Category: The Gun Thing

Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them

Bolt-Action Choices: 7.62x39mm Rifles

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

As part of my desire to pull back from longer-distance shooting — perhaps “desire” is the wrong word;  “forced by crap eyesight” is longer, but more accurate — comes the need to look at a rifle which would suit my purpose better than those I already have.  Here’s one such example of a gun currently sitting in Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe, a CZ 550 (6.5x55mm Swede), topped with a Meopta 6-24x56mm scope:

As any fule Longtime Reader kno, I love me my 6.5×55 Swede cartridge, and I love equally the gorgeous CZ 550 Mauser rifle with its sweeeeet single set trigger.   To replace this beauty would require ripping out a piece of my heart;  but, at the same time, it has become too much rifle and honestly, would better suit someone who could actually use it to its full potential.  I’m not that person, anymore.

But if I were going to replace this paragon of excellence, the new bolt-action rifle would need to fill several criteria:  reliable, accurate, and chambered for a cartridge which would not require me to spend almost as much on new ammo as on the rifle and scope.  Something like the 7.62x39mm Russian (of which I have a ummm  modest supply already in Ye Olde Ammoe Locquer).

There aren’t too many of these extant, but here are a couple, with their comparative features side by side:

Given my long and affectionate relationship with CZ rifles, one would think that the 527 would have the inside track;  but I have to tell you, that stubby little bull barrel of the Ruger looks very tempting. I’m not too concerned about the difference in barrel length, because as it is, the 7.62x39mm works just fine in an AK’s 16.5″ barrel, and the shorter barrel would make the Ruger less unwieldy.

And I know that the Ruger’s standard trigger isn’t as good as the 527’s set trigger, but given the price disparity between them, a drop-in Timney (about $150) would still bring the Ranch Rifle’s price in below that of the CZ 527, and if I set it to a sensible 2.5lb pull, that would be more than adequate.

I hate the Ruger’s plastic stock material — or is it a painted laminate? either way, it’s awful — and of course the CZ’s walnut is exquisite by comparison, albeit somewhat heavier.

As for glass:  the 24x Meopta is much more than I need when my likely (and preferred) shooting distance would be somewhat around (and probably less than) 200 yards.  Something smaller (and lighter, as a bonus) would work just as well on either rifle, and I’d be looking at something like a Leupold 3-9x40mm 3HD, a Leupold 2-10x42mm VX-5HD, or else the Minox 2-10×50 ZX5i (all with illuminated reticles, to help my pathetic eyesight):



I have a long and satisfying association with both Leupold and Minox scopes too, so this would not be short-changing myself at all.

One more thing:  I’m not a huge fan of rail scope mounts such as on the Ruger, because they do raise the scope high off the action.  Low scope bases (lower even than on the CZ 500 pictured) would definitely work better for me.

As I said earlier, all the above is certainly food for thought, and I will be considering the whole thing carefully for a while before I drop the hammer, so to speak.  I hate selling guns, but if I’m replacing one that I can’t shoot properly for one that I can, it does make the process easier.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: S&W Mod 25-2 (.45 ACP)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

As I was meandering through the Gun Dork Forest (as I do occasionally), my eye was caught by a couple of rather fine-looking older guns from Messrs. Smith & Wesson.  Here’s the first, the lovely Model 25-2:

Now for those who are unfamiliar with this creature, or those who are perhaps new to this corner of The Gun Thing, you might ask:

“But Kim:  how can you chamber a rimless cartridge into a revolver cylinder?  Don’t the boolets just fall through and out onto the floor?”

Indeed you might think so, Grasshopper, but there are these things called “half-moon” or “full-moon” clips:

I’m not quite sure what brand those cartridges are, but let’s go with “G.I.” (Gay Issue).  (I know I know, it’s really inert ammo shuddup.)

Back in the day when I owned one of these wondrous guns, I always preferred the full-moon clips because I found them easier to load, less likely to bend than the half-moons, and of course it’s a one-step reload.  (Another benefit:  when you slam the ejector rod on a full-moon clip, you don’t have to spend the next five minutes scrabbling around on the floor picking up expended cartridge cases.)

My particular model wasn’t the Mod 25, but the stainless 625 Version:

And if that doesn’t make your trigger-finger itch, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.

Anyway, there are several good reasons to own a Mod 25/625 in .45 ACP, chief among them being that if you already own a 1911 pistol thus chambered (and you should), it means that you won’t suffer from Caliber Proliferation Syndrome in your ammo locker by having to buy .38 Special and / or .357 Magnum ammo.

Finally, of course, there’s nothing wrong with using .45 ACP in your revolver (especially if it has a 5″ barrel), because duh it’s John Moses Browning’s .45 ACP.

Gotta say, though, that blued Mod 25 above sure is pretty, because this is Kim speaking — and blued steel over wooden grips always looks better than bling steel over rubber.

