RANGE REPORTS

Single Shot Exercise (5/15/96)

This past weekend the wife and the kid were out of town picking up the mother-in-law for a visit so I managed to get in some quality range time. Mostly, I shoot at the city of Dallas range, Elm Fork (or Winchester), in the Trinity River Bottoms on the western edge of Dallas. The range sits in the flood plain along with tennis courts and a golf range. They have a hundred yard rifle range (bench rest only, no FMJ, no semi-auto military weapons, but heavy concrete benches), a 25 yard pistol bullseye range, a police range, and various shotgun stuff.

Earlier I had run out to Carrolton to pick up my 256 Martini onto which a local gunsmith had affixed a Lyman 17A front globe. I traded for this gun in Tulsa and discovered on the only previous time that I shot it that it printed about 6-8" high at 100 yards with the Redfield rear aperture in the lowest position. When I shot it before I had worked through loads of 12-15g of H-116 (looks to be like non-canister W-680) with no pressure signs. Basically, I made up loads every half grain from 15-17g of powder with the Hornady 75g JHP. For grins, I also made up some loads with 85g ballistic tips and 87g Speer soft points which I had on hand from previous unsuccessful experiments with a Model 70 257 Roberts long since consigned to that great gun show in the sky. After getting the gun on target at 50 yards I commenced firing 5 shot groups at 3.5" pink dots pasted onto scrap electrostatic plotter paper at 100 yards. These dots are a bit too small but they're what I had. The bad news is that I couldn't get anything resembling a tight group from any of the four heavier bullet loads. The good news is that all the 75g loads went into less than 1.75" and a couple of groups in the middle of the powder weight range went into about 1.25". This is about as good as I can shoot with iron sights. I experimented with different inserts for the front globe and finally settled on a plastic translucent insert with a large hole as being the easiest on my eyes.

The cases were made up from 357 mag. brass by running the cases into a 30 Mauser die and then running then into the 256 die. They came out a bit too long so I ground the ends down with a side grinder. After getting them all fired once, I trim them to length with a regular case trimmer. I really think H-116 is a bit too fast for 75g bullets in this cartridge and would prefer a lighter bullet but about all that's available is a flat point 60g Hornady 25-20 bullet.

As it happens I had another Martini to test fire. This would be the 22 Jet which I've been having trouble deciding whether to keep or sell. Previously I had worked up a load with about 13.8g of AA1680 and 45g .223" diameter soft points as the barrel on the Jet originated on a Remington target rimfire. On hand I had a bunch of different types of 22 bullets pulled from hornet cases (don't ask why). Anyway I made up nearly 150 Jet rounds and fired about 2/3 of them. The jet was also wearing a different scope, a 3x9 Bushnell. First thing I discovered was the scope didn't have enough eye relief for my normal bench rest position and consequently, I was reduced to a rather awkward posture. I did manage a number of groups running about an inch and a quarter with the winner being a Remington 46g .224" diameter hollow point that's intended for the 218 Bee. I also had a couple of 40g Nosler Ballistic Tip loads to test but they didn't shoot as well as the heavier bullets. In any event I found the results sufficiently encouraging to mount an old Weaver 12X scope on the gun when I got home for more testing. If the gun continues to show promise, I'll think in terms of refinishing/repairing the stock and perhaps hanging onto it. Who knows?

Last and hardest on my shoulder was my Browning High Wall in 270. I had previously worked up a 90g JHP load with H4895 which will shoot into less than an inch. Of secondary interest was working up a 130g load in the event I manage the fortitude to take the single shot deer hunting next year. Previously, I had good results with WC-860 surplus powder (about 15% slower than H-870 according to the label on the bottle) but due to lack of range time had not shot the last six test loads I made up. Bullets used were 130g Remington, 130g Nosler Ballistic Tips, and 130g Sierra soft point spitzers. Five of the Sierra bullets went into just under an inch and I decided to call it a load. I'm not a fan of glossy finished rifles imported from Japan but this gun really shoots well. Hope your weekend went as well as mine.

Wynnewood/Winchester Shooting Report (5/31/96)

I had previously settled on a load of about 13.7-13.8g of AA1680 with 45/46g JHP bullets for the Jet. The rifle had started out with an old K-6 Weaver with fine crosshairs, then had worn a compact Bushnell 3x9 which didn't have enough eye relief for the mounting position, and had finally ended up with an even older AO Weaver K12 with duplex crosshairs. In any event I shot the rest of the rounds I had made up and one of the five shot groups with cases that had been necksized went into about .94". Most of the remaining groups had 3-4 shots in about an inch with a flyer or two. This was not a day on which I was to shoot my best due to a lot of mental agitation over one thing or another. However, I concluded that this gun will do about 1"-1.25' at least and really shoots too well to rebarrel. It looks as if it's my next wood refinishing project.

Meanwhile, the 256 Martini had been trying to decide whether it preferred Hornady 75g JHP's or the Sierra 75g JHP's. I had made up loads with 16.1, 16.3, 16.4, 16.5, 16.6, and16.7g of H-116 with the Sierra bullets to experiment with. Best group was about .9"with 16.5g of powder. The lighter loads shot very poorly and the 16.4-16.7g loads shot nearly equally well. I couldn't tell much difference in comparing the Sierra bullets to the previously tested Hornady bullets. All things considered I'm going to fire up the brass trimmer, square off the case ends, and trim them to a consistent length so that I can try again with either 75g bullet and powder weights in the 16.5-16.9 range. I may also work up a load with 60g bullets if I can ever find any.

