Guns – Page 8 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

A Bias To The Right

By Joe Berk

I know what you’re thinking: This is going to be a blog either for or against conservatives.

Nope. It’s not. We don’t do politics here on ExhaustNotes. This story is about a Ruger No. 1 that shot far to the right and how I fixed it. If you want politics, watch the news or pick up a newspaper and take in what passes for journalism these days.

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One of my good buddies bought a very slightly used Ruger No. 1 several years ago (it appeared to be unused) after hearing me rave about how classy these rifles are. It’s the one you see in the photo at the top of this blog. This Ruger No. 1 is particularly desirable. It is chambered in .22 250 (a wonderful cartridge), it has fantastic wood, it is an early production model (the serial number dates it to 1971), it has the early style checkering pattern, it has a red pad, and it is a pre-warning gun. My buddy and I both bought Ruger No. 1 rifles that day. His was the .22 250 you see here, and I bought one chambered in .22 Hornet.

Highly-figured walnut, a red ped, and old style checkering…it doesn’t get any better than this.

Both the .22 250 and the .22 hornet are stellar cartridges, but the .22 250 holds a special place in my heart. The first Ruger No. 1 I ever saw was in a sporting goods store in Bound Brook, New Jersey, and it was chambered in .22 250. The Ruger No. 1 had only recently been introduced, and my father really wanted the one we saw that day. Like all Ruger No. 1 rifles it was elegant, and as a varmint hunter Dad was in love with the .22 250. We didn’t get it, but seeing how excited Dad was left me with a lifelong appreciation for any Ruger No. 1 and the .22 250 cartridge.

A close up of the original Ruger No. 1 checkering pattern.

So my friend bought the .22 250 (as I mentioned above) but on our first trip to the range his .22 250 was a disappointment. It shot way to the right at 50 yards, even with the scope’s adjustment all the way to the left. It was a frustrating day for him. My buddy removed the scope rings and found that one of them had been bubba’d (the victim of incompetent gunsmithing). It had been crudely filed in an apparent attempt to get the rifle on target. Bubba (the guy who did the work) didn’t understand what he was doing (or how Ruger’s ring design worked) because the material he had removed didn’t shift the scope alignment with the bore (if ignorance is bliss, Bubba was indeed a happy guy). My friend bought a new set of Ruger scope rings and remounted the scope. It made no difference; the rifle still shot far to the right. I was starting to understand why the rifle looked like new. Whoever owned it before encountered the rifle’s bias to the right, couldn’t fix it, and gave up on it.

Resized, polished, and trimmed .22-250 brass waiting for powder and bullets. This is a great cartridge.

At that point, my friend lost interest in the rifle, too, and I picked it up from him. It made for an interesting project. I put a different scope on the rifle (a Leupold I had used on other rifles), but the problem was not the scope. The rifle still shot way to the right.

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In the past when I had encountered this problem, it had always been due to poor forearm bedding. I closely examined the Ruger and determined that the rear of the forearm had clearance between the forearm and the receiver on the right side, but it was contacting the receiver on the left side. That would push the barrel to the right, and it could cause the strong rightward bias this rifle exhibited. You’d be surprised; it doesn’t take much pressure on a rifle barrel to push the point of impact significantly off center. I removed the forearm, delicately sanded it at the rear to have the same forearm-to-receiver clearance on both sides, and remounted it. At the next range session, I saw that my efforts had no impact. The rifle still printed far to the right and the group size was running 2 ½ to 3 inches at 100 yards. It was terrible.

A closeup photo showing intimate contact between the rear of the forearm and the front of the receiver on the left side. On the right, there was clearance. This could have been the cause of the problem, but it wasn’t.

I next tried shimming the scope. Using thin metal shims, I angled the scope enough in its rings to get its range of adjustment on target. But I still had to have the scope cranked all the way to the left, and the rifle still grouped poorly. The scope shims were a Mickey Mouse, Bandaid approach. I knew this wasn’t the solution.

Sometimes when you can’t find the answer to a problem, the best thing to do is ignore it for a while. I put the rifle in the safe and forgot about it for a few weeks. Then one day when I was driving back from one of our adventures, my mind drifted back to the Ruger. The Ruger No. 1 has a very slick quarter rib at the top rear of the barrel. The scope rings attach to it, and the scope mounts in those rings. I wondered: What if that rib was mounted at an angle to the barrel’s bore? The solution, I thought, might be a new quarter rib.

