Psssttt! Want to know some Crosman 3622 PCP air rifle secrets? Keep reading and you’ll find a remarkable story of innovation and success for this HAM Gold Award-winning model!
Having worked in product development myself in a previous life, I knew that the 3622 didn’t “just happen”. So recently I visited the Crosman plant in Bloomfield, New York to learn how this ground-breaking product was developed.
Actually I found out more than I expected. And now you will, too. To set the stage, let’s have a little background on this exciting story.
From the moment it first broke cover at the 2024 SHOT Show (Phillip Guadalupe shows us the 3622 in the photo below), the Crosman 3622 PCP air rifle was an instant sensation. For here was a PCP air rifle selling for just $150.00 with a five-year warranty.
And more than that outstanding Value Proposition, it’s designed and manufactured in the USA!
How did they do that? Read on to find out…
Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle Secrets: 1 – The People.
Of course – as with anything – the people were the most important part of the whole project.
So, thanks to the efforts of Joe Brown, the Vice President of Marketing And Product Development (Joe led the product launch and marketing), I was able to meet the “Bloomfield brains trust” who had been involved with the 3622.
Apart from Joe himself, these were:
– Jeff Mock – Senior Director, Engineering. Jeff leads the engineering team.
The photo below shows (left to right): Stephen Archer, Joe Brown, Jeff Mock, Phillip Guadalupe (with back to us). Photo photo Atticus Kiser.
– Jesse Newman – Director of Product Development. Jesse leads the Product Development team and was Product Manager for the 362 and Limited Edition 362.
Below (left to right): Jesse Newman leads a discussion with Stephen Archer, Ed Schultz (with back to us), John Solpietro. Photo Atticus Kiser.
Ed Schultz – Senior Design Engineer. Ed has his hands in ALL projects and is the defacto consultant and overseer of the design engineers. That’s Ed, below.
– Phillip Guadalupe – Senior Product Manager, PCP/Hunting rifles.
– John Solpietro – Senior Design Engineer. Lead engineer for the 3622 and many other projects. Photo below.
– Sonia Nau – Product Coordinator. Sonia is the glue that keeps the trains running on time for ALL engineering projects.
And there’s another secret here. These people are not just employed in an airgun company.
Like many Crosman employees, they are enthusiastic shooters who love airguns and shoot them in their own time. Trust me, that passion is a key differentiator!
Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle Secrets: 2 – Timelines And Process.
Here’s our next 3622 secret and it’s a cracker! The entire development process – from blank sheet of paper to shipping the first product – took just 22 months.
From my own experience in product development, I’m here to tell you that this is an absolutely outstanding achievement!
Above: photo Atticus Kiser.
So how did they do that? Jeff Mock explained…
Back in March 2022, Jeff convened a multi-functional “Innovation Meeting”. Key players from R&D, Product Management, Marketing, Sales, Quality and other departments all gathered together in one room. Their mission was to generate ideas for future Crosman and Benjamin products.
At this meeting, Jesse Newman made a stunning proposal. “Why don’t we build the world’s first $150 PCP hunting rifle?” he said. “And I’ll suggest that it could be based on the 362.”
Now let’s be clear. Visionary, clearly defined, yet practical product proposals like this are a very rare thing in any industry.
Kudos to the whole Crosman team for recognizing that. They decided to take immediate action.
Within three days a first, rough, “proof of concept” gun had been produced. It worked!
By May 2022, the formal project for what would become the Crosman 3622 was approved and under way. “Shipping Approval”, the final agreement to sell the product, was in January 2024.
In corporate terms, that’s really “turning on a Dime”!
Understand that the Crosman folk were not just sitting around waiting for the 3622 project to emerge. They already had a full workload and the project needed to be scheduled among other existing development programs. No matter how big a product development organization, there’s always too many projects and too little time!
Most importantly, we should recognize that this outstanding performance was achieved in spite of the extensive disruption experienced by all businesses due to the COVID pandemic and its aftermath. That makes the timeline even more impressive.
A critical secret here is that Crosman used its highly-structured “Phase/Gate” development process to manage the 3622’s development. This process has evolved over the years to improve its effectiveness and is used for all development projects.
Key 3622 project takeaway: Jeff’s process really works!
Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle Secrets: 3 – Detailed Design.
John Solpietro and Ed Schultz walked me through many of the 3622’s detail design features. As with the overall project itself, the primary secret was clear thinking, intelligently applied with a laser focus.
John explained: “We weren’t chasing 1,000 FPS with this gun. We were looking for 362 pump performance in a PCP format.”
“Our aim was 20 good shots per fill for squirrel hunting and plinking,” John continued. As an example, while starting with the existing 362 valve, the design engineering team took a holistic approach to the whole power plant.
For maximum efficiency, the 3622 design was optimized to ensure that the valve was already closed before the pellet leaves the barrel. If it’s not, the gun is just wasting air with every shot. Sure, that sounds pretty basic, but – trust me – it’s not always so in some other airgun designs.
Often that’s because – of all the component parts – it’s the hammer spring that has the most variability. This means that the “hammer energy” can vary significantly from gun-to-gun, why it needs to be controlled and why a hammer spring adjuster made it into production of the 3622.
Even though the design aim was for there to be no need for tuning on the assembly line, the hammer spring adjuster gives the assembler a quick, easy way to ensure the customer receives a gun that fully matches the 3622’s specifications for FPS and shot count.
Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle Secrets: 4 – Manufacturing.
As our emphasis on the hammer spring adjuster implies, every single 3622 is tested multiple times during the assembly process. This was another secret – certainly to me.
First, every gun receives a 24-hour leak test. Yes, I’ve seen manufacturers of $1,500+ PCP air rifles doing this – but here we have a $150 PCP!
Other manufacturers may test a few samples from a batch for quality control. But that’s not good enough for Crosman. They test the lot. 100%!
Not only that, but EVERY 3622 is also test fired to meet the company’s accuracy and Muzzle Velocity specifications using the high-tech Megalink electronic scoring system.
That level of dedication in manufacturing is – so far as I know – unprecedented in an air rifle selling at $150.00 The Crosman team is justifiably proud of that, too. So they should be!
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We will continue this story of Crosman 3622 PCP air rifle secrets tomorrow. You won’t want to miss it…
The post Exclusive – Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle Secrets Revealed, Part One appeared first on Hard Air Magazine.