In the 1930s, Crosman began to experiment with CO2 power. Like other CO2 guns of the day, they were "bulk fill", which meant that liquid CO2 was loaded into a pressurized reservoir on the gun. Other manufacturers started to use 8 gram CO2 bulbs used in soda dispensers. Crosman capitalized on this in 1954 by introducing a new 12 gram CO2 bulb, called a "Powerlet". The new Powerlet gave more shots per bulb than the soda bulb, and with the addition of a simple spacer, a Powerlet gun could use the shorter 8 gram bulb.