I called Ruger’s customer service (a marvelously responsive organization) and told them about my problem and that I thought I needed a new quarter rib. A few days later, I had one. At that point, things became even more interesting. The older Ruger No. 1 rifles (including my .22 250) had quarter ribs that mounted with two Allen-head screws, and the barrel had a pin that fit into a hole in the quarter rib. The quarter rib Ruger had just sent to me had two holes for the mounting screws, but no hole for the pin on the barrel. I thought about that and it made sense; the barrel pin was a belt-and-suspenders feature and it was unnecessary. Ruger made the right engineering decision to eliminate it. I thought I could just drill a hole in the new quarter rib or I could pull the pin from the barrel. I would soon learn that neither one of these solutions was going to happen.

My first step was to remove the Ruger’s quarter rib. That’s when the fun began. As I mentioned earlier, the quarter rib is secured to the barrel with two Allenhead screws. The problem I immediately ran into was that the Allen socket is very small, and those screws were originally installed with a lot of torque. I put a small Allen wrench on each screw and both wouldn’t budge. I had an Allen socket head and a ratchet that would give me more leverage, but the screws were so secure I was afraid I would round out their Allen sockets trying to remove them. I was getting nowhere with the little Allen wrench. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. I mounted the Allen socket on my ratchet and, with great trepidation, starting putting more torque on each screw. It worked. Both screws came out with their Allen heads intact. They hadn’t been Loctited; they were just torqued by a madman (or a madwomen), or more likely, somebody at Ruger with a power tool.

Okay, the screws were out, so I thought I could now remove the quarter rib. “Thought” is the operative word in that sentence. That quarter rib wasn’t going anywhere. It was wedged onto the barrel like it was welded. There is a small gap between the bottom of the quarter rib and the top of the barrel (you can see it in the photo above), but I didn’t want to stick a screwdriver in there to pry the quarter rib off. It would have scarred the barrel or the quarter rib or both. I needed something softer that wouldn’t mar the barrel or the quarter rib.

If you’re like me, you save old toothbrushes and use them when cleaning your guns. I thought I could use one of mine. Its plastic handle wouldn’t damage anything. The toothbrush handle was too thick to fit in the gap, so I filed it down to create a wedge. That got the handle in between the quarter rib and the barrel, but the quarter rib wasn’t going anyplace. I worked on it for 20 minutes until I broke the toothbrush handle in two. So I filed down another toothbrush handle. Three modified toothbrushes and an hour later, the Ruger’s quarter rib came off.

My initial thought was that what had made the rib so hard to remove was that its rear was interfering with the front of the receiver. That was sort of the issue, but it wasn’t induced by the quarter rib’s length or the receiver’s dimensions. I looked closely at the quarter rib and then I was really surprised. The hole for the barrel pin was off center. By a lot. Wow, I thought. That would certainly push the barrel to one side. It was what had been causing the rifle to shoot way to the right. It was a subtle anomaly. Who would have thought this had been the problem?

Whoa…something slipped while this part was being machined!

I was surprised that Ruger was able to assemble the rifle, but then I remembered what I had thought about earlier. Ruger probably used a powered screwdriver when installing the quarter rib’s Allen screws, and the technician who assembled the rifle probably did not notice the increased torque required to install the screws. The conversion of screw torque to linear force is extreme; I once participated in a fatality investigation where an operator sheared a munitions safety pin screwing on a submunition parachute without realizing what he had done (and the device detonated). But I digress; back to the Ruger story.

Older Ruger No. 1 rifles used a guide pin on the barrel. This was an unnecessary feature and it was later eliminated.

I examined the barrel pin (the pin that fit into the barrel to help locate the quarter rib). It was a press fit in the barrel, and it was obvious it wasn’t going any place. I thought about trying to pull it out with a pair of visegrips, but again, I didn’t want to bubba up this beautiful rifle. That meant I wasn’t going to use the new quarter rib Ruger had sent to me. When I tried to put the old quarter rib back on the barrel, the misalignment between the barrel rib hole and the screw holes was obvious. After thinking about this a bit (and realizing the barrel pin was unnecessary), I concluded that the best fix would be to simply enlarge the offset rib hole so that it allowed clearance between the barrel pin and the quarter rib hole.

I took a small circular file to the quarter rib hole and got nowhere fast. The quarter rib had been hardened to about two million on the Rockwell C scale. To enlarge the hole, I would have to grind it. I mounted a small rotary stone on my Dremel tool and went to work like a demented dentist. It took a while, but I finally enlarged the hole enough so that the quarter rib and its mounting screws could be installed and removed from the barrel easily. I used cold blue to blue the quarter rib’s hole inside diameter (where I had removed material), remounted the quarter rib, reinstalled the Ruger scope rings, remounted the scope, and headed to the West End Gun Club.

Three-shot groups at 100 yards. This is a very accurate rifle.

