Gear out there from our friends?

[davidjoe]

Now and then we have a friend who retires from match shooting, but sometimes that friend’s gear isn’t like our own or anyone else’s.

I watched the evolution and development of my good friend’s gear over the 20-teens. He’s retired from match shooting (for the time being at least) but a trove of his ideas will soldier forward. I’m just getting my feet wet with it. Wanted to finish paying him, first I guess .

This rifle still in the white was not quite finished and not yet shot in a match, when the fun wound down. It was number three and different from the prior two black versions with a milled-in 3 inch foreend instead of separate precision pieces. All are Bat 3LL’s, and having nudged him that way when he wanted to move from Savage, it’s fitting to have them now. Metallic stocks aren’t common in F-Class, and I never did fully understand their rationale.

The rest pictured bottom is the all grown up version of the original, which I currently put to good use in .22 RF matches. These, I now am coming to fully understand.

The heads of the rests pan freely and of course pivot, making it less important how precisely the rest is pointed at the target. In Rimfre, this is literally the only method I’ve found to allow the “one shot per bull” target to be reliably shot. Any rest or bipod will let the second shot and onward group well, but almost no rest likes to move, and then hit a tiny dot, repeat process.

These front rests bookend the F-Open rule changes of several years ago, which actually resulted from my friend’s interim head design,between these two, and the big 55 pound Open rest originally put the tiny sandbags on the line, to my knowledge.

My friend was an F-Open innovator. Anyone have friend’s ideas and gear they want to admit to copying, or lucking their way into?

 

[davidjoe]

In the last couple of weeks I have been finding new appreciation in the heartiness of the old, straight .284. I have never blown up a bullet shot from a .284, and that includes shooting them from 35 inch barrels.

I just rebarreled this gun, which I bought with low round count after, I believe, its length was not considered ideal, for either the original customer of my friend who relieved him of it.

This is Thomas “Speedy” Gonzalez build for a US team member whose name still appears on the bolt release. I have no idea about the black trigger and housing plate with an emblem on it but no name, perhaps Speedy has a private label made.



I acquired it with a heavy contoured barrel and didn’t really understand why, since the channel was made for a straight 1.25”. Could be that the RAD, which adds weight and the intended scope weren’t compatible. Now it’s equipped with a Bartlein 5R 8.5 twist, straight, and a very light, fixed 42 power NF comp. I mounted it high as the Bat is a dual port, and that combined with being a coned face gun could potentially maximize directing gas rearward on a really bad day.

The bedding job is immaculate, as is all the detail work. Getting this gun “as built” by a top gunsmith, one of only a couple in that category that I have, removed the possibility of certain of my tendencies determining its design, and it will be interesting to compare the results.



I have another gun to follow, eventually, and that used custom gun actually has an inarguable track record, leaving nowhere to hide.