It’s at Collectors, of course.

Next week, I’ll be talking about the other lovely guns I saw there.

No Fun Anymore

Health, The Gun Thing

I used to play golf, a long time ago, and I quite enjoyed it because while I wasn’t that good, at least I was good enough not to make a fool of myself at company golf days, or playing with clients — a competent social golfer, in other words, with some really good shots and not too many abysmal failures.

The problem was that I had to play a lot of golf (at least three rounds a week) to keep that standard up.  And as time went on and I moved into upper management, there was less and less time to play.  Three times a week turned into every other week, then once a month… and my game went to shit.  So eventually I stopped playing, because the most frustrating thing is to know what shot to play, but no longer being able to play it;  and I was just making a damn fool of myself by even trying.

I’ve reached that point with shooting.

People sometimes say that a bad day at the range is still better than a good day at the office, which is total bullshit, of course:  I’ve had days at the range where equipment broke, where I’ve arrived at the range but forgotten my ammo at home — you all know what I’m talking about here.  And I’ve had some days at the office which were pretty spectacular, both from a career perspective and just feeling the satisfaction of having done a really good job that day.

But in my whole life, I’ve only done things until they stopped being fun anymore;  and I’ve reached that point with shooting.  I’ve always been a competent handgun shooter, and a little better than average with a rifle, but I’m no longer either.  My eyes are absolute shit — despite several surgeries, I have advancing glaucoma (which is incurable, and can only be arrested with prescription eyedrops) and even worse, my always-severe astigmatism  seems to be getting worse with advancing age.  Crosshairs in a scope now appear to be two overlapping sets of crosshairs:

 

and a red-dot sight looks like a Mastercard symbol:

 

When trying to place a shot into a 1″ target at 100 yards, it’s almost impossible to shoot consistently because sometimes the left-hand image is in focus, and other times the right-hand one seems to be the one to use.

Frankly, after squinting and refocusing for what seems like minutes, I sometimes just pull the trigger to get it over with.  With predictable — i.e. shit — results.

It’s no good using the best equipment either, because no matter how good, the results are going to be terrible because I just can’t shoot for shit anymore.  And I get no joy out of shooting the good stuff anymore either.

I’m not looking forward to this year’s Boomershoot, where the ranges start at 400 yards, and go out to 900.  If I hit one Boomer over two days, it’ll be a miracle.  And that’s no fun at all, especially when I’m not some newbie shooter — not after sixty-odd years of shooting — even though my targets look like one.

And I’ll be trying like hell not to have to drive at night to get up to Idaho, because:

Last Thursday I was at the range, doing some final adjustments to both Boomershoot rifles — the .308 Win CZ 557 Varmint (this year’s ULD raffle prize) and my 6.5×55 Swede 550.  When I finally gave up, checked out and the counter guy asked me if I’d enjoyed the session, I replied, “No.”  Then I added, “I think my shooting from now on is going to be Coke cans at 25 yards.”  And as I said that, I realized that this really is going to be the case.

I’m done with the Gun Thing.  This will be my last Boomershoot, I won’t be hunting deer in Scotland or birds in Devon with Mr. Free Market, and most probably not even sporting clays.  My only shooting will be to keep in training with my self-defense guns, and a little plinking with .22 rifles at large targets (cans, oranges, that kind of thing) at close range.

I will probably be selling most of my guns — details to be announced later — keeping only a very few that I’m comfortable shooting.

It’s just not fun anymore, so shooting is going to go the way of golf.

Membership

Funny Stuff, The Gun Thing

I’m all in favor of gun rights groups — the more, the merrier, because it stops the existing ones from getting too comfortable and cosy with the politicians, by giving us gunnies more options.  And new ones have been starting up all over the place in recent years.

So, Gentle Readers:  should I join this group?  I certainly qualify.

To mark the occasion, I’d probably get one of these:

(link embedded in the pic)

Change Of Plan: Boomershoot ULD Rifle

Boomershoot

Well, the best laid plans etc. etc.

Everyone should now be aware that this year’s Boomershoot rifle was obtained, I decided on the Savage Apex Predator in .308 Win:

So it arrived, and I collected it from my local Merchant Of Death.  Which is where things started to go sideways.

Guys, look:  if you’ve handled and fired enough rifles — in the many hundreds — you get to where you can get a “feel” for a rifle as you take it out of the box.  And when I took this Savage out of the box, it didn’t feel right.  I know that my preference for wooden stocks is well known, but then again I’ve handled (and owned) scores of plastic-stocked rifles as well;  and this one felt flimsy.  It felt more flimsy than my Marlin SSQ .22 rifle, to be frank.  The barrel also looked a little on the thin side — 20″ is marginal in term of length, and it was fluted.  Had the rifle been chambered in .223 Rem or even .243 Win, I’d probably not have worried too much;  but in .308 Win?  I had a bad feeling about it.