The trip to the range was extremely satisfying. The rifle’s extreme right bias completely disappeared, and after a few adjustment shots, the holes on the target were in the black. More surprisingly, the Ruger’s groups shrank dramatically. The No. 1 had been a 2 ½ to 3 minute of angle shooter before I corrected the quarter rib mounting issue; now it was a sub-MOA rifle. Life was (and still is) good. I love my Ruger No. 1 rifles, and I especially love this .22 250. I have two other Rugers chambered in .22 250. One is an unfired 200th year No. 1 with even better walnut (see below). The other is a tang safety Model 77 with the heavy varmint barrel (also see below). I could be talked into selling these two rifles, but not the .22 250 featured in this blog. I’m keeping that one for the duration.

My other .22 250 No. 1. It’s unfired. Nice wood, wouldn’t you say?

A Model 77V tang safety. It’s a pre-warning, heavy barreled .22 250 that is extremely accurate.

More Tales of the Gun!

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The 2023 MacManus Award

By Joe Berk

One of the best things that’s happened to me is the MacManus Award, which I received in 1973 (50 years ago this year). Captain Colin D. MacManus was a Rutgers graduate who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1967. His memory lives on with this award, and CPT MacManus continues to inspire young Army officers.

US Army Captain Colin D. MacManus, Rutgers University ’63.

Each year the MacManus family presented a Colt 1911 to the graduating Rutgers ROTC cadet who held Captain MacManus’ position in the Corps of Cadets, and in 1973 that cadet was me. It was quite an honor. We’ve kept the tradition alive, and I’m happy to report that another graduating cadet has been selected and will receive his Colt 1911 this year.

I still have and I still shoot my MacManus 1911, and 50 years after I received it, I can still hit the target. I had my MacManus 1911 out just last week.

The groups have grown just a bit over the last half century, but I can still do well with my MacManus 1911.

We’ve reported annually on the MacManus award, and if you’d like to read the earlier posts, here they are:

The Colin D. MacManus Award
The 2020 MacManus Award
The 2021 MacManus Award

Keeping this tradition alive is a good thing. I’m proud of these young folks.

If you are a 1911 enthusiast, we have a lot more good info on 1911 handguns and loads on our Tales of the Gun page.

The Great Pandemic Primer Ripoff

By Joe Berk

If you reload, you know that one of the toughest things to find over the last two or three years has been primers. I was one of the lucky guys…I laid in a stock of primers and I came through the shortage in fairly good shape. Primers are available again, but good Lord, the prices are obscene.

Before the pandemic, primers typically cost about $35 per thousand. That seemed to generally be in line with the last few decades of inflation (when I started reloading about 50 years ago, a brick of 1000 primers cost about $7). Then the pandemic came along, and BAM!, primers are now selling for $80 to $125 per thousand. As a former manufacturing guy, I can tell you that is outright gouging by the manufacturers and distributors. There’s nothing that changed in the materials that go into primers or their manufacturing processes that could possibly justify the 300% to 400% price increase. The manufacturers and distributors are gouging their customers.

The price increase has attracted at least one new player to the US market (the Argentinean firm Aventuras). But even those are $79.95 to $95 per thousand. The manufacturers, distributors, and resellers know that we’re willing to pay those prices so that we can continue to reload, but it’s an outrage. My message to the primer supply chain is simple:

Shame on you.

Want to know how primers are used in the reloading process? Check out our series on reloading .45 ACP ammunition.

More gun and reloading info is here.

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Shield Savvy

By Joe Berk

I promised an update on my Smith and Wesson 9mm Shield, and this is it. I’ve put 2,500+ rounds through the Shield (all reloads with different bullets and powders). Until I recently took my Shield to good buddy TJ, I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the pistol’s frequent failures to extract, and I wasn’t alone. If you Google “failure to extract” and “Smith and Wesson Shield” you’ll find a lot of people are having this issue. My problem is in the rearview mirror, though, and my Shield is 100% reliable now. That’s because of TJ. I’ll get to that in a minute.

That target above? It’s 50 rounds at 30 feet through my Shield, shooting offhand. If you’re a reloader, here are the load specifics:

- - Jim Gardner 125 grain powder coated roundnose bullets (Jim sized these to 0.356 inch, which is his standard bullet).
  - Cartridge overall length 1.145 inches.
  - 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5 propellant.
  - Lee factory taper crimp (light crimp; see below).
  - Ammo loaded on Lee Classic 4-Turret press.
  - Mixed brass.

