katokoch
250 or bust
I posted some photos of my custom Suhl 150-1 benchrest rifle after making a laminated cedar/carbon fiber stock for it last year, and since a lot of changes have been made to the rifle. This is the bulletin article on the rifle: http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2013/07/nice-suhl-150-1-rimfire-br-rig-with-home-built-stock/
I shot it in 8 or 9 IR50/50 matches last year and to be honest the results were pretty disappointing. It turns out the 1:19" twist factory barrel simply wouldn't cooperate if the temperatures were below 70 degrees, and it was even better in the 80s. Seeing as I live and shoot in Minnesota, temps in the 50s and 60s were the norm as we started matches in the mornings and there were only a couple months with high enough temps for the rifle to feel somewhat accurate on match day. The best target I shot was a 246 and my X counts were never very high. On a good day, my goal was just to keep my scores above 240 and that didn't always happen.
Over the winter months, I went to work on the rifle and the only things that remained unchanged were the receiver, trigger, and stock. In all, I did the following:
-Installed a new-to-me factory Suhl barrel with a 16.5" twist bore (Loctited barrel in place and re-installed pin)
-Installed a Wolff firing pin spring
-Added a new tuner, this one a "light" Harrel's model with a lathe-turned body
-Replaced the 1979 mfg. Leupold 36x scope (pre locking ring) with a brand new Leupold 40x45mm Competition scope
I had originally planned on getting a quality barrel for the rifle (I was thinking Shilen Ratchet) and having a reputable rimfire gunsmith install it, but the intake manifold gasket in my car blew out at the wrong time and swiftly eliminated my barrel budget. Another rimfire benchrest shooter very graciously sent me the factory takeoff barrel from his Suhl he was having rebarreled and I fitted and installed it on my rifle, using the instructions from rebarreling an Anschutz from Border Barrels' website. I had previously done another rifle with a pinned slip-fit tenon (Marlin 980S) and figured doing the Suhl would take an afternoon- of course it ended up taking the entire weekend!
In addition to all of this, I upgraded my front rest by getting a Caldwell Rock BR rest and replacing the windage top with my Greenlaw windage top. Previously I had a lightweight cast iron base with a non-adjustable top, and then I purchased and put the Greenlaw top on it and used that setup last year. I really like the Greenlaw top but the little cast base meant I had to be careful with moving my rifle in the rests- bump it too hard against the fore-end stop and the whole thing would move. Now this isn't the best front rest rig out there but I think it's a big improvement over what I was previously using. A perfect example of why you should just buy good equipment to begin with!
Sounds pretty good, right? At least I thought so, until I took the rifle to an indoor range to test a dozen lots of Eley Match.
It wouldn't be a trip to the indoor range without zombie targets.
It did shoot some good groups but was constantly throwing shots all over the place and on top of that many bullets made oval-shaped holes on paper, leading me to believe they weren't stabilizing. I shot more 1"+ groups at 50 yards (indoors!) that day than I want to admit to. A rifle that will shoot the occasional one-hole group is fun, but for competition I need something that will do it on a consistent basis. That first trip to the range after making all of the modifications made me want to wrap the rifle around a telephone pole.
After that I came home and instead of torching the rifle like I wanted to, I pulled the tuner off and discovered this:
Ouch. When I got the barrel I was told it might have an issue with the crown and they were not kidding. Realizing a professional fix was probably the best route, I tried lapping the crown by myself first to see if that would make any difference. It helped a little but the rifle was still being a pain. On top of that I made the drive from Minneapolis to Nebraska to do some testing in a private range and while I was boresighting the rifle in the range, my Leupold 36x took a dump on me. The crosshairs had moved since the last time I went shooting and while adjusting the windage, I noticed the crosshairs moved vertically and horizontally. Then I went to adjust the elevation and the crosshairs were dead. Click-click-click nothing! Insert your favorite curse word here! I ended up borrowing a Weaver T36 for the range session, which only showed that the rifle still had some real issues.
I ended up taking the rifle to local gunsmith Jim Kobe and he re-cut a new crown for me. I went shooting the next day with a Mueller 8.5-25x scope (my back-up target scope) and it was like I had a new rifle! When I first test ammo I like to shoot 10 3-shot groups per lot # and the rifle went from fliers in almost every 3-shot group to NO fliers. I ended up shooting my best 10x3 target yet, with one lot # producing 10 3-shot groups that averaged .127" at 50 yards indoors (and with a $150 scope, no less!).
This was the crown after that range session. Looks much better than it used to.
I shot it in 8 or 9 IR50/50 matches last year and to be honest the results were pretty disappointing. It turns out the 1:19" twist factory barrel simply wouldn't cooperate if the temperatures were below 70 degrees, and it was even better in the 80s. Seeing as I live and shoot in Minnesota, temps in the 50s and 60s were the norm as we started matches in the mornings and there were only a couple months with high enough temps for the rifle to feel somewhat accurate on match day. The best target I shot was a 246 and my X counts were never very high. On a good day, my goal was just to keep my scores above 240 and that didn't always happen.
Over the winter months, I went to work on the rifle and the only things that remained unchanged were the receiver, trigger, and stock. In all, I did the following:
-Installed a new-to-me factory Suhl barrel with a 16.5" twist bore (Loctited barrel in place and re-installed pin)
-Installed a Wolff firing pin spring
-Added a new tuner, this one a "light" Harrel's model with a lathe-turned body
-Replaced the 1979 mfg. Leupold 36x scope (pre locking ring) with a brand new Leupold 40x45mm Competition scope
I had originally planned on getting a quality barrel for the rifle (I was thinking Shilen Ratchet) and having a reputable rimfire gunsmith install it, but the intake manifold gasket in my car blew out at the wrong time and swiftly eliminated my barrel budget. Another rimfire benchrest shooter very graciously sent me the factory takeoff barrel from his Suhl he was having rebarreled and I fitted and installed it on my rifle, using the instructions from rebarreling an Anschutz from Border Barrels' website. I had previously done another rifle with a pinned slip-fit tenon (Marlin 980S) and figured doing the Suhl would take an afternoon- of course it ended up taking the entire weekend!
In addition to all of this, I upgraded my front rest by getting a Caldwell Rock BR rest and replacing the windage top with my Greenlaw windage top. Previously I had a lightweight cast iron base with a non-adjustable top, and then I purchased and put the Greenlaw top on it and used that setup last year. I really like the Greenlaw top but the little cast base meant I had to be careful with moving my rifle in the rests- bump it too hard against the fore-end stop and the whole thing would move. Now this isn't the best front rest rig out there but I think it's a big improvement over what I was previously using. A perfect example of why you should just buy good equipment to begin with!

