Aero
Gold $$ Contributor
Here’s a long one for you……..
I was introduced to guns and shooting when I was about 10ish and have been a gun nut from the very first trigger pull. Over 50 years now. Rifles have been my main interest and accurate rifles in particular. Not a day goes by and hasn’t for more years than I can remember that I’m not thinking of, working on, loading for, or shooting rifles. My little sister used to say “my brother is all guns all the time”. She has no idea.
This forum has been my favorite from the time I discovered it, not long after it started. The focus on accuracy is the draw, but there are a bunch of knowledgable people here and there is some very good info that comes from them. There are a couple of other sites that are pretty good, but it’s hard to sort through the bs at times.
I don’t consider myself to be an expert on much of anything and that goes for guns and shooting. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of experience, but expert? When someone tells me they are an expert, I always take that with a grain of salt or two. I’ve met too many gun and shooting experts that really aren’t and they tend to throw out facts without ever having done the testing. Simply repeating things that are well know “facts” about what makes a rifle shoot or not. I’ve never believed much in experts. So, that leads to this little forum post…….
The pictured rifle is a box stock Remington 722 made in 1953 and chambered in 222 Rem. I bought it in the fall of ‘97. It had obviously seen lots of use, but not abuse. I paid $279 for it and it came with the Redfield base and rings that are still on it. Pretty steep at the time, but I really wanted it. The trigger was not too bad at about 2 1/2 lbs, but I managed to get it down to 1lb 2oz and still measures that to this day.
These guns were always known to shoot well, which is part of the reason I wanted it. Once home from the gun shop I poked my Hawkeye down the bore and had instant buyers remorse. The barrel looked horrible! Fire cracked, copper fouled. This thing has had lots of round through it. No way this would shoot. I gave it a good cleaning and set about loading up some test rounds.
I wanted to shoot lighter bullets, but the throat was so long I couldn’t get close to the rifling and still have bullet in the case. I loaded them anyway and off to the range I went. So 28 years ago it was called “working up a load” and as I went along with increasing powder charges the groups were starting to look pretty good, like under 3/4” @ 100. Hmm, maybe my borescope lied to me. Over the coming weeks and months I tried all kinds of different bullets, powders, partial neck sizing, all kinds of stuff. With the bullets it got along with best and the powders that got along with the bullets, the gun was an honest 5/8” shooter. I’m not talking one 5/8” group out of a bunch if the stars are all aligned. I’m talking averages of lots of groups shot over time with different loads. It’s shot a lot of groups between 3/8” and 1/2” and a bunch more at an inch or better.
Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?
So here’s more details about this rifle. As a reminder, this rifle is a 70+ year old factory rifle. The stock has the standard pressure pad at the forend tip and makes heavy contact with the barrel. There is also heavy contact with the barrel at the rear sight “boss”. The front ring of the action only makes contact with the stock at the top edge of the wood and there is not much other action contact with the stock until the tang area. I’ve threatened to “fix” the bedding for years and just had the metal out of the wood last week thinking about doing it again, which is kind of why I’m writing all this.
So, yesterday I’m at the range. I brought this rifle along with a bunch of others to recheck its zero after pulling the metal last week. I took 2 shots @100. I always have had my rifles zeroed @ 200. The orange dot is 3/4”, so right where it should be, about 1 1/2” high. Here’s the zero check group with 1/2 min right from my wind zero. The observant might see 3 holes….more on that coming up.
I’ve got my shotmarker up and running @ 600 since I’m practicing and testing some stuff there. I figure, what the heck. I take a guess since my little dope chart for the 222 load I’m shooting only goes to 500. Here’s the 6 shots @ 600. First shot shows a pretty good guess and a little too much wind @ 4 min. right. Couple clicks up and a couple off the wind knob and 5 more. Last shot was just a little pickup/angle change that I really didn’t see until after the shot registered. Those 52’s get moved by the wind a bit.
Now, back to that 3rd shot on the zero target. After cranking the elevation up to my 600 guess, shooting the 6 at the shotmarker, then back down to zero, then back up to try for a dirt clod on the impact berm 40 yards behind the target, then back down to zero and the wind back to 1/2 right, I took that third shot. All these shots are off a very solid concrete bench, but shooting off a Harris bipod and a little rear squeeze bag, just like in the pic of the rifle above.
Here’s a pic of my load and dope chart.
So, here’s the bottom line of this novel and a list of all the things the experts would say make this entire exercise not likely if not impossible.
70+ year old rifle technology with a factory light contour barrel with likely thousands of rounds through it (I’ve got just over 1500 through it and I bet it had double that on it when I bought it).
Completely unacceptable bedding of a factory wood stock. Really?
Leupold 12x scope (boosted and dot reticle, so about 19x) mounted in antique rings and base. Give me a break!
Shooting off a Harris bipod. Come on!
And even worse, the load. New Starline brass (everybody knows that won’t work). 30 year old powder (Scot 4197), lit by Bosnian Ginex primers.