Ordinarily, I tailor a load to the handgun, and I thought I would be able to do that relatively easily with the Shield. I found that not to be the case. The Shield seemed accurate enough with nearly every load I tried, but nearly all had reliability issues. On the low end, the lighter loads didn’t have enough energy to cycle the action (a common enough problem on compact semi-autos). Light, mid range, and hot loads all gave the Shield extraction issues. The Shield experienced a failure to extract about every other magazine. It was very frustrating. I scoured the Internet forums for this issue and the opinions were all over the map. Here’s a smattering of the drivel I found:

- - Don’t use Winchester ammo because the rims are smaller (I measured them; that was baloney).
  - Don’t use cast bullets because they hang up (I knew that was baloney).
  - Don’t shoot aluminum ammo (which I never do, anyway).
  - Don’t shoot 115-grain bullets.
  - Don’t shoot 125-grain bullets.
  - Don’t shoot 147-grain bullets.
  - Clean your gun after every round (seriously?).
  - Don’t limp wrist your gun (again, seriously?).
  - Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this other thing…
  - Do this, do that, do this other thing…

It was all written by people who apparently love the sound of their keyboards clacking. None of it was useful information. I felt stupid for wasting my time reading it.

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What I found was that the extraction problem occurred more with powder coated bullets than either plated or jacketed bullets. Other than that, there wasn’t a lot of correlation between any of the load variables I could play with and the gun’s failure to extract propensity. Then, during one range visit when I had a failure to extract, I fell back on my failure analysis background. I put the loaded gun down on the bench (being careful to keep it pointed downrange) and took a photo with my iPhone.

A cartridge case caught during extraction on the mouth of the case immediately below it.

Wow. How about that? It was apparent that the case being extracted was hanging up on the case mouth of the round still in the magazine, and it was a strong enough obstacle to pull the extractor off the rim. This brought up a lot of questions in my mind centered on the crimp and the bullet. The Gardner bullets have a slight ramped step just north of the crimp. And when I crimp a bullet for a semi-auto, I put a slight taper crimp on it with the Lee taper crimp die. I want enough of a crimp to remove the case mouth flare (part of the reloading process to assure the bullet will enter the case mouth without shaving lead or copper), and enough to assure the cartridge will chamber easily. Maybe I didn’t have enough crimp, I thought, and that was causing the case being extracted to hang up.

One of my reloaded 9mm rounds with a taper crimp and a Gardner powder-coated bullet.

I examined my ammo and I thought it looked good (actually, I thought it looked great; like most reloaders, I enjoy looking at my finished ammo). But, to make sure, I loaded another box with as much taper crimp as I could get out of the Lee die. Lee is right when they say their taper crimp die makes it impossible to deform a case: I put a very pronounced crimp on all the cartridges in the next box of ammo. But that wasn’t the answer, and it created a new problem. With a semi-auto like the 9mm or the .45 Auto, the cartridge headspaces on the case mouth. When I used a more pronounced crimp, I started getting misfires. The rounds were going too far into the chamber, and the firing pin wasn’t igniting the primers reliably. Nope, more crimp wasn’t the answer.

At this point, I was getting a little frustrated. All these problems aside, I wanted to like my Shield. I wanted to use it as my concealed carry weapon, so I needed the thing to be reliable. Faced with this issue, I knew it was time for what works every time: A visit to TJ’s Custom Gunworks.

TJ examined the Shield. He observed that the magazine positions the first cartridge in the magazine unusually high in the gun, and that was probably aggravating the failures to extract. But there’s not really anything you can do about that. It’s the gun’s design. It is what it is.

The Shield’s magazine sits relatively high.

A loaded round waiting to chamber when the Shield’s slide returns to battery.

TJ then took a look at the extractor. It was pretty dirty with combustion residue, but he felt it should work. TJ, honest as always, told me he could polish the ramp and the chamber (they come from the factory pretty rough), but he didn’t know if that would fix the failures to extract. I asked TJ to proceed.

A photo from TJ showing how dirty my extractor was. Even though it was funky (shame on me), TJ felt it would not have caused the extractor to slip off the case rim.

Here are a couple of photos of the chamber and the ramp as they come from the Smith and Wesson factory. The Shield always fed and chambered reliably; it was only the extraction that was an issue. TJ explained that if the chamber is rough, it can hang on to the fired case as it is being extracted. I’ve experienced that on other guns. The Shield’s chamber and its ramp looked about like I’d expect them to look on a mass-produced pistol, which is to say not very good. I asked TJ to work his magic on both the ramp and the chamber.

The Shield’s feed ramp and chamber as delivered from the factory. Rough, but not ready.

Another view of the factory Shield feed ramp. It looks like it might have been cut by hand with a dull chisel.

TJ did his usual excellent job, and here’s what things look like now.

What a good ramp looks like. Slick. Smooth. Shiny.

TJ told me he also put a slight undercut on the extractor to allow it to get a better grasp on the case rim.

The Shield’s extractor, as seen from the bottom. This is the piece that pulls the fired case out of the chamber. TJ undercut the area indicated by the arrow to give the extractor a better grip on the case.