After shooting Friday afternoon, the family drove to Wynnewood, OK where my mother-in-law lives on 80 acres, a third of which has been deeded to my wife. I have set up a small area with a target stand in a sand pit for pistol practice on her property. Got out my Python and proceeded to go through about one box of 38 special HBWC (3.3g of W231, 148g swaged bullets) and a box of hot loaded 125g 357 JHP's. These featured a maximum amount of Blue Dot which I have since concluded is too hot for use as a regular load. I've about six boxes left and when these are gone there'll be no more blue dot shot out of my guns. Too inconsistent from one can to the next. My shooting wasn't much to write home about either. I've spent too much time the last six months shooting rifle and have not gotten in enough pistol work.

Overnight it stormed knocking the power out from my mother-in-law's old house and I got to dress in the dark for my best friend's wedding (lucky guy-the lady he's marrying already has a couple of guns and knows how to reload) in OKC. We get back just in time for another late evening shooting session. To walk to the shooting spot I have to go over the dam on a medium sized stock tank. As I rounded the dam, I spotted a doe on the opposite side of the water about 50 yards away. She knew I was there but must of realized that it wasn't hunting season. First deer I'd ever seen on the place although I had seen tracks where I shoot. I didn't think more than about 5 minutes about the fact that I had a long barreled 45 Bisley Blackhawk at my hip loaded with fairly stout 240g JHP's. Anyway, I let her wander on up the creek.

I had brought two guns to the shoot-the 45 and a Colt 22 Target with ProPoint RDOT sight. I've found the ProPoint excellent for practicing trigger control 'cause I can watch the dot wander off target if I have poor trigger/breathing control. My usual procedure was to fire 10 shot groups with PMC target which does fairly well in this gun. As it happens about every third group drew a gobble from a turkey back about 100 yards in a clump of oak brush. This was about more temptation than this country boy who missed out on turkey hunting this spring could stand for one evening so I fired a couple of cylinders through the Bisley and took it to the house. This coming weekend I get to look forward to household repairs (we had 100 mph winds Saturday while I was marrying off my friend) and lawn cutting.

Martini Day at the Range (6/9/96)

There are a lot of times when I'm not happy to live in the big city. However, occasionally there are advantages to living in Dallas, Texas. The weather prediction for today was fairly pleasant, so I took a day of vacation to go to the range. Having suffered through inaccurate predictions of Texas weather all during deer season, imagine my surprise when the late January afternoon turned off warmer and less windy than predicted. Can you say 76F on the bank thermometer with only 5-10 miles of wind when I drove past it about 4PM? I guess it will even out when I get to England this weekend where they've been having snow, rain, and highs in the high 30's. Wonder if there are any good gun stores in Rochester, Kent?

Not getting any shooting to speak of during deer season, poor weather, and various minor problems with rifles have combined to make me a stranger at the Winchester range. Despite two range officers that I didn't recognize I managed to get by. It seems that all the guns I needed to shoot were Martini's. I took the Martini-Enfield 303 that I've restored somewhat, the 22 K Hornet which was finally back from the gunsmith, the 22 Jet which I finally got restocked, the 225 Westley Richards, and the 30-20.

I had made up 20 rounds of 303 British with 150g Hornaday's and varying amounts of AA2495BR powder using new Norma brass (headstamped Herters of all things). This gun is equipped with the standard military ladder 'V' sight with a rather well worn front sight and I'm here to tell you that I barely make indifferent marksmanship with these type sights. In any event the sights at the lowest range setting were somewhat high at both 50 and 100 yards. I did manage a single five shot 100 yard group of approximately 3.5" with a load of 42g of AA2495 and I believe I will settle on this load for the time being unless I decide to go to lead bullets. Does anyone know of a source for gas checked .314" diameter bullets in the 180-220g range?

I did have cast lead bullets for the 30-20. These were 120g round nose and 165g FP which I purchased from National Bullet Company. The propellant for this load was H-116 (commercial WC-680). I tried powder weights ranging from 8.7g-12.5g with the 120g LRN's. The gun seems to shoot best at about 11.5-12g. The firing pin in this gun has not been bushed and consequently, only low pressure loads can be used without extruding the primer head back into the firing pin hole. Two very light loads with the 165g bullets produced double groups. I don't know what the secret of getting good groups from this gun is yet. The guy who sold it to me had good luck with W231 and lead bullets weighting about 125g. Perhaps, I need a faster powder. One thing that is certain is that the point of impact is very sensitive to the amount of powder. I spend half the day adjusting the 8X Unertl scope following bullet holes around.

The 22 Jet pictured on the Martini Gallery has been at the gunsmith's getting the firing pin bushed, the finger lever reshaped, and new wood fitted. The gunsmith who did the work and who had never worked on a Martini before decided based on firing a few shots that the gun had excessive headspace and declined to finish it. He was mistaken. I started with very light loads and worked up carefully to the load that he was concerned about. There were no indications of excessive headspace in the several hundred rounds I fired before he worked on it nor did I see any problems (other than not enough powder in the light loads) on the 45 rounds I fired today. I did manage one five shot group of about an inch with 45g Sierra .223" diameter bullets (the barrel on this gun is from a 513T Remington Targetmaster). I had put a 3x9 Weaver Challenger scope on this gun and decided it didn't fit well after shooting it.

My K-Hornet has been cause for a great deal of frustration over the past four years and today was no different. I had mounted a Weaver K-12 AO scope on it. Evidently, the mounts are mislocated or the scope is bent because there isn't enough windage adjustment to get the silly thing on zero. I did fireform some brass and shoot some 40g Berger's and 45g Speer's. However, the gun gave no indication of even mediocre accuracy. Stay tuned. At the end of the day I played musical scopes putting the K12 on the Jet (it performed well and deserved a classic scope) and putting a Weaver K10 on the hornet. Better luck next time.