Anyway, I took it to the range, and after giving it a light oiling, I set to ranging it in.

And met with utter failure.  Let’s start with the easy stuff, first.

The rifle would not shoot consistently.  I would get two rounds into a single hole or a keyhole-touching “Mastercard” hole, and then the third would go off into the wild blue yonder, 2″ or even 4″ away.  This pattern repeated itself over the next twenty or so rounds, whereupon I quit because the barrel was super-hot (and I was not shooting quickly);  but worse, I quit because my right hand was getting a fat bruise from working the bolt handle.

The fired cartridges were binding in the chamber.  I mean, really binding.  People joke about needing a mallet to pull a Mosin-Nagant’s bolt back, right?  I would have killed for a mallet.  In fact, at about round #25 I gave up.  The only reason I persisted as long as I did was because I originally thought it was just “new rifle” syndrome or something, but it actually got worse as I went along.

Broken.  So I took it back to the gun store, and asked what to do next:  would they send it back to Bud’s Gun Shop?  No.  I would have to do this all by myself.  (Had I bought the gun at the Merchant Of Death, it would have been different;  but as they were just the conduit, so to speak, they weren’t interested, and probably justifiably so.)

So I contacted Bud’s Gun Shop to see how I could get it back to them, and get a refund — I wasn’t interested in getting a replacement — only to hear from Bud’s that because the rifle is still under manufacturer’s warranty, I’d have to send it back to Savage.  (I won’t go any further into detail about this, as it’s ongoing.  My problem is that I didn’t pay Savage for the gun;  I paid Bud’s, and this may get nasty.)

Anyway, there I was, stuck with a non-working gun, and moreover, a gun that I wasn’t comfortable with in the first place.  And, of course, time is ticking away because I have to leave for Boomershoot on April 27th — three weeks’ time.

Clearly, this called for a change of plan, so here it is:

It’s the CZ 557 Varmint, with a 26″ heavy barrel and a proper bench-type stock.  When I was complaining to the guys at the MoD, I happened to see this on the rack — not too difficult, they only had a few rifles on the rack anyway — and I was expecting to find it in some other caliber;  but no, there it was in .308 Win.  So into the car it went.

It came without a scope, but I’d already got a Vortex 6-24x50mm (to replace the inadequate “package” 4-12x44mm scope which came with the Savage), so I popped that on the CZ.   Except, of course, all my boresighting gear is buried somewhere under the our furniture stacked in my garage, waiting for the flooded apartment’s rehab to be finished.

But what the hell:  I sorta-lined the thing up with the barrel (Warne CZ High rings), and took it to the range yesterday morning.  I put up a large blank paper target with a 1″ orange target dot in the middle, sent it out to 50 yards, and touched off three rounds:

To say I felt relieved would be a huge understatement.  Also, the CZ’s trigger is not a “set” trigger like I’m used to with the brand, but a single-stage number which got smoother and smoother the more I fired it.  Here’s the final target, consisting of three 3-round strings, with scope adjustments between each.  (The overshooting between the point of aim — the orange dot below the diamond — and the point of strike is because I’ll be shooting 8″ boomers at 500-600 yards distance.)

As for the third string:  the flyer was the second shot, and it was operator error, because I paused to take a breath or two after the first shot, and when I exhaled and got into position, Stupid Kim’s finger was on the trigger while I was moving the rifle into position.  So:  unintended discharge (I know, I know) — but the third shot was right back to where it should be.

It’s an absolute beauty, and therein lies our problem.

While the Savage was a budget rifle (around $700 landed at the MoD), the CZ ended up costing just over $950;  and I used the Boomershoot travel fund to pay for it.  In other words, I need y’all to buy a dozen or more tickets to cover the difference.  (Only the difference:  I’ll get the money back for the Savage, never fear — it might just take a while, and the time is ticking away.)

Just so we’re all clear on the topic, though:  this CZ 557 is an excellent rifle, and in the hands of a better shooter will be capable of doing one-hole groups all day.  This is not a budget rifle, as I’d originally planned:  it can hold its own against rifles that cost twice as much, and nobody will ever sneer when you take it out of its case.  So for those of you who held back on getting a ticket because of the “budget” rifle thing:  this is a whole ‘nother ball game, and if ever there was a rig which calls out “serious shooter”, this is it.

Please help me out.

Lessons learned:  if I do this again for next year’s Boomershoot, I’m going to buy the rifle in January, and most probably in 6.5mm Creed, which will give me a chance to get the whole rig settled in properly.

My only regret, now, is that I didn’t get the Zeiss / Meopta / Minox glass as I did last year — but the Vortex seems to be doing just fine.