Author: RI Red

Dunno. What do you want to know? Lawyer, shooter, boater, aviator, etc.

Garand Love

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Going from one end of the spectrum to the other – .22 to .30-‘06.
About a dozen and a half years ago I got serious about CMP – Civilian Marksmanship Program. The allure of “a Garand for a Grand” was overwhelming. After jumping through minor hoops (belong to a CMP-affiliated gun club, not be a prohibited person, send check),I received at my front door a cardboard box containing a green gun case and a beautiful M-1 Garand rifle.
Yes, you heard right, no FFL and right to my door. And I was a resident of a very gun-unfriendly state at the time.

The serial number indicated a manufactured date of March, 1945, probably intended for the invasion of Japan. Thank you, President Truman, no invasion needed. And my dad came home on two feet, so I am here. And so is my Garand. Let’s take a look:

The stock arrived new and unfinished. I applied the Birchwood Tru-Oil, 00 steel wool, Birchwood Gun Wax and elbow grease.

Yesterday I was reorganizing a cabinet and moved several ammo boxes of Greek .30-‘06 made in the mid-70s. I had ordered a thousand rounds from CMP (at less than $0.50 per round, as I recall). The forecast was bluebird and 50 degrees, so a range trip was in order. I wanted to shoot some of the 50 year-old ammo and compare it to some modern American Eagle 150 grain FMJ.
I also brought my Savage Axis boltie along as a control test.

Beautiful day at the range with a beautiful tool:

Yes, it’s in a lead sled. I once shot over a hundred rounds at one sitting and the shoulder bruising was remarkable. So, Greek on the left and American Eagle on the right. One hundred yards with aging eyes that could barely see the center of the target.

Clearly a fouling shot high left, then came together at about 2.5”. The American Eagle grouped nicely at about 1.4” with one flyer. The Greek averaged 2729 fps muzzle velocity, Standard Deviation of 37 and Extreme Spread of 94 fps; the American came in at 2637 fps mv, SD of 21 and ES of 54 fps. Seems as if sitting around for a half century did not faze the old ammo.

Thereafter, I spent a lot of time and all of the ammo I had brought trying to bring up the zero. The elevation knob screw would loosen, but the knob would not loosen enough to reset the zero. Drat. Down to the workshop in a bit.

But I still had the Savage and a box of Federal 180 grain. Not really a fair comparison since the Savage has a 1×9 scope and the ammo is different. But it’s a beautiful day, I’m at the range and have ammo. So:

Upper and lower left. Better group was an inch.
So, old and new, same caliber, both effective. The Garand is heavier and much more pleasant to shoot. The Savage is accurate, but light and packs a punch. But there’s nothing like the ping of an en banc clip ejecting.

What the heck is an “Aspirin Shoot”?

RI Red2 Comments

Well, d’oh. You get up early in the morning and scout those little rascals and blast the heck out of them . .

Really, though, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to claim your favorite shooting table at the club. The rock solid one that gives you the best angle on those little devils.
Here is the course of fire: Aspirin at 50 yards. Tums at 100. Know Your Limits steel at 150. Same at 200. .22 caliber only, but any rifle you want. Bipod and rear bag only.

10 aspirin on your individual cardboard target. One fluorescent sighter target. You may take up to 10 sighter shots, but once on the aspirin, you cannot go back. One shot per aspirin. If the round touches any part of the aspirin it is a hit. Yes, black wax streak on the side is a hit. Max score of 10.

Same thing at 100 yards with Tums. Word to the wise – this is the hardest stage.

At 150, the 5 hanging KYL targets start at 8” diameter and go down to 2.5”. You must hit each target before going on to the next. Once you hit the smallest one, you keep shooting at it.

200 yards is the same. So max score possible is 40 points. On a great day the winning score is 32-34 points. On a cold winter day in blowing snow, low 20s will win.
So what rifle do you use? At least at our club, everyone started out with Ruger 10-22s, and shot CCI Standard. But is wasn’t long before ammo changed to Eley, SK, Wolf, and rifles changed to CZ, Ruger

Precision Rimfire, and the like. My own upgrades were the Christiansen Ranger and the Ruger Precision Rimfire.

Let’s take a look:

This is the best I’ve shot. 9/10. Pretty sure won that day with a 34.

Tums are tuff. At 100, wind really kicks in.

An 8 will keep you in the running.

This is what you are shooting at.

And it looks like this:

Some people say that .22 at 200 yards is similar to large caliber at 1000. I tend to agree. The .22 LR is an anemic round; it gets pushed around by the wind a lot. But it’s been around for a hundred and fifty years and is arguably the most popular caliber. It is hard to shoot well at distance.

