Custom 10/22 Accuracy

[katokoch]

Nope, no funny papers. If it was a verified target, nice job. I was referring to this:

straight factory 10-22 with a trigger and front band removed and 1/2 a foam earplug between bbl and stock at that location, and rim thickness gauged minimags,etc. you can occasionally get 50 yd groups in the zero's, frequently mid-ones, with a tight target chamber which requires scrubbing every 200 rounds, then some # of foulers.

How are you measuring the rim thickness?

 

[seymour fish]

Kato, there is a period in there indicating the end of the musing about rim thickness gauged mini mags. Next sentence re: occasional group at 50 in the zero's, and fairly often in mid-ones is with tenex eps or OLD lapua out of a Tony Kidd built, threaded, bedded, hart barreled custom 10-22 with a Fudd tuner, off sandbags (no rest) as McMillan thumbhole stock has cast off. If you will find best placement of forend on front bag, and then try a slight lift with pistol grip hand to derive a feeling of just beginning to float the buttstock off the rear bag a smidge, you might 'find something'. rim thickness gauges: the bald eagle is whiz bang, fast, and expensive, but not repeatable and sold it. you want the neil Jones. does not give 0.000" reading, just a sliding scale number, but will produce improvement on target with cheap ammo that out of the box shoots 2 or three distinct reasonably tight groups. Headspace deal; might want to set it at .0425-.0430, then start testing. Try a 2-1/2 minute time-limit usbr or
ir-50/50 target. the only advantage running a 10-22 is Speed, thus it is for chasing the spotter

 

[butchlambert]

What does measuring rim thickness do for you?

 

[seymour fish]

Butch, the rim thicknesses on cheap ammo are often all over the place. given that a factory 10-22 is typically headspaced at .052 or so, sorting by rim thickness is lost in the noise. if you tighten it up to .0425-.043 or so, then you may find a particular rim thickness shoots better. could be a .039 to a .041 works best. empirical. have not found it to be of any advantage with eley or lapua, even when the rim thicknesses vary a bit, which is paradoxical. Is it worth the trouble? if you have a 10-22 shooting 2 or 3 separate distinct groups out of a given box of ammo, then probably so. if looks like a shotgun pattern, no. Only one way to find out for sure, and helps to be retired. lol. Seymour

 

[butchlambert]

So empirical data says it helps with junk ammo, but not with the best Eley or Lapua?

 

[seymour fish]

Butch, exactly. Thanks, Seymour

 

[seymour fish]

Further musings: Watch how the bolt shaves a bit of lead off the underlying bullet in the magazine and how the feed angle shaves lead on chambering, indicating that mag-to-action fit might be important. thus you may find that some mags are 'more accurate'.

watch the lead ring build, while monitoring accuracy. you may find a plateau, hopefully a wide one. with a tight chamber there comes a time when this buildup may produce a slam-fire, so extreme caution is advised.

It helps to know your accuracy round-count with a given cleaning regimen, and to experiment with this to find a regimen which allows accuracy to return with a minimum number of foulers.

all these things tend to be empirical, and time consuming, yet rewarding. Seymour

 

[DaveC]

For me the objective of sorting by rim thickness and weight is to eliminate flyers. Auto loaders have lots of inherent accuracy issues and I generally compete against Anschutz, MOA's, Contenders, etc. so eliminating ammo issues helps.

For my 10/22’s (Chargers) in 200 yard matches and IHMSA:

Wolf, Fed 711B, RWS Match – I sort by rim thickness then sort each of those groups by weight. The batches that are on the extremes of the bell curve I use for tree rats, the other batches are labeled & kept together for club matches with the batches in the center of the bell curve used for 200 yards and shoot offs.

Fiocchi SM320, Tenex, Eley Match, Midas, Center X – I check one or two boxes of each new lot to make sure they are as expected.

"Winning is not everything, but making the effort to win is." Lombardi

 

[holstil]

Cheap aftermarket bbl bedded the entire length, with floating action and the right ammo (old red box lapua):

Is it safe to assume these barrels are glued in?

Thanks, Jim

 

[seymour fish]

jim, yes. black RTV silicone. Seymour

 

[seymour fish]

DaveC, have you found fliers to fall outside plus or minus 1 SD of your normal velocity spread. If so, would suspect weight would be most important culling parameter. If not, is it headspace outliers that fly? How tight is your ES for your twice- culled ammo for 200? just trying to arrive at a reward ratio. Can you quantify any improvement on target for each culling step in terms of improvement in group size or perhaps predictability in the wind, or is it simply down to eliminating fliers ? Great post BTW, and thanks, Seymour

 

[DaveC]

Sorting just gives me a way to shoot lower priced ammo in club matches, by sorting twice I’ve found all the rounds in each batch to be very uniform BUT they still don’t match Fiocchi SM320 for me (I haven’t been able to find SM320 in a year though). I don’t waste my time on CCI, Winchester or bulk Federal ammo because my chambers are match chambers and they just don’t work for me.

 

[butchlambert]

Sorting just gives me a way to shoot lower priced ammo in club matches, by sorting twice I’ve found all the rounds in each batch to be very uniform BUT they still don’t match Fiocchi SM320 for me (I haven’t been able to find SM320 in a year though). I don’t waste my time on CCI, Winchester or bulk Federal ammo because my chambers are match chambers and they just don’t work for me.

Dave,
Have you ever shot V315 pistol Super Match in your rifle. It shoots very very well in my 10/22. I have 3 bricks left that were sorted by rim thickness, not by me. I'm not a believer in it.

 

[Tommie]

I have a 40 year old Ruger 10/22. It use to shoot pretty good for a semi auto sporter. Then it started shooting like crap.I decided to try to revive it. New Kidd two stage trigger, Hogue stock, Dan Muller/MullerWorks barrel. Rim fires are not my forte. This will be a new experience. I want sub .5moa at 50 yards.
Nat Lambeth

Just for clarification, a .5 MOA group at 50 yards would be (approximately) one quarter inch. Is that your accuracy goal with this gun?

 

[DaveC]

I've never shot the V315 pistol Super Match but I love the SM320, I've shot it at matches over 110 degrees in Okla and 23 degrees in Georgia with little change in sight setting. Wolf drops at least 3 inches in my Charges when the temp is under 40 degrees. The Fiocchi dry lube dosn't pick up sand and for IHMSA the lead is hard enough to always take over rams.