Last time I took the Westley-Richards out to the range I had several misfires due to light firing pin strikes. I took the gun apart to see if the firing pin tip had broken off or was worn or perhaps the spring was broken but could detect nothing awry. I did clean the block as well as I could without removing the firing pin (some jerk with a hardware screw driver had broken off the head of the small screw that holds the firing pin busing in). Anyway, I made up a series of loads with Hornady SX 55g bullets and Hodgdon Varget with the bullets seated right to the rifling. A quick check at 50 yards revealed that the Unertl 14X had held zero pretty well during disassembly. I fired 20 rounds of the reloads and 10 rounds of factory Winchesters with nary a mishap. The gun also managed a couple of nice groups with 31.1g of Varget and I believe I have settled on a load for this gun. Evidently, all the gun needed was cleaning. The cheesy plastic forend tip (the only thing I don't like about this gun and I can tell you the temptation to go the fine wood store and pick out a piece of ebony for a real forend tip is nearly overwhelming) came loose again. Other than this minor misadventure the gun performed admirably.

Words can't describe how much better it is to be at the range on a sunny day in January than in a windowless office building at work. I'll be out of touch next week so be kind to the Gallery in my absence.

Gun Show (TCCC)/Range Report (6/96)

This past Saturday I met my friend James at the Tarrant County Convention gun show. In times past this was a pretty good show, however of late it's piddled away to nearly nothing i.e. about three hundred tables. This wasn't much different and I don't make the trip over to Ft. Worth anymore for this show unless there's some shooting or hunting in the offing. There was exactly one Martini, an original Greener shotgun, which was grossly over priced and exactly one gun I was mildly interested it, a Model 70 varmint in 225, also priced rather rich for my tastes. I ended up buying a box of 158g 357 lead bullets, a old Lyman 4X post recticle scope for $25 (I'm a sucker for old scopes) and a used copy of Donnelly's book of Cartridge Conversions. The book was the best deal as it only set me back $15 and proved interesting reading for a couple of evenings.

After lunch we wandered out to the Ft. Worth Rifle and pistol club for some hot afternoon shooting. You know how some days things hardly work out as you've planned? This was not a good day range wise. James had several new guns to shoot-a original High Standard Victor(?, I know next to nothing of high standards), a Colt Mustang 380, and a new pump home defense type shotgun. I brought the Win. 69A which I had rebuilt but never shot, my Martini Model 12 22, my Colt 22 Target Pistol with Propoint IV, and my 45 Colt Bisley Blackhawk.

James's new pocketlite did fine (I love Colt pistols) but the high standard jammed regardless of magazine or ammo and he had swelled cases which jammed up his brand new shotgun. He did however shoot some very respectable groups with his Martini International Mark II despite an inconstant wind. The Ft. Worth club is gradually in process of reopening their ranges which were closed to complaints from the neighbors and concerns about safety. We had a 20 yard pistol range with new overhead baffles to shoot on as well as a 60 meter rimfire rifle range.

My pistols did fine; however, I had difficulties with both 22 rifles. I had a new hotter 255 LSWC load to test in the Bisley 45 and it seemed to improve accuracy with only a slight increase in recoil. I put a box of 50 downrange which is about all the hot 45 Colt rounds I care to shoot at a single session. The magazine on the 69A sprung apart (later soldered back together) and the nut I made to hold the peep sight failed. The gun appeared to shot fairly well but I got disgusted after about 10 shots and gave it up until I could repair the sight. My Martini 22 is quite accurate. However, the flip up aperture sight has some side to side play in it which leads to horizontal stringing. It's not at apparent how this old BSA sight comes apart and I'm not sure I can fix it. I may be in the market for a new sight in addition to the work needed on the 69A. To top it all off I ended up with mild dizziness from too much sun (the bank thermometer read 102F when I got back to Dallas) and left a bit early. All in all a disappointing range session. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Elk City (7/96)

One of the disadvantages of having one's own range is that sometimes events interrupt what would otherwise be the pleasant pastime of posting projectiles downrange. But that's rather getting ahead of myself.

I had planned to be well on the road to drought-stricken Elk City, OK, from Dallas at 4:15 this past Friday rather than just getting back home from work but my boss has this unreasonable attitude about not taking off early when the work is way behind. The good news upon getting home was that UPS had delivered my Ruger Bisley Blackhawk which had been back to the factory for warrantee repair. The bad news was the UPS delivery man had left it laying on the doorstep in plain view of the street until Linda had arrived home about 3:00 despite the large yellow "adult signature required" sticker on the package. Does anyone else have this gripe with UPS? This was the second pistol they had left laying on my doorstep all day long not to mention the 32 pounds of surplus powder from Pat McDonald. Oh well, I got the gun back. We get to my parents about 9:30 and there's lots of lightning but no rain. I get around about 8:00 AM Saturday morning and my mom's rain gage shows .56", the first rain they had since last September. I drive out to the pasture to check out my range and we had got barely a dribble. My private range consists of a several posts holding wooden pallets for paper targets, provision for hanging steel targets, markers at 3,7,15, and 25 yards for pistol and a nice steel bench rest at 100 yards. This sits on 880 acres of family pasture which is currently leased out for cattle. I'm about a day of work and a bench from having it open to 200 yards. The backstop is a rather large dam that the state built for a tank back when my great grandfather owned the place. I have about 3/4 of a mile of empty pasture behind the dam in the firing direction so it's reasonably safe. The only people who are allowed to shoot here are me, my father, and a couple of his buds. First thing I notice on getting to the range is that some kind person has set up a welded hander with swinging 1/2" thick steel targets suspended by a couple of links of chain. Having no idea who this belonged to I proceed cover it with a variety of lead splashes from the 45 Colt and my Colt combat elite before getting out the chronograph. Turns out one of my father's friends had made an improvement to the target situation.