I picked up my Shield a few days later and went to the range that afternoon. The Shield is now what it is supposed to be. You saw the target at the top of this blog. I fired 50 rounds without a single failure to extract and eject. The gun just feels a lot smoother and slicker now. My Gardner bullet and Accurate No. 5 load is perfect. And the recut extractor drops the cartridges in one nice small pile on the floor behind me. Wow. I’m impressed. Then, just to make sure (and because I was having so much fun) I fired another box of 50 rounds (again, with ammo loaded on the Lee Classic Turret press using the load at the top of this page).

Another target, another 50 rounds. Reliable as death and taxes, and accurate. Now, the Shield is as it should have been from the factory (thanks to TJ).

The Lee Classic Turret press does a magnificent job, and now, so does my Smith and Wesson Shield. It’s the way the pistol should have come from the factory.

It’s bothersome that most of my recent gun purchases have required additional work to get them to perform the way they should. In my former life as an aerospace manufacturing guy, I used to manage organizations with machine shops. I know it would cost a little more for the gun companies to do the kind of things TJ did to my Shield (and several other guns, for that matter). I wish the gun companies would do that; they ought to just hire TJ as a consultant (he knows what they need to do). The bottom line here? If you have a Smith and Wesson Shield and you want it to be what it is supposed to be, get in touch with TJ.

There are a lot of things I like about the Shield. Accuracy and illuminated sights are at the top of the list. You can get a feel for its accuracy from the targets shown here. None of this was bench rested; it was all shooting offhand on an indoor range with banging and clanging and brass flying all around me.

I found that after firing a a box of ammo, gunshot residue tends to occlude the sides, front, and rear of the front sight, and that causes the red to glow a lot less. But that’s a minor point. The Shield’s high visibility sights are great.

Holstered, the S&W Shield is about the same size as the Rock Island Compact 1911.

Another Shield-to-Compact-1911 comparison: The holstered Shield on top of the holstered 1911. Length and height are about the same.

The Shield is narrower than the 1911, and much lighter. It should be easier to carry concealed.

I bought a Bianchi leather holster for the Shield. It’s similar to the Bianchi I use with my Compact 1911. When I put the Shield in its holster I was surprised: It’s really not any smaller than my Compact 1911. It’s a bit narrower, but by the time both guns are holstered, the overall width is about the same. Where the Shield has a clear advantage, though, is weight. And even though the Shield with its polymer frame is much lighter than the Compact 1911, the recoil is quite a bit less than the .45. Now that the Shield has been made more reliable by TJ, it will make a good concealed carry gun. Incidentally, TJ worked his magic on my 1911, too. It’s one of the most reliable handguns I’ve ever owned.

Ten rounds from the Compact 1911, ten from the Model 60, and ten from the Shield. All are in the 10 ring, 28 of the 30 are in the X-ring.

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Your Worst Gun?

Here’s another story from good buddy Jose. These are his opinions about his worst gun, a Cobra Derringer. Jose gives us an interesting set of observations.

By Jose Armenta

Davis Industries of Chino, California, began manufacturing these cheap Derringers in 1982 until they were sued into oblivion in 1999. They are made of cast Zamak, a zinc alloy containing 93% zinc, 4% aluminum and 3% copper. You and I might call it “pot metal,” a material commonly used for inexpensive die cast model cars and other toys.

The Cobra Big Bore 38 Spl is small indeed.

Pointing with index finger while firing with the middle finger. It’s the way some people shoot the Cobra Derringer, but I don’t recommend trying it. I don’t recommend this Derringer at all!

Cobra Enterprises acquired the Derringer manufacturing part of Davis and began producing identical guns in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then in 2016 someone had been carrying his Cobra Big Bore (in the 9mm Luger version) with the hammer resting on one of the firing pins, put it on a bench, and it discharged, hitting the gun’s owner in the stomach. I don’t know much about it except the guy sued Cobra and Hornady, the ammo manufacturer. In anticipation of a judgment against them, the company owner started another company, Bearman Industries, also in Salt Lake City. Cobra filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in February 2020 and shortly thereafter Bearman took over Derringer production. And now Bearman is again plagued with consumer lawsuits.

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This example is a Cobra I bought new around 2014. It is of the typical Zamak pot metal construction with some kind of cheap steel rifled barrel liner. The trigger is absolutely horrid and the cross-pin safety is barely functional. It shoots best with handloaded 148 grain wadcutters because its 2.75-inch barrel is totally useless with hollow point ammo. The gun wouldn’t be so bad if the crossbar safety wasn’t so hard to disengage. I might try polishing the safety detent when I get some time.

The mystique of the derringer hide-away gun is deeply rooted in 1950’s Hollywood western movies, such as this still of Paladin from Have Gun Will Travel.

