguns. They pioneered the PCP market in the US with the Benjamin Discovery and the Benjamin Marauder. It's not surprising then that their new performance line of airguns certainly also hit the mark. There are 4 new airguns from Benjamin focused on a different market segment. Having tested all four models, we can say that the tradition continues without a hitch. Today we'll look at the Benjamin Kratos, a bottle-forward airgun with traditional styling, amazing shot count, and awesome accuracy. Let's get started.

Setup & Operation

The aesthetics of the Benjamin Kratos lend to the traditional with a touch of modern features. The ambidextrous Turkish walnut hardwood stock is a classic target style stock with an adjustable cheekpiece, swivel studs, as well as a checkered grip and forearm. The ergonomics are right on point, and the Kratos feels good when you pull it into the shoulder and set up your shot.

Before we get too far, let's get the other basic specs out of the way. It weighs 8.26 pounds, and the overall length is 43.35 inches. The rifled steel barrel is 18.90 inches long. We don't know the exact twist rate, but we do know that it's optimized for pellets, not slugs.

On top of the receiver, you'll find a standard weaver optics rail. There's a 12-shot magazine for the .22 caliber and a 10-shot magazine for the .25 caliber. The trigger is a two-stage adjustable trigger that breaks at under 2 pounds right out of the box. You can tinker with it if you like, but it's very good right from the factory. There's a robust side lever that works the action, cocking the gun and seating the pellet into the breech. We say "robust" because it has some real meat to it and feels like it will last forever, no matter how much you shoot. It's very nice.

The barrel is fully shrouded with multiple baffles held in place with a spring to provide tension. This makes the Kratos fairly quiet, certainly quiet enough for backyard target practice. Cleaning the barrel is easy but will require removing the shroud with the baffles. From there, you can use a standard cleaning rod or Patch Worm kit.

The final piece is the 480CC bottle. It fills to 3000 psi making the Kratos one of the few "bottle" guns that are hand pump friendly. At least hand pump friendly because of the lower pressure. 480CC is still a lot of volume to get up to 3000 psi. Ideally, you'll want to use a personal compressor like the Air Venturi Nomad III or a carbon fiber HPA bottle.

Let's get our Kratos ready to shoot. First, we'll need to fill the 480CC bottle up to 3000 psi. As mentioned above, we'll use a personal compressor to get this done, as it's really the best option. There's a foster quick connect under the forearm next to the pressure gauge. Be sure not to overfill this, as it operates optimally at 3000 psi. Higher pressures can result in valve lock and could damage your gun. Next, we'll need to load our 10-shot magazine with our pellet of choice. For this guide, we'll be using the 25.39 grain JSB Kings. They are the most consistently accurate of all the pellets we've tested.

But before we can take our first shots, we need to mount a scope. We've gone a bit overboard (not really) for the scope using the new Hawke Frontier 34 FFP. This amazing scope features a 34MM tube and incredibly clear optics. It's top-shelf glass for a really good airgun.

We'll jump ahead to after the sight in and get back to sending lead down range. There's a manual safety in front of the trigger guard, so please make sure to put the gun on safe while loading. It's very straightforward. Simply pull back the cocking handle, insert the mag, and close the cocking handle.

To take your next shot, just pull back on the side lever until you hear the seer engage with the hammer and then close the handle. The magazine is spring fed and will automatically advance to the next round. You're pretty much good to go at this point.

Performance & Accuracy

Now to the part, we've all been waiting for. We had to check the spec sheet several times to determine if the Kratos was regulated or unregulated. It's unregulated. But, it produced some incredible consistency, so much so that we had a hard time believing the numbers.

We started with an initial velocity of 867 FPS producing 43.28 foot-pounds of energy. The extreme spread for the next 30 shots was only 14 FPS. This from an unregulated airgun. You can see why we had to keep going back to the spec sheet. By shot 40, that had increased to 24 FPS, and we stopped after 50 shots with a final extreme spread of 58 FPS. Without any doubt, this is a 40-shot airgun all day long, and if you need to push an extra mag, you are good to go to 50 if you like.

If you wanted to get even more shots out of the Kratos, you could use the power selector. This is a transfer port restrictor that limits the airflow to the barrel. We did all our testing on the highest setting. It's not an exact science as there are no "detents" in the power knob like you get with Air Arms, but if you want to reduce the power, you can do so with a simple turn of the knob.

Now, let's get to accuracy. The Kratos is ideally suited for 50 yards, maybe 75 yards. It can shoot sub 1" at 50 yards and sub 1.5" at 75 yards in the hands of the right shooter. We did see some real bright spots in our testing where we got very close to SUB MOA, but the average groups were, what you see below, about .75" CTC at 50 yards.

Summing Up

If there were one thing we'd like to see different, it was the power output. We believe that if the muzzle velocity were closer to 950 FPS with the 25.39 grain JSBs, closer to 50 foot-pounds, we'd see better accuracy at 50 and 75 yards. This is just a guess but is in line with so many of the guns we test that it's just the nature of .25 pellets. They need more gas in the tank to carry further distances with consistent accuracy.

Let's wrap things up. The Benjamin Kratos is a beautiful airgun to look at and shoot. Its Turkish Walnut hardwood stock, smooth operation, and excellent ergonomics make it great to shoot at the bench. Including swivel studs also makes it ready for field work which is ideal for the .25 caliber model.