It was a beautiful day, about 65F-no wind, and clear from the previous night's storm. After about an hour and a half I've having more fun than I can stand and wander on down to what's left of the tank to see how long its got before going dry altogether. Big mistake. Turns out there's a cow bogged down in the mud. I cross the creek, try and get her out to no avail, and finally decide to head back into town to call the farmer. As it happens he's out of town and my uncle Trig ends up pulling the cow out with his four wheel drive pickup. This pretty well ends the morning's shooting but I do manage to get some chronograph results on 45 Colt and 45 ACP as follows:

After missing out half the morning I decide to go back after lunch and do a little longer range shooting from the 100 yard bench. Alas, by this time I've got the infamous Oklahoma wind quartering my firing position and gusting to perhaps 30 mph (I shoot nearly due west) so shooting the 22's for accuracy is a loser. For long range pistols I had a Remington XP-100 221 Fireball and a T/C Contender in 223 with 10" barrel. For rifles I had the Martini 22 Jet, the Martini 256 Win., and my DCM Garand.

Velocity results are as follows:

I'm basically pretty happy with the performance of this little gun. Getting a 75g rifle bullet moving at 2500 fps out of a necked down 357 mag. case suits me pretty well. I don't know that it'd be my first choice for Texas whitetail but anything else is cold turkey. (Particularly turkey.)

This is pretty disappointing performance. I'm giving a lot of though as to what I want to do with this particular gun. When I get my K-hornet I shouldn't need a second gun in this velocity range.

All things considered I think I'll shoot my reloads. This neat gun is equipped with a Leopold 2X pistol scope and I'm still learning to shoot it. However, previous range work has indicated that the reloads are if anything more accurate than the factory fodder in my gun.

Since I acquired the XP100 I've had a lot less interest in shooting the T/C. Part of the problem is that the Simmons 4x scope on mounted on it is a bit too much scope for holding a pistol steady. I really think that the AA2230S keg of powder I bought a while back is too slow for the 10" barrel length and I need to go to something like 4198, 4227 or AA1680. Some of my necksized 223 loads would not chamber so I've obviously got something set up too tight. My reloading setup for this gun will need to be revisited.

I did chronograph some 165g and 150g bullets in the Garand. However, velocity was disappointing and I've since concluded that the WC-852 which I used in these loads is way too slow for my Garand. Here's hoping the price of 4895 comes down. I did get in some offhand practice which isn't allowed at the public range I shoot in Dallas. About the best I can say is that I proved that I need more offhand practice. I was moderate tired by this time. Anyway I spend enough time at the range to get a little bit of sun burn.

It rained Saturday night, so Sunday when I went to shoot I had to hike in carrying my pistol gear from the barn as the pasture was too wet to drive through. I put about a box and a half of 45 ACP at the iron targets and was just starting to shoot my Colt 22 Target equipped with propoint when the rain started up again and I had a brisk three quarter mile walk up the hill to my pickup while getting sprinkled on. I'm not complaining however. We needed the rain, got about 2" on the pasture, and perhaps 2.5" on the wheat fields three miles south of the range and the spot where the cow was bogged down was under water so we got a little run off into the tank. I'm happy and it was a good weekend.

Labor Day Weekend Shooting Report (9/6/96)

Labor Day weekend I traveled to western Oklahoma to visit my parents and take the kid to the rodeo (an annual Labor Day excursion). As it happens I have a 100 yard bench rest type shooting range set up with a large dam as a backstop, pallets for target holders, and swinging iron targets for pistol plinking. The people in Elk City have gotten to where they smile when they see me coming as it inevitably rains when I show up there. They had rain over the 4th of July when I was there and three inches right before I showed up this past weekend. Consequently, the shooting area down in the bottom was a bit muddy. Conditions were pleasant-90's and humid.

The main objectives of shooting were to evaluate some loads using WC-860 surplus powder, try and settle on a load for deer season, and test out a couple of 69A 22's. The first order of business was to chronograph some 130g 270 loads from my 27" barrel Browning High Wall single shot. This load was a potential whitetail hunting load. However, 63.2g of WC-860, while very accurate, produced a measly 2650 fps. This is about 400 fps less than Winchester claims for their factory ammo from a 24" barrel. While I expected velocities to be less than with a faster powder, I hardly think this is acceptable for hunting. Back to the drawing board for a 270 hunting load.

I had one bullet left from the lot of 30-06 165g Rem. CoreLokt bullet reloads with which I killed two deer last year. I decided against using these bullets again this year due to questionable performance on the buck I shot last year. In any event the velocity checked 2695 fps with the Remington bullet propelled by 49g of very old IMR4320. I hardly think this velocity, about 100 fps less than factory loads, would produce a bullet blowup on a properly constructed bullet so I'm still at a loss to explain how a buck shot head on in the center of the chest made it 300 yards before dying.

My M70 30-06 shoots heavy bullets better than 150g bullets for some unimaginable reason. I had worked up a load with 180g Speer bullets and 47.7g of Accurate Arms SRB-118 ball surplus powder which would do about an inch at 100 yards. Velocity was about 2580 fps with quite a lot of variation. This would probably be OK to hunt with but I think it needs a bit more work.

Lastly, I did some testing of loads for my 264 Win. Mag. pre-64 M70 with 26" barrel:

The conclusion here was to quite messing with the WC-860 and concentrate on the 59-61g H4831 140g bullet loads for deer. Incidently the 61.4g H4831 load is quite warm and should be approached with considerable caution and trepidation. I guess the 100-105g loads would be OK for hunting but the point of impact is about 10" different than the 140g loads so I have to concentrate on one or the other.