Firing a Derringer takes some practice. If you pull straight back on the trigger, it will not fire even with 20 pounds or more. To fire, the trigger must be pulled slightly downward and not straight back. An old time cowboy action shooter once taught me that Derringers are best fired with the middle finger on the trigger while the index finger points at the target alongside the barrel. You hold your hand outstretched with the fingers open. Now watch your middle and lower fingers as you slowly close your hand into a tight fist. Just before your finger contacts the palm of the hand, the middle finger moves slightly downward at the very end of the pull. Weird, huh? But it works!

Pressing the trigger straight back will get you nowhere with a Derringer. One must pull the trigger slightly downward to release the sear. This is accomplished pretty easily by using the middle finger. Try this: hold your hand outstretched with the fingers open. Now watch your middle and lower fingers as you slowly close your hand into a tight fist. Just before your finger contacts the palm of the hand, the middle finger moves slightly downward at the very end of the “pull”. Weird, huh? But it works!

Check out these trigger pull directions from the manual.

Using this middle finger method works well at across-the-card-table distance. However, my index finger is a bit longer than the barrel so I have to bend my finger a little to keep it away from the muzzle.

Would I recommend the Cobra Big Bore Derringer to anyone? Absolutely NOT!

But I’ll still keep mine as a conversation piece. It’s a fantastic example of a crappy gun. I shoot it a couple times a year just to remind myself of what a pile of junk this thing really is. Someday maybe I’ll find an old Remington .41 rimfire Derringer just for fun. I understand the Remingtons have no safety at all and may be equally as crappy. Who knows?

What’s your worst gun?

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The Rimfire Series

By Joe Berk

I liked good buddy Jose’s blog about his Marlin Glenfield .22 rifle, and we thought it would be a good idea to include a Rimfire Series category here on ExNotes. When the idea first surfaced, I thought we might have done a blog or two on .22 rimfire firearms. When I searched through our blogs, I found that we’ve already posted six .22 blogs. For your quick reference, here they are:

A Tale of Two .22s (a CZ Model 452 and a Remington Model 504)

A .22 Colt Trooper Mk III

¡Siluetas Metálicas!

First Person Shooter

A 200th Year Ruger .22

A Tale of Two Springfields

We’ll be including a category for these on our Tales of the Gun page, too.

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Watch for upcoming rimfire stories in this series, including a blog or two on the GSG .22 1911, the Ruger Single Six, the Smith and Wesson Model 41, a Mannlicher CZ Model 455, a Trainer CZ Model 452 , a Winchester Model, a Remington Custom Shop Model 504, a Ruger Mannlicher 10/22, a 200th year Ruger 10/22, a target grade Ruger Mark III, a vintage Winchester Model 62, and more. Yep, we like our rimfires. Big time. Stay tuned, Amigos!

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The Rimfire Series: Minute of Golf Ball

Good buddy Jose, who has written for us before (I’ll give you a link to his other articles at the end of this blog), sent this story to us a day or two ago. I enjoyed reading it and I think you will, too.

By Jose Armenta

Hi Joe!

I have one you might like….

“Minute of Golf Ball”

I was at the range two weeks ago on a very busy day fooling around with the first 22 semi auto rifle my parents bought me for Christmas when I was 12 years old (um, I mean Santa Claus did). It’s a Marlin Glenfield Model 60 and it came with a 4x scope.

Anyhow some years ago I mounted an inexpensive BSA “Sweet 22” 4×9 scope on it, I mean really inexpensive like 60 or 70 beans. I put four golf balls out on the ground by my targets at 100 yards while some kids and the range hands looked on. Using bulk “rot gut” Federal ammo, I picked off all four balls with four shots. Golf balls fly about 10 to 15 feet when hit with a 22, sort of like when you hit them with a chipper iron. Two kids with a Ruger 10/22 tried bouncing them to no avail. So next range break I set them back up and did it all over again, and the results were 4 for 4!

I told the kids my 50+ year old department store rifle was “minute of golf ball.”

Oh, and yes, it does have the famous Glenfield squirrel stock. I learned to hunt with this rifle so it will always be my favorite.

Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?

Jose

Jose, that’s awesome.

To answer your question (Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?): I know I do, good buddy Greg does, and I suspect quite a few of us do. My first .22 was handed down from my Dad, who bought it when he was 8 years old for $8 in New Jersey of all places (a state with what are probably the most stringent gun laws in the country). I like your story a lot, Jose. It’s a good story, it hits on a topic that many of us can relate to, and it suggests a new blog line: The Rimfire Series. Thanks for submitting this to us, and if you have more stories, please send them in!

Here are links to Jose’s other ExNotes stories:

- - Two 1858 Remington Army Revolvers
  - Bringing a 405 Ruger No. 1 Back To Life

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The TJ Rock Glock

By Joe Berk

I visited with good buddy TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few days ago. I’m having TJ work on my Smith and Wesson Shield (we’ll post that story in a future blog). While I was there we talked about the poor trigger pull inherent to striker-fired pistols, and TJ mentioned his custom Glock. He showed it to me and I was blown away. It is beautiful. I’ve seen custom Glocks before, but nothing like the pistol you see here. This one is in a class all by itself.

