One thing I learned in the military is that equipment should be made so that it can’t be reassembled incorrectly. If there is a way do so, Private Snuffy will find it.
Imagine my surprise when one of my long range guests suffered a major jamming issue with his AR 10. It would fire one round, but the empty brass would jam in the left side of the chamber. Under great force, of course, requiring the release of both pins and complete removal of the lower, then much force on releasing the charging handle. After the brass was removed and the rifle reassembled, we tried loading a round and then ejecting it without firing. This was the result:
Another hard jam on the left side of the chamber, and the bullet now deeply seated. Light bulb goes off. Is it possible that the bolt could be installed 180 degrees out? Now, every M16/AR15 pattern rifle I have disassembled, the bolt cam pin hole is eccentric on one side and round on the other. It is physically impossible to insert the cam pin on the wrong side. We found the exception – round all the way through. So 50% chance of reassembling it bass-ackwards. Huh.
Good thing this is Mrs. Red’s car. I wouldn’t stand for it in mine.
And the detritus of destruction?
Approximately 150 freshly tumbled cases, once-fired .308 brass, with a few 6.5 Creeds in the mix. And my buds are using the good stuff- Federal Gold Match! Single digit Standard Deviation and Extreme Spread. But as our mentor says, “Yeah. Good practice ammo.
I’ve got some shooting buddies up here for an annual long distance shoot. Experience level varies greatly. But they come up from NY, NJ and MA to the Free State of NH to exercise their rights to keep and bear arms. And to shoot them at long distances. So, in the meantime:
Yesterday I mentioned jumping on to semi-auto .22 rifles in our Bangsticks for Beginners discussion. Then I realized we had skipped some important things on .22 hanguns – actually shooting them! As I was remediating that condition today, I also rembered some stuff I glossed over. Spent cartridge ejection. Let’s cover that now since it has some range safety implications.
You can see the shiny ejection rod poking through the empty chamber. Once the rounds are fired, you go to half-cocked, as if loading, then push down on the spring loaded ejection rod at the front of the barrel. You need to pop out each spent round as you rotate the cylinder. Again, limited ammo and manual ejection slows down the process so beginners can grasp everything fully.
As far as the Ruger SR 22 (and all other semi-auto handguns), when the slide recoils to the rear, it first extracts the spent shell from the chamber, continues toward the rear where it is mechanically extracted and flung to the side, then cocks the trigger/hammer, moves back forward and strips a new round from the top of the magazine and seats it in the chamber. It all sounds very complex and happens fast, but is a simple complex.
Now the Range Safety Tip. Extracted Brass Is Hot! ‘mkay? As much as I appreciate women wearing low cut blouses, that’s a no-no on the range. Same same for open shoes. And an absolute necessity is eye protection (safety glasses for the slow to catch on). Finally, a brimmed hat to help deflect hot brass.
Safety nag over. Let’s shoot!
You can see a round in the cylinder, and the extractor rod tube ahead and aligned with it.
Results? OK, on paper but not very good.
Top is 5 yards, bottom is 7, two-handed grip, Weaver stance (file for future reference). I clearly was not keeping the front iron site down all the way in the rear notch, hence, shooting high. My trigger pull was poor, pushing the rounds left. Back to fundamentals, as certain people always preach. The Ruger? Also inconsistent:
Oh, we can do better than that. Sure, it’s 85 degrees, I’ve been mowing for four hours, and my socks are too tight. 7 yards, RG on the center, Ruger on the end of the right bar:
Practice, practice, practice. Maybe .22 rifles tomorrow. But, a teaser for later. See anything different?
In the rain. The rifle performed flawlessly. The three shots in yellow were Hornady 140 AMax, followed by the three in blue, which were Sierra Game King 140s. Disregard all the .22 holes – it was raining and the target was down there.
I talked about the issue last night on Ace, with the following as maybes: tight chamber, need a small-base die, hot chamber. But I’ll go with this one: Socks too tight, and the Range was angry that day, my friend.
Aspirin Shoots! In the rain! 39 degrees! North wind 13 gusting 29! But ya do what ya gotta do.
If you squint real hard, you can just barely see the Know Your Limits steel at 150, just to the right of the yellowish 200 yard target board.
Only 4 brave shooters today, but it does help the odds.
Of taking the W.
And 26 MOA rings steel at 200. But it is a little embarrassing. Two years ago I took a first with 32 out of 40. Today, a 23. I’ll still take the win and the .50 BMG brass first prize.
It (the problem) really is the first thing to check. I’ll fess up at the bottom. So I went to the range. Got on paper and zeroed at 25 yards. Then went to 100. No. 1 below are the first two, No. 2 is dialed down 4 MOA.
The circle at the lower right is first suppressed shots. I dialed up 2 MOA and shot the orange splatter target on the far left. .432”. I’ll take it. I then locked that in as my zero and did first round hits on the dueling tree paddles at 200 and 300. And went home, where I reinstalled the zero stop shims:
The shims give you a little bit of a fudge factor if you need to dial down your zero on a high DA day. You can see that the actual stop is down about 1.75 MOA.
I just sent thank you notes to Vortex and Ruger. Oh, the problem? Well, wind, temperature, ammo, rifle and scope were perfect. The only remaining variable was the operator. I suspect I started chasing the windage with the dial and got lost. Lesson – do not chase the windage with the dial. Use your scope hash marks to offset. D’oh.
But at least the exercise gave me a positive reality check on the scope and rifle. Life is all about experiencing it, I guess. 🤡
They said it would be here today. And they were right. All cleaned up and tested, plus another cool decal for my range box.
Listen to me on this one – if you are going to work on scopes, you need these tools, both by Wheeler: FAT wrench for torque in inch-pounds, and scope level set.
I sent the box by USPS on Tuesday. Vortex sent an email today (Wisconsin) confirming receipt and letting me know what to expect. So far, so good. So what did I do with the rest of my day?
Ranging the distance to all the targets by drone!
I used up three complete batteries because I hovered and maneuvered next to each group to get an accurate distance(although the latter targets are off because the drone updated its home location after leaving the bench).
Well, once the drone work was done (and I warmed up in the car (39 degrees, and a brisk damp wind)), I uncased the .308. Yes, I had brought gear in the event I really wanted to shoot. Amazing.
Ballistics were perfect at the 525 boulder, very close at 750 (but with 5 MOA windage correction) and, after a number of rounds, hit 900. Elevation was great, but the wind was all over the place. Very satisfying hearing the steel ring about three seconds after the shot! Maybe I’ll do some drone footage tomorrow.
Back to the range with the Predator 6.5 and the AR-10 after their deep cleaning.
No snow!
The AR loved the deep clean. First fouling/sighter shot in the center target. The next 4 were in the upper left target. But the 6.5? POA was lower left target. POI was lower right. 12 MOA to the right? No wonder I couldn’t hit anything on the Long Range last week.
I adjusted windage several times and all I got were the two on the bottom left. I loosened the windage set screws, reset them, checked out far travel on both sides and still got way left. I think my trusty Vortex Viper 6x24x50 has a problem. Over 3k rounds may have disturbed something. I contacted Vortex for the Lifetime Warranty. We shall see.
KatNap Fever! 