I like Winchester M69A bolt action 22's. The only reason I have five of them at the moment is that I gave one which I bedded and restocked to my dad for a Christmas gift. However, the most recent one was acquired from a pawn shop (for $50) while on vacation in S. Texas. It had a 50's area Weaver D6 scope on it which was quite dirty. I also had recently mounted a Weaver Challenger 4X scope on one of the other 69A targets to give me a scoped 22 which I had always wanted. Shooting them off the bench at 100 yards while letting the barrels of the deer rifles cool produced many 5 shot 3" groups and an occasional 2.5" in' group from the Weaver scoped gun. I tried PMC target and the Remingtion high velocity hollow point's that Walmart sells in a carton for $10. Best groups were obtained with the Remington ammo which has never shot well in any other 22 I own. Go figure.

For grins I shot five rounds from my hand cannon-a 12" barrel 45-70 T/C at 100 yards. I haven't shot it much lately and had forgotten what the recoil was like. The bruise where it drove my elbow into the bench rest table doesn't hurt much a week later but is still about 3" in diameter. Wish my group had been that tight.

Range Report 11/16/96

Having hunted for the past two weekends I decided to lay out a weekend. It's not like deer hunting was going great guns. I'd seen a half dozen deer, mostly small, and hadn't taken a shot. Rather than playing fair and coming out where I can see them the big deer stay back in the brush where it's tough to plink them. I hate it when they do that. The wife and kid decided to go shopping so I wandered out to the gun range despite the drizzle, threatening rain, and gusting 30mph winds.

The first order of business was to check out my deer rifle, a M70 30-06, as I had dropped it while helping my partner around his stand this past weekend. A couple of shots in the middle of the day (at about 60 yards estimated) at the Eastland County lease had seemed to indicate it was shooting a bit high after bouncing the Simmons 2x7 off the rock. Imagine my surprise when three shots produced a nice 1" group seven inches high and seven inches wide at 100 yards. Good thing I didn't get a shot at a deer. About a box of my 180g handloads later I was satisfied with how it shot. In between working on the 30-06, I was adjusting the aperture sight on my M94 30-30. This had been my grandfather's deer rifle and I intend to shoot a deer with it in remembrance of one of the finest man I have known.

After getting the deer rifles in fairly shooting order, I unpacked the recently acquired Westley-Richards small frame Martini in 225 and moved over to the 50 yard sight-in range. This little rifle was set up with scope blocks for a Unertl type target scope separated by two wide a distance to conveniently mount a modern scope. I took the longest scope I own, an El Paso marked Weaver K10, and mounted it none too securely to the scope blocks with 22 rings. One could see through the scope in an awkward position with the head too far forward. The first shot at 50 yards did not mark the paper. I aimed at the top of the paper and managed hole about eleven inches below point of aim. After getting it close I moved over to the 100 yard range to shoot a couple of groups. The only ammo I had was Winchester factory 55g soft points. I hate shooting factory ammo. One of the boxes was so old it was in the old yellow labeled box rather than the newer red and white ones. I have no idea whether Winchester still makes ammo for this all but dead caliber. I shot two groups the best of which put five rounds into about 0.8" center-to-center. Under the conditions I'll take it. The only problems were the forend tip came loose off the gun, the primers on all rounds were backed out (potential headspace problem) slightly, and the 225 cartridge almost too large for the little action. I mean were not talking rapid fire here. With luck the little Martini will be getting a Unertl 14X in the near future so perhaps it needn't be embarrassed by my jury-rigged mounting.

The last order of business was to move over to the 50 yard 22 range and unleash the two BSA 1215's recently purchased through Navy Arms. These were both equipped with Parker-Hale globe fronts and aperture rears. The first gun with the better condition wood but exterior pitted barrel produced three groups roughly an inch with four of five shots touching. This is about as well as I ever shoot with iron sights. The second gun which has cruddy wood, nice metal, but a sleeved barrel produced no groups better than 2". As I shot it last I'm not sure but what tired eyes didn't play a part in the results. Ammo used was high velocity Remington JHP's, high velocity Federal JHP's, PMC Target, and Winchester T-22's. Couldn't tell a bit of difference between the ammo which is probably a reflection on my shooting ability more than anything else. I think I want to put scope mounts on the gun with the rough barrel. We'll see. Next weekend it's back to hunting the monster buck.

Valentine's Day's Greetings (2/23/97)

Well I got to travel from Dallas to Oklahoma to spend Valentine's day with the three significant women in my life. (i.e. my wife, the kid, and my mother-in-law). Note that neither my sister nor my mother rate. So it goes. Anyway, I brought my Martini-Enfield 303 Carbine to test fire. Rather than utilizing the 50 yard range I elected to press an 18" diameter oak tree into service with the carbine tied to the tree and the tree strategically located between me and the rifle. The action was quite loose so I was somewhat fearful of having to pick bits and pieces of Martini action out of the pasture when I pulled the string attached to the trigger. I fired one round of my 150g (42g of AA2495BR) load with no harm to me or the oak but considerable churning of the wet sandy soil where the bullet struck. I had to tape the extractor bolt in place as the threads were loose but looks like the gun is OK to shoot once I get the extractor bolt and half moon screws replaced. The case showed absolutely no signs of distress and the bore is fairly decent so I have high hopes of doing some cast bullet plinking if I ever find some .313-.314"diameter bullets for it.

I also brought my favorite rifle in the world, my 22 K-Hornet Martini, to fireform brass and get the newly mounted Weaver K10 on paper. I had a box of someone else's reloads I had traded for and some loads made up with scrap powder, oatmeal filler, and wax neck plugs. About 25% of the reloads split cases which will teach me not to fire other's reloads. The fireforming loads didn't work out well as the powder wasn't fast enough to fully form the cases (lesson learned - go ahead and use the W231 rather than the bits of leftover rifle powder).

