Friday, November 20, 2009

Hit the range the other day with a friend; good because
He hadn't been in quite a while, and
We hadn't gone together in even longer.
So we made lots of holes in targets. One of the things I had to do was sight in; I had a pistol scope I'd taken off the Trailside, and found some extra-high rings and mounted it on the 15-22.
The rings fit right onto the rail as they should. And, amazingly, it only took about three clicks left and two up to put it dead-on at fifty yards. I will note that it would actually have fit my face better with even higher rings, but this is what I had(do they make extra-extra high rings? Need to look).

It was blowing like hell yesterday, which did not help, and the angle of the sun was giving me some glare on the front lens; not ideal conditions for ammo testing. But, results so far, of the ammo I've tried, the most accurate out of this are Centurion 40-grain solids
and the real surprise, Eley Sport
Being lazy, instead of putting up another target for these I just held on the 12; no, I couldn't actually see the '12', just held where I knew it should be. The two to the right are called flyers, and I wasn't trying real hard for the best groups(see 'hell, blowing like' above); just steadied on the mark and squeezed off, and got this. And that's 20 rounds. The accuracy wasn't a surprise, I've had good results from this ammo before, but it's standard velocity stuff so most autoloaders won't reliably feed it(just not enough energy to fully cycle the action) ; yet it cycled through perfectly. You could tell from the sound and recoil it's a lighter load, but no failure to feed, cock or anything else. Impressive from the rifle.

Just to prove that I can actually shoot decently(sometimes), I'd taken the Martini model 8 along, and managed to fire this group at 50 yards
also with Eley Sport. And that's sitting at a bench, elbows rested and using the sling. I'll excuseblame the not as good groups from the S&W mostly on a little difficulty keeping the eye properly aligned(see 'rings' above), and it's quite possible that with some match ammo it might do much better; I just find it very easy to shoot good groups with this old BSA. I'll throw in that with the iron sights on the S&W, I actually managed equal to slightly better groups(with the Centurion) last time; sometimes a scope has its own problems.

I'm not real familiar with the AR-type platforms, does using a sling on them help with accuracy? Or is it not helpful with this rifle type?

On ammo, has anyone else noticed the variability in the recent batches of bulk-pack ammo? Out of some Remington Golden Bullet I got everything from proper high-velocity 'cracks' to one that damn near sounded like a CB cartridge, and some in between; not good for accuracy. And similary variability(not quite as bad) from some Federal 36-grain HP.

Friend had something along he picked up recently, and I'll try to get a good picture of it later: a Husqvarna single-shot bolt rifle in .32-20. Octagonal barrel, still has a lot of the colors from the case-hardening showing on the bolt and receiver, nice walnut stock; lovely thing. And a very good trigger; it shot very nicely.

So that was range day. Good time had by all, etc.

1 comment:

Kevin said...

If you secure a sling to the Quadrail, I think you'll find that at best your groups will shift, and at worst, they'll open up dramatically. That rail will move noticeably under tension from a sling.