But would you stand there and offer to be a target? I don’t think so.

Accurizing the Ruger 10-22, Part 5

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A quick recap to see how we got here:

  1. Barrel free-floated.
  2. Receiver bedded.
  3. Pillar and new escutcheon bedded in place.
  4. New trigger group installed.
  5. New action screw to receiver torque-tested.
  6. Receiver tune-up parts installed.

At this point I’ve put about $150.00 and many man-hours into the project. My initial conclusions were that I had increased accuracy somewhat, and that it was a fun project. But final testing after finding the proper torque on the pillar-bedded rifle showed a significant improvement – from over an inch at 50 yards to just over 1/2”. For a stock 20 year-old Walmart-purchased Ruger 10-22, I’ll take that.

However.

Before I had figured out the absolute criticality of torque on the action screw, I was getting such inconsistent results that I thought that I’d just order a new barrel. I also wanted to shoot suppressed; therefore it needed to be threaded. Off to Green Mountain.

Now, the original barrel is stainless, 21”. There is constant discussion about the perfect .22 barrel length – 16, 18, 22”? My Aspirin Shoot rifles are 16” and are under 1 MOA. I decided to try the Green Mountain stainless, threaded 16.25” bull barrel.

But to install it, we have to change our bedding.

Off to the range!

Sorry, the Dirty Bird targets don’t splash with .22. But unsuppressed we get groups of CCI Standard – .846, .544 1 F; Wolf – .457, .346 1 F; SK Rifle Match – .618, 1.00; and CCI Green Tag – .861, .744 1 F.

Suppressed is a little easier to see. We get CCI Standard at 1.126, 1.207 1 F (ouch!); Wolf – .343, .615 1F; SK – .658, .847; and CCI GT – .861, .645 1F.

Looks like my old standby, CCI Standard is out of the running, at least when suppressed? But all in all, the barrel seems to perform very well with some ammo and decently with other. My one regret is that the rifle no longer feeds Eley ammo. That stuff is superb in my Aspirin Shoot rifles. Unfortunately, it has a flat nose with a little cone in the center (patented!). The flat nose catches on the chamber edge and turtles.

And that’s the end of this story. 😇 Don’t worry. There’s more. Much more. Can you say “Aspirin Shoot”?

Accurizing the Ruger 10-22, Part 4.

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This is actually more like Part 3 (b). I’m going to go over some incidental improvements that I’ve added to the rifle in the course of accurizing. First, the Ruger BX-Trigger:

Not expensive nor super top of the line, but it decreased trigger pull from 3.5 lbs to 2.5 lbs, a nice pull weight for accuracy. Also, notice the red pin. That is a neoprene-like substance that replaces the aluminum recoil stop in the back of the receiver. It is a more forgiving material that absorbs some of the recoil of the bolt flying back in the receiver. See installed below:

Next, haven’t you always been told to clean the barrel from the chamber to the muzzle and not the other way around? Starting at the muzzle can damage the crown and affect the gas pattern and bullet exit and thus, accuracy. So how do you do it on the Ruger without removing the barrel from the receiver? There is an answer in the form of a jig:

Above, reverse order because I am still a WordPress newb and/or impatient.

Other upgrades:

Did I mention that I want a new barrel? That will have to wait until Part 5.😢

Accurizing the Ruger 10-22. Part 3.

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Yes, she’s shooting pretty well, but unintended consequences rears its ugly head: the pillar raises the barrel a bit more up off of the fore-end, so the scope zero has now gone much higher. I’ll need at least a 30 MOA ramp to bring it down.

Well, 30 MOA didn’t cut it. Turns out I needed much more. So I grabbed the old 20 MOA ramp and commenced to filing. Comes in at about 45-50 MOA.

Now that’s a ramp! However . . . The forward mounting screw now sticks down into the receiver and binds the bolt enough to keep it from going into battery. Hmmmm. That’s what dremels are made for.
But now I have the MOAs to shoot at 300 yards with no hold-over.

Looks like this rifle likes CCI Standards for regular chow (although I know she like some brands of match-grade ammo for dessert). More on that later.

She sprays most other kinds. Looking at past data, CCI Standard groups have gone from an average of 1.71” at 50 yards to 0.682”. That’s down 0.489”, almost a full half inch and 1 MOA! Accurizing successful, so far.

But from a low of 0.373” and a high of 1.03”, both with a flyer, I’m still not completely happy. Almost time for a Part 4.