Did a little other shooting. I purchased a like new Winchester Defender shotgun with the 8 round capacity and black plastic stocks. I mean it's an ugly black son of a gun to a lover of traditional firearms like myself. However, it's only going to be used for a house/pickup gun. I patterned with several different loads and decided that if I got a shot at a duck with it (it'd have to be plugged of course) the cheap steel BB's patterned as well as anything. It spreads out just about any load to 8-10" at seven yards which I consider prime home defense range. Personally, I'd avoid breaking into the home of someone who owned one and was willing to shoot it.

Amazingly enough, my daughter went out and shot 22 with me a bit. It's been some time since she showed any interest but she seemed to like the Aimpoint sight on my Colt 22 target. The gun is too heavy for her (she is 19 but not very strong) but she enjoyed turning a box of 22's into holes in paper. I managed to prove I haven't been shooting enough pistol by shooting some embarrassing 38 special groups out of my Python. I really need to move out of the city (Dallas) to the country where I can shoot every day. Not too many good jobs for metallurgists out in rural Oklahoma, though.

Holiday Range Report (12/27/97)

Due to one thing or another and mostly to deer season (unsuccessful), I'm way behind on my shooting. I spent a few days at Christmas with my folks in western Oklahoma and had the opportunity to shoot on the range at the ranch. Alas, the weather did not cooperate. It was 70F the day we got there and down into the teens by the next morning. On Christmas day the weather got up to around fortyish in the afternoon and I went down by the bench rest that is about 15 feet from the current edge of the lake what with the late rainfall and all. Anyway, I said all that to say that it was cold and I had about 30mph of damp wind blowing in my face

The first order of business was to test fire the 303 British Martini Enfield I purchased two months ago. Considering that the rifle appeared to have been assembled from parts I used the time honored method of roping the gun to a willow tree and pulling the trigger with a length of cord. The first of the six factory rounds I had did no damage to the rifle and I fired the remainder without incident. Second order of business was to shoot the world ugliest Martini. This would be a cadet in 32-20 (actually 30-20 with a 308 bull barrel), short match barrel, one piece stock painted crinkle black and 8X Unertl. I fired about 40 rounds of 100g Speer plinkers and 110g Speer JHP's backed by varying amounts of H-116 (commercial WC-680) with not much in the way of accuracy to show for it. My dad (who is chairman of the Friends of the NRA in this area) had purchased a new Leopold 3x9 at the friends of NRA banquet auction that he had mounted on his prized pre-64 M70 220 Swift and asked me to sight it in. Now this gun would consistently put three shots inside an inch with my generic AA2700 handloads and some ancient Herter's 55g JHP's. I suspect that the coyote population in western Oklahoma is in for a reassessment of how close they can get to my dad's pickup.

When I got back to Dallas I managed to find an afternoon to make it to the range. I double checked the accuracy on the 30-20 cadet with no better results in still conditions than in windy Oklahoma. The previous owner had had good results with heavy cast lead bullets so I ordered some 125g and 165g cast lead bullets from National Bullet Company. We'll see how that works out. I also checked out my 225 M70 and my handloads for the 225 Westley-Richards cadets. I mean what's the point of owning two rifles in an obscure caliber if one cannot take them both to the range on the same day. The handloads used a 55g Corbin style bullet formed with jackets made from 22 rimfire cases. Looks like they'll be consigned to AR-15 fodder. None of these proved very accurate in either rifle. I also had some misfires with the W-R due to weak striker hits on the primer. On disassembling it at home I discovered that the set screw that holds the striker/spring assembly in place had been broken off into the hole. I cleaned it thoroughly but don't know if perhaps the it needs a stronger spring. As I don't have an extra spring for a cadet action I guess I'll have to scrounge one.

Having some time during my employer's long Christmas break I went ahead did some work on the 303 Martini-Enfield. I stripped the old finish off the wood, repaired a couple of cracks in the stock, put four coats of tung oil on the wood sanding it into the surface wet and called it good enough. The metal parts mostly needed to be cleaned except of the cast steel buttplate that was badly pitted and dented. I sanded it to more or less smooth on a belt sander and reslotted one of the buttstock screws. Both buttstock screws and the buttplate were cold blued and I decided the appearance was good enough for a casual shooter.

While this was going on, my favorite rifle in the world came back from H&S Gunsmithing in Odessa, Texas. This would be a 22 Hornet Cadet which H&S had rebarreled to K-Hornet. It had to go back to them due to a misunderstanding and fact that the gunsmith didn't do all the work for which I asked. Anyway, I proceeded to fireform about 100 cases using a load of about 8g of scrap rifle powder (mostly 4064), corn meal, and a wax plug. This produced fairly good looking cases and numerous holes in a plastic bucket, a half inch piece of plywood, and a piece of my wife's carpet scraps in the garage. Future range reports will be written from the doghouse which is my new residence as soon as I get electricity run out therefor the computer.

Lastly, I'm immersed in restocking the 22 Jet shown on the Martini Gallery. The birdseye maple stock had a few cracks in it so I decided to replace it with a walnut stock set purchased from Fajen's close-out sale. It'll have Niedner style buttplate and grip cap and an unstained wood finish consisting of tung oil used as a filler finished off by Lin-Speed oil. I've not used this particular technique on a stock before so I'm anxious to see the results.