Sounds pretty good, right? At least I thought so, until I took the rifle to an indoor range to test a dozen lots of Eley Match.

It wouldn't be a trip to the indoor range without zombie targets.

It did shoot some good groups but was constantly throwing shots all over the place and on top of that many bullets made oval-shaped holes on paper, leading me to believe they weren't stabilizing. I shot more 1"+ groups at 50 yards (indoors!) that day than I want to admit to. A rifle that will shoot the occasional one-hole group is fun, but for competition I need something that will do it on a consistent basis. That first trip to the range after making all of the modifications made me want to wrap the rifle around a telephone pole.
After that I came home and instead of torching the rifle like I wanted to, I pulled the tuner off and discovered this:

Ouch. When I got the barrel I was told it might have an issue with the crown and they were not kidding. Realizing a professional fix was probably the best route, I tried lapping the crown by myself first to see if that would make any difference. It helped a little but the rifle was still being a pain. On top of that I made the drive from Minneapolis to Nebraska to do some testing in a private range and while I was boresighting the rifle in the range, my Leupold 36x took a dump on me. The crosshairs had moved since the last time I went shooting and while adjusting the windage, I noticed the crosshairs moved vertically and horizontally. Then I went to adjust the elevation and the crosshairs were dead. Click-click-click nothing! Insert your favorite curse word here! I ended up borrowing a Weaver T36 for the range session, which only showed that the rifle still had some real issues.
I ended up taking the rifle to local gunsmith Jim Kobe and he re-cut a new crown for me. I went shooting the next day with a Mueller 8.5-25x scope (my back-up target scope) and it was like I had a new rifle! When I first test ammo I like to shoot 10 3-shot groups per lot # and the rifle went from fliers in almost every 3-shot group to NO fliers. I ended up shooting my best 10x3 target yet, with one lot # producing 10 3-shot groups that averaged .127" at 50 yards indoors (and with a $150 scope, no less!).

This was the crown after that range session. Looks much better than it used to.
