Continuing HAM’s exclusive investigation of Crosman 3622 air rifle secrets, we are devoting all of today’s coverage to a core part of the gun’s Value Proposition. It’s the discipline of “Value Engineering”. Photo of Phillip Guadalupe above by Atticus Kiser.
Crosman 3622 Air Rifle Secrets: 5 – Value Engineering.
“The 3622 is all about Value Engineering”. Jeff Mock, Crosman’s Senior Director of Engineering, concentrated all the development thinking on the project into this one statement.
Below, left to right, Jeff Mock, Stephen Archer, Joe Brown. Photo by Atticus Kiser.
Let’s be clear. Value Engineering does not have to mean a low quality product. In fact for the 3622, it’s quite the reverse. Don’t forget that Crosman has to honor that five year warranty on the product. This means that the company simply can’t afford for many (any?) 3622s to be returned by dissatisfied users!
Yes, everyone gets excited by the latest high-end air rifles with mega power, shot count and price. But it’s wrong to think that the engineering involved in these guns is somehow “better” or more challenging than the Value Engineering found in a low cost, high quality product like the 3622. In fact it can be quite the reverse…
During product development, there’s always the tendency to add more features. “Feature Creep” (Oh, can’t it just do this as well?) is a well-known issue in any project. It always adds cost, parts, complexity and time.
So another of the Crosman 3622 air rifle secrets is that the final result, the product we buy today, is identical to Jesse’s original concept proposal. (We covered that in Part One of this investigation).
Yes, the 3622 is a PCP. It’s powerful enough for small game hunting. It’s based on the multi-pump 362 platform and it sells for $150.00 as planned – in spite of inflation headwind.
In fact, you can buy the 3622 for just $112.50 from the Crosman web site if you redeem 1,000 HAM Airgun Points. Wow!
Below. What’s the significance of this depression in the end of the 3622’s forearm? We’ll find out near the end of this article!
I cannot over-estimate enough the rigor, focus and skill it took from the whole development team to follow-through and make that vision happen exactly. Sure, it would have been fun to add some additional cool stuff into the product – it always is.
But then the final result would have been different. Undoubtedly the price would have been higher than $150.00. Controlling that feature-creeping urge is close to unique in my experience of product development. Again, congratulations to the 3622 team!
3622 Value Engineering – Parts Count.
One key secret of Value Engineering is using the smallest possible number of parts. Less parts mean lower parts cost. It also means lower assembly cost. Plus, less parts mean less to go wrong – remember that 5-year warranty coverage.
In total, Phillip Guadalupe explained, the Crosman 3622 contains just 54 parts. Total. That includes everything: all the screws, seals, springs and other minor parts.
For example, the 3622 has only four O rings. Trust me, in this case, less really is more!
Now compare that to some high-end PCPs which have over 40 – yes forty! – O rings in their design. That’s close to as many O rings as the 3622 has total parts.
Sure those high-end PCPs offer much higher performance than the 3622. But they also cost more by a factor of 10 to 15 times.
That high parts count means they also have a vastly-increased chance of leaks and other failure modes. Generally they are not supported by a 5-year warranty either. That’s not a surprise.
3622 Value Engineering – Include The Essentials.
But we would be wrong to assume that the 3622 is a design that’s “pared completely to the bone”. Let’s look at two examples, both of which require additional parts, assembly time and therefore cost.
In VP of Marketing And Product Development Joe Brown’s words, “Truly understanding what the consumer needs is the foundation of the 3622 program.”
First, the front sight hood. I assumed it was there primarily to protect the front sight blade. But I was wrong.
During the extensive testing that takes place during any product development project, it was recognized that better accuracy was obtained from shooting the 3622 with a front sight hood than without.
With the 3622 being an “open sights only” gun, that was a big deal. Who doesn’t want better accuracy?
In fact that front sight hood functions something like a tunnel front sight. Working in conjunction with the peep rear sight, the shooter’s eye is naturally better aligned with the sights and – Hey Presto! – accuracy improves. In this case, the additional cost was justified for the 3622.
Then there’s the hammer spring adjustment screw. Although this feature is not called-out in the product instructions, enthusiastic 3622 owners rejoice to know that it’s there, and what it can be used for.
In fact, its primary purpose is to give the manufacturing assembly folk a means of tuning the 3622 to ensure that every gun reaches the muzzle velocity specification before it’s shipped-out. It’s actually a cost increase that benefits downstream warranty costs by ensuring that guns will not be returned for shooting too slow or too few shots.
3622 Value Engineering – If It’s Not Essential, Leave It Out.
Then there’s the 3622’s missing pressure gauge! This bold move meant a reduction of five parts from the design. That’s close to 10% of the total parts count!
Phillip Guadalupe explained the reasoning. Everyone fills their PCP using the large – and more accurate – gauge on the tank or pump, rather than the small one on the gun. Plus CO2-powered guns have been successfully shot for many years without a pressure gauge. So why have one on the 3622?
In detail, the parts saved by this decision were the gauge itself, the gauge port, plus three O rings. Plus there’s no need to machine a hole in the gun’s pressure tube for the gauge to fit through and the added benefit of eliminating potential leak points.
That’s yet another cost saving for both manufacturing and warranty costs from that one brave decision to omit the gauge.
Eliminating the pressure gauge was clearly a major project-level decision that required a huge amount of time and energy to resolve. But the correct decision was made, even though you can still see that recess in the 3622’s forend where the gauge would have been if the decision had gone the other way.
That’s another 3622 secret, as these CAD renderings show!
3622 Value Engineering – Parts Re-Use.
Intelligent parts re-use has been a long-term engineering core competency for Crosman. So, basing the 3622 on the existing multi-pump pneumatic 362 model was a logical, sensible move. Why design a new part if a perfectly-good, proven version exists already?
It’s also a wonderful way to keep Unit Manufacturing Cost down as tooling costs have already been amortized and the part’s reliability is established.
Below. The 3622’s trigger assembly will look very familiar to owners of Crosman 2240, 362, Benjamin Discovery and other models.
For example, let’s take the standard Crosman/Benjamin breech seal/transfer port sleeve that is used to this day on the Marauder and many other airguns. It’s part number 130-036. That “130” refers to its first use in the CO2-powered Crosman 130 air pistol of 1953.
130-036 was used in the Discovery and Maximus. And, yip, you’ll find it still in use in the new Crosman 3622 in 2024 – seventy years later. Ditto for the valve O rings 130-034 and 130-035. That’s world-class parts re-use!
Below. The 3622 is also available in a kit, including a pump. Photo by Atticus Kiser.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed our exploration of Crosman 3622 air rifle secrets.
I’d like to thank Joe Brown, Jeff Mock and the whole Crosman Team for providing this exclusive, unprecedented understanding of how they developed the 3622. I am extremely impressed and hope that you are, too.
Buy one! You’ll love it!
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Crosman 3622 PCP Air Rifle 0.22
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