Why I Hate Golf (5/13/97)

This past weekend I headed out to Winchester range to shoot Martini's. Winchester is located in the scenic (and I used the term advisedly) Trinity river bottom flood plain (i.e. it's either muddy or underwater) next to L.B. Houston Tennis where I used to spend my weekends until knee problems and heel spurs took their toil on my mobility, and the public golf course. As I turned onto the road to the range I noticed a road block and a very large police officer directing traffic. Rolled down the truck window and asked him what the problem was. "Road closed" he said. "You mean I can't go to the rifle range," I asked rather unhappily. "The range is closed today," he said motioning me to turn my pickup around. "What's the problem, I didn't think we'd had enough rain for the range to be flooded?" still not happy but polite considering the reputation that Dallas police officers have for dealing with rudeness. "Tiger Woods day" he said. It dawned on me that Tiger Woods was in town for the Byron Nelson golf classic and I had read he'd be conducting a clinic for inner city kids at the public golf course but it never occurred to me that they'd shut down the road (paper later said they had 5,000 people at the golf clinic) and the shooting range for a golf deal. I mean where's the sense of proportion? I like golf as well as the next guy and I'm sure those little white balls would be challenging targets out to a few hundred yards but shut down the range on a Sunday afternoon? Get real!

Anyway, I turned my truck around and drove for 40 minutes over to the Garland shooting range. On tap for the day was testing 60g Hornady flat point bullets in the 256 magnum as opposed to the 75g JHP's I had previously worked up to, fireforming neck annealed brass in the K-Hornet, testing various bullets in the K-Hornet, and shooting the BSA M1215 rimfire. The only part of the day that really went well was fireforming brass in the K-Hornet. Having tried shooting factory loads as well as forming with light loads, filler, and wax bullets I can report that annealing the necks and then firing a full load is the only way to go. I fireformed about 160 rounds and didn't loose a case. Other methods inevitably met with some split necks and burst shoulders. The cases were annealed by heating around the neck with a Benzomatic propane torch while holding the case by the base and dropping them in water before my fingers got burned (most of the time). The idea is not to get the rim end, or not so incidentally finger ends, hot. Bullets I was testing in the 22 K-Hornet were the 40g Hornady V-max, the Nosler 40g BT, and the 45g Nosler solid base hornet starting at about 12.6g of H-116 (commercialWin-680).

In any event neither Nosler bullets showed any sign of accuracy and the V-max's were just tight enough to justify one more range session. You know things aren't going well when your fireforming loads group more tightly than your test loads. About all I learned was to verify that I had been loading my K-Hornet too hot. It looks as if 12.6g of H-116 for 45g bullets and 13.0g of H-116 for 40g bullets are absolutely max in my gun. Anything more resulted in extruding the CCI primers back into the firing pin hole and jamming up the action. I learn slowly but I do learn.

Some of the Nosler bullets had been acquired as factory seconds from the Nosler facility in Bend, Oregon. I had to do a business trip to a titanium foundry in this area last week and made it to the Nosler plant about 3PM last Monday. Last factory tour was at 2PM but the kind people at Nosler were persuaded (We came all the way from Dallas just to see your plant and we missed the tour when we were here 18 months ago- . . . cry . . . whine . . . sigh . . . .) to show myself and two coworkers around. Nosler makes their bullets using rebuilt hydraulic presses and precision tooling. They extrude their own lead wire from lead billets and make the jackets from copper tubing. Quality control is visible at every step. I hinted around to see if they had a metallographic lab or needed a metallurgist (I think I could live in central Oregon) but alas Nosler contracts their metallurgy out to a university. Met the guy who has the best job in the world. Seems like 15-20 bullets from every setup or lot have to be loaded into rounds which have to be shot for accuracy in Nosler's underground 100yard shooting tunnel. The quality guy with this weight responsibility was readily identified by the perpetual grin on his face. But I digress from the shooting report.

Next order of business was to test 60g Hornady flat points in the 256 Martini. Previous most accurate load was 75g JHP's (either Sierra or Hornady, the gun doesn't seem to care) and 16.7g of H-116. Well I worked up from 16.7g with the 60g Hornady flat nose bullets up to 18.2g of H-116 in .2-.3g increments. Using factory 256 brass as opposed to the cases formed from 357 brass that I normally use (thanks, Tony) no pressure signs were detected. Best five shot groups were fired at 18.2 and 17.8g. Think I'll do a bit more group testing and some chronographing. The 75g bullet load tools along at a mild 2600 fps. Wonder what velocity the 18.2g of H-116 pushes the 60g bullet to?

Earlier this year I reshaped the stock and refinished my M1215 BSA 22. Hadn't really had a chance to fire it. I sighted the Parker-Hale aperture sights in at 100 yards since I was too lazy to move my stuff and fired 10 shot groups with Winchester T-22's, Federal and Remington High Velocity JHP's, PMC Target, and Remington High Velocity solids. Looked like the PMC and Remington H.V. loads produced the prettiest groups which ran around 3.5" or so. I'm not sure whether to be pleased with this or not in view of the fact that I had a pretty inconsistent wind blowing in my face. I simply haven't done much shooting with 22's at 100 yards and really don't know what to expect. There isn't much else in the way of shooting to report.

I have purchased an additional five meg of web space for the Martini Gallery and am working on the new version of the page but it goes slowly due to family and work commitments. I did form some cases for my 22/256 from 357 annealed brass using a 256 form die, the 256 full length resizing die, and a 221 fireball die with about 1/4" ground off the bottom. The 22/256 is at the gunsmith's getting blued and I plan to start finishing the stock as soon as I get it back. I'm pretty excited about getting close to shooting this project. I spoke with the gunsmith who is building my 25 Krag large frame Martini and he is getting pretty close as well. Hopefully, this will be my deer rifle starting this fall. However, considering my past experience with gunsmiths and on time delivery I'll forego holding my breath.