TJ calls this pistol the Rock Glock for good reason: Check out the granite-speckled, multi-color Dura-Coat finish. The pictures are good, but they don’t do the gun justice. In person, it is visually arresting. Stunning. Beautiful. There are probably more adjectives I could use, but you get the idea.

TJ’s Glock started life as a Glock 22. Here’s a partial list of the custom features TJ incorporated:

- - Custom Glock 34 9mm slide
  - Match barrel with MWG compensator
  - Double-textured grip stippling on the front strap and trigger guard
  - Custom contoured slide release (it provides a much easier lock and release)
  - Extended magazine release
  - Doctor red dot optical sight-scope
  - Custom Overwatch aluminum trigger
  - Match connector
  - Full action and reliability work

Like all of TJ’s custom handguns, this one is not simply a collection of drop in off the shelf custom parts. TJ does a full customize, fit, and polish on everything (the custom parts and the mating Glock components). The Rock Glock is old world craftsmanship applied to modern weaponry. The man is a perfectionist and it shows in everything he does. It’s what keeps me coming back to TJ when I need (or want) custom work done on my handguns.

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Interestingly, TJ kept the factory Glock striker (the firing pin) in the Rock Glock. He finds them to be much better made than aftermarket strikers. Kudos to Glock on that.

Check out the grip area (both front and back) and the trigger guard. They are deeply stippled to assure a rock-solid, zero slip grip.

One of TJ’s purposes on any project is to assure absolute reliability. That’s not hype. I’ve experienced it with all the guns TJ’s modified for me. Part of that includes recontouring and polishing the feed ramp on semi-auto handguns. Check out TJ’s touches on the Rock Glock’s feed ramp.

TJ let me dry fire the Rock Glock and I was impressed. He told me that the stock gun had a 6.5-pound trigger pull and it was rough. The Rock Glock now has a 3-pound trigger pull and it is buttery smooth.

It was a good visit and I’m eager to get my Shield after TJ works his magic on it. You’ll get the full report here on ExNotes when I do.

Why think small?

By Joe Berk

Half a lifetime ago I was a yuppie, and the symbols of being a successful yuppie included an MBA and a Rolex. The Rolex was easy (the only requirement was having more money than brains). The MBA was more difficult. It required going back to school, which I did. Getting the MBA definitely gave me a boost. My career at the munitions company was on fast forward; at one point I was the youngest vice president in the Aerojet corporation (then I got fired, but that’s a story for another time). I loved being in the bomb business (business was booming, so to speak), and being a former Army guy, I was in my element.

That could have been me in the ’80s and ’90s. I wore a jacket and tie to work every day. I had the big glasses, too.

Anyway, while I was going to night school for the MBA, one of my classes was titled Human Behavior or something like that. The guy who taught it was a Ph.D in one of the soft sciences, and I knew pretty quickly that he leaned way left. That’s okay; in my book you can lean however you want as long as you don’t expect me to agree with you on every issue.

The first night of class the prof had everyone tell the rest of their class their name and what they did. We were all yuppies, we were all young, and we all had good jobs. It made for good entertainment, but I had a feel for how things were going from the first several yuppies who told us what they did and the prof’s reactions and questions. Yep, the guy was a definite leftie. I started to wonder what his reaction would be to me…a guy firmly entrenched in the military industrial complex working for a munitions company.

“So what do you do, Joe?” Dr. WhatsHisName asked.

“Uh, I’m an engineer,” I said, hoping he would leave it at that, but knowing he wouldn’t.

“What kind of an engineer are you, and who do you work for?”

“Uh, I’m a mechanical engineer,” I said. No sense in oversharing, I figured. Maybe he wouldn’t notice I didn’t name my company.

“Who do you work for?”

“I work for an aerospace company.”

“What company, and what do you engineer?” This guy wasn’t going to give up. I liked my job and I liked what I did, but I wasn’t about to tell Jerry Rubin here I supported the Vietnam War.

“I work for Aerojet, and we make a variety of products.” It had become a contest, and I was losing.

“What are your products?” He had me. Time to ‘fess up.

“I do cluster bombs.” There. It was out. I knew the guy was going to call whoever it is you call when you find someone violating the Geneva Convention. The good doctor stared at me for several seconds. The other 30 or so yuppies in the class were dead silent. It was a pregnant pause if ever there was one and we were pretty close to the 9-month mark. Somebody’s water was about to break.

“Does your family know what you do?” he softly asked, speaking almost in a whisper.

“My wife does,” I said, mirroring his subdued tone.

“And how does she feel about how you earn a living?”