So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?
The answers are yes and no.
I was introduced to guns and shooting when I was about 10ish and have been a gun nut from the very first trigger pull. Over 50 years now. Rifles have been my main interest and accurate rifles in particular. Not a day goes by and hasn’t for more years than I can remember that I’m not thinking of, working on, loading for, or shooting rifles. My little sister used to say “my brother is all guns all the time”. She has no idea.
This forum has been my favorite from the time I discovered it, not long after it started. The focus on accuracy is the draw, but there are a bunch of knowledgable people here and there is some very good info that comes from them. There are a couple of other sites that are pretty good, but it’s hard to sort through the bs at times.
I don’t consider myself to be an expert on much of anything and that goes for guns and shooting. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of experience, but expert? When someone tells me they are an expert, I always take that with a grain of salt or two. I’ve met too many gun and shooting experts that really aren’t and they tend to throw out facts without ever having done the testing. Simply repeating things that are well know “facts” about what makes a rifle shoot or not. I’ve never believed much in experts. So, that leads to this little forum post…….
The pictured rifle is a box stock Remington 722 made in 1953 and chambered in 222 Rem. I bought it in the fall of ‘97. It had obviously seen lots of use, but not abuse. I paid $279 for it and it came with the Redfield base and rings that are still on it. Pretty steep at the time, but I really wanted it. The trigger was not too bad at about 2 1/2 lbs, but I managed to get it down to 1lb 2oz and still measures that to this day.
These guns were always known to shoot well, which is part of the reason I wanted it. Once home from the gun shop I poked my Hawkeye down the bore and had instant buyers remorse. The barrel looked horrible! Fire cracked, copper fouled. This thing has had lots of round through it. No way this would shoot. I gave it a good cleaning and set about loading up some test rounds.
I wanted to shoot lighter bullets, but the throat was so long I couldn’t get close to the rifling and still have bullet in the case. I loaded them anyway and off to the range I went. So 28 years ago it was called “working up a load” and as I went along with increasing powder charges the groups were starting to look pretty good, like under 3/4” @ 100. Hmm, maybe my borescope lied to me. Over the coming weeks and months I tried all kinds of different bullets, powders, partial neck sizing, all kinds of stuff. With the bullets it got along with best and the powders that got along with the bullets, the gun was an honest 5/8” shooter. I’m not talking one 5/8” group out of a bunch if the stars are all aligned. I’m talking averages of lots of groups shot over time with different loads. It’s shot a lot of groups between 3/8” and 1/2” and a bunch more at an inch or better.
Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?
So here’s more details about this rifle. As a reminder, this rifle is a 70+ year old factory rifle. The stock has the standard pressure pad at the forend tip and makes heavy contact with the barrel. There is also heavy contact with the barrel at the rear sight “boss”. The front ring of the action only makes contact with the stock at the top edge of the wood and there is not much other action contact with the stock until the tang area. I’ve threatened to “fix” the bedding for years and just had the metal out of the wood last week thinking about doing it again, which is kind of why I’m writing all this.
So, yesterday I’m at the range. I brought this rifle along with a bunch of others to recheck its zero after pulling the metal last week. I took 2 shots @100. I always have had my rifles zeroed @ 200. The orange dot is 3/4”, so right where it should be, about 1 1/2” high. Here’s the zero check group with 1/2 min right from my wind zero. The observant might see 3 holes….more on that coming up.
I’ve got my shotmarker up and running @ 600 since I’m practicing and testing some stuff there. I figure, what the heck. I take a guess since my little dope chart for the 222 load I’m shooting only goes to 500. Here’s the 6 shots @ 600. First shot shows a pretty good guess and a little too much wind @ 4 min. right. Couple clicks up and a couple off the wind knob and 5 more. Last shot was just a little pickup/angle change that I really didn’t see until after the shot registered. Those 52’s get moved by the wind a bit.
Now, back to that 3rd shot on the zero target. After cranking the elevation up to my 600 guess, shooting the 6 at the shotmarker, then back down to zero, then back up to try for a dirt clod on the impact berm 40 yards behind the target, then back down to zero and the wind back to 1/2 right, I took that third shot. All these shots are off a very solid concrete bench, but shooting off a Harris bipod and a little rear squeeze bag, just like in the pic of the rifle above.
Here’s a pic of my load and dope chart.
So, here’s the bottom line of this novel and a list of all the things the experts would say make this entire exercise not likely if not impossible.
70+ year old rifle technology with a factory light contour barrel with likely thousands of rounds through it (I’ve got just over 1500 through it and I bet it had double that on it when I bought it).
Completely unacceptable bedding of a factory wood stock. Really?
Leupold 12x scope (boosted and dot reticle, so about 19x) mounted in antique rings and base. Give me a break!
Shooting off a Harris bipod. Come on!
And even worse, the load. New Starline brass (everybody knows that won’t work). 30 year old powder (Scot 4197), lit by Bosnian Ginex primers.
So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?
The answers are yes and no.
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