The Hornet Finds a Load (6/1/97)

My favorite gun in the world is a Martini, of course, and a hornet in particular. It was built by my father, his gun buddies, and various other undesirables associated with Clinton-Sherman AFB (long departed, a victim of the McNamara defense cuts) at Burns Flat, Oklahoma. My dad purchased the action for something under $20 mail order (back when it was legal to do so), took a Remington 513T Targetmaster barrel with a rusty muzzle that someone gave him when they put a heavy barrel on the 22, and had the barrel recrowned, chambered, and fitted by one of his Air Force buddies. He then fitted some straight grained Fajen walnut to it and spent most of the winter giving it about 30 odd coats of linspeed oil. He presented it to me on my 14th birthday and it was my first centerfire rifle. With military surplus ammo (for the old Air Force survival weapon carried by some air crews prior to Vietnam) it would shoot into about a half inch at 100 yards.

Time passes and all things, even favorite rifles, change. In 25 odd years of shooting mostly military FMJ ammo and the occasional hot reload I managed to erode several inches of throat and pretty much totally wear away the rifling from the soft 22 rimfire barrel. The gun refused to totally die and still shot into about an inch and three quarters even with the barrel shot out. I managed to break two firing pins and the second time the gunsmith worked on it he reworked the firing pin bushing and managed to screw up the head space by grinding on the end of the block. I have never darkened his door again nor will I. I took it to another gunsmith who builds custom bench rest bolt action rifles and he examined it but knew so little of Martini's that he didn't realize the headspace was too great.

Finally I recalled a gunsmith who I had advertised at a show in Sherman, Texas who had advertised for Martini's a few years back. I found his card, called him, determined he knew some things about Martini's that I didn't know and took him the gun. We agreed on a price for rebarreling and he indicated it would be after deer season before he could get to it. He was an incredible individual-a gunsmith who actually knew more about Martini's than I, took pride in his work, and had roots in Oklahoma as do I. He remembered going into Mashburn Arms in Oklahoma City when he was a kid and his stories of old man Mashburn were much like the ones my dad had told to me. I must have talked to the gunsmith for two or three hours that evening until past quitting time. I called a couple of times after the job was due to be finished but he was always out. Finally, after he had had the gun about six months, I managed to make connections with him and discovered he had been in the hospital. In fact he had terminal cancer and would never be able to start on my rifle.

After this rather sad experience I called H&S Gunsmithing in Odessa, Texas. In talking long distance to the gunsmith, I discovered he was a Martini enthusiast and knew quite a bit about the action. I UPS'ed my rifle to him to be chambered into 22 K-Hornet as I had become disenchanted with the long tapered shoulder of the hornet. I would have had the rifle rechambered to 218 Mashburn Bee but the 'smith did not have an improved reamer and I wanted to keep my gun as some type of hornet for tradition's sake. Well he kept it about six months, I called, and he had turned over the gun to his apprentice, the work was going unsatisfactorily, the apprentice had been fired, and he would do my gun personally as soon as he could. I finally got it back and due to a misunderstanding about the work (partly my fault) it had to be sent back for rework. I finally got it back for the last time around Christmas this past year and have been busily testing loads attempting to get the gun to shoot well.

The best load before rebarreling was a somewhat over maximum load of AA1680 and the 45g Speer SP hornet bullet. This wouldn't shoot worth a darn in the new barrel. About four hundred rounds later I had learned more than I ever wanted to know about fireforming brass (annealing the case neck and firing with full loads works best for me) but still didn't have a good load. The only bullets that showed even a glimpse of accuracy were the Berger 40g MEF and the new Hornady 40g VMAX. Well I ran out of Berger Bullets and I can tell you that the local Wal-Mart doesn't carry them-for that matter the local reloading stores don't have Berger Bullets so they have to be ordered directly from Walt and in the past it has taken about 60 days. Fortunately, all the mail order reload places carry V-max's.

After considerable experimentation with H-116 (surplus WC-680) in the heavy loads the old hornet barrel preferred I broke out the last of the eight pounds of AA-1680 I bought years ago and opened up the keg of the new AA-2200 and made up varying light loads using the 40g Hornady V-Max and the 45g Remington SP's. To make a long story short I fired 12 five shot groups at the Winchester range. (No Tiger Woods shutdown this weekend thank goodness.) Both 12 grains of AA-1680 and 13.9 grains of AA-2200 propelled five V-max projectiles into less than 3/4" at 100 yards. None of the 45g loads shot into groups worth mentioning but several of the V-max loads close to the best loads produced nice groups as well. I feel like I've been trying to get my rifle back for five years and finally have it shooting again. All I can say is the turkeys west of here had best stay out of the crosshairs of the old Weaver K-10 I have mounted on the hornet. Furthermore, my loading technique has some opportunity for improvement. My old RCBS K-Hornet seater is producing considerable runout in the case necks which I hope to eliminate by using the custom grade seater from my nearly new Hornady 218 Bee set.

I also took the 30-20 Martini to the range. I made up 10 different loads with cast (125g and 168g from National Bullet Co.) lead bullets and AA-2200. The "good" loads went into about 2.5" inches. The poor loads went into about a foot. I'm starting to get a bit discouraged with this gun. I'm about 200 rounds of testing into it and it shows no signs of accuracy whatsoever. This is not real good for a gun with a match barrel. The guy I purchased it from claimed outstanding accuracy for it but I've been unable to duplicate his targets. I don't know what type of lead bullets produced tight groups but I don't believe it was the ones I'm using. Oh well.

I also had a bit of time to shoot 22's at the 50 yard range. My Model 69A Winchester with the K-4 Weaver did real well with T-22's producing a five shot half inch group. My M13 also produced one nice group of about 3/4" with target ammo and my M1215 produced a one inch group. I've had some doubts as to whether the M1215 will shoot but it looks like it's OK. One thing is for sure-I'm no longer able to shoot consistently with aperture sights. Looks like either the M1215 or the M13 is going to get a scope. We'll see.