At this point, I knew I had to come clean. “Truth be told, Professor, she’s disappointed in me.” I had hoped that would end the discussion, but the guy would not let up. He was a dog and I was the bone. Then I sensed a way out, anticipating what his next question would be.

“What does she say to you?” he asked.

“Well, Doc, like I said, she’s disappointed, and she’s made that known on several occasions.” The good Professor was nodding knowingly. He was hearing my confession. I don’t recall specifically, but I’m pretty sure he was smiling. I was on a roll and I continued. “You see, Professor, my wife works for TRW’s Ballistic Missiles Division. They do nuclear intercontinental missiles and she’s always asking me why I’m wasting my time screwing around with conventional weapons. If you’re going to go, she always says, go big. Go nuclear.”

My yuppie classmates started laughing. Me, I was scared. I was running a perfect 4.00 grade point average in the MBA program up to that point, and I thought I had just blown any chance of aceing this course. The professor nodded without expression, made a note on his pad, and went on to the next yuppie. My being a wiseass had earned a good laugh, but that note he made couldn’t have been a good thing and I was afraid it would cost me.

So how did it turn out? I busted my chops in that course and I got my A. But I was sweating bullets for the rest of the term. Little, non-nuclear bullets, but bullets nonetheless. More importantly, the cluster bombs I helped engineer won the Gulf War a few years later in 1991. Most of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard tanks were taken out with CBU-87/B cluster bombs and GAU-8/A 30mm ammo (and my company, Aerojet Ordnance, also made the ammo for those A-10 Gatlings). Sometimes when studying human behavior, the guys who know (I mean, really know) reach the only conclusion and solution possible: An adequate quantity of high explosives delivered on target. I’m not at all embarrassed about having had a hand in that. Fact is, I’m proud of it.

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An Unfired NIB Liberty Model 77

By Joe Berk

The Ruger Model 77 rifle goes back to 1968. It gave Ruger a place in the centerfire hunting rifle class, and like the Remington Model 700 and Winchester Model 70 it would compete against, it outdid both by using the lucky number 7 twice in its name. The Model 77 is a good-looking bolt action rifle based on the Mauser design, with a classic walnut stock designed by famed custom rifle builder Lenard Brownell. I’ve owned several Model 77 Rugers, including this new-in-the-box .30 06 Liberty gun. I’d like to be able to tell you how accurate it is, but I can’t. I’ve never fired it. Nor has anyone else, other than the person who test fired it before it left the factory.

Every firearm Ruger manufactured in 1976 carried this inscription.

There’s no lawyer’s warning on the barrel about reading the instructions. We call these “pre-warning” guns. They were made in a time when people had more common sense.

The Liberty designation mentioned above refers to the “Made in the 200^th Year of American Liberty” roll marking on the barrel, which was a feature Ruger had on all its guns made in 1976. I bought the rifle in El Paso that year (I was in the Army stationed at Fort Bliss). This one has every thing that came with the rifle (the original serial numbered box, the scope rings and their blue cloth bag, the instructions, and the warranty card). It’s a brand new, unfired, almost-50-year-old rifle.

The tang safety Model 77 is considered more desireable.

The original box. The cardboard held up surprisingly well. This gun is new in the box (NIB) and this is the original box.

The box is serialized to the rifle. I obliterated the last number, which almost makes it look like the serial number matches the chambering.

You know, Rugers (and most guns, for that matter) were different 50 years ago. The bluing was deeper, the checkering was hand cut (and way better than the laser cut fuzzball checkering you see today), and the guns just felt better. This Ruger is like that. It’s immaculate, and there’s only safe ding on the stock. Other than than, there’s not a mark, dent, ding, gouge, scratch, or (Heaven forbid) spot of rust anywhere on the rifle. Even the anodized aluminum floorplate is pristine.

The Ruger Model 77 MSRP was $169.50 in 1976 and I believe I paid something like $139 for this one. I probably have the original receipt for it somewhere. A new Ruger Hawkeye in .30 06 (the rifle the Model 77 evolved into) lists for $1399 (yep, ten times what I paid in 1976), but a new one is not as cool as the one you see here.

Plain walnut, but elegant in its own way.

The unmarred anodized aluminum floorplate.

Early Ruger Model 77s wore this grip cap.

Check out this gorgeous hand cut checkering. You don’t see that too much today!

The rifle’s sole safe ding, done by yours truly. Nobody’s perfect. It will steam out. I’m leaving it like this.

God’s cartridge. The .30 06 is one of the all time greats.

This rifle may be going on the block soon. It’s time to start downsizing the armory and it’s time for someone else to enjoy owning it. You’re probably wondering how much I’m going to ask for it. So am I. As I look at this magnificent example of 1970s firearm manufacturing and post these photos, I’m having second thoughts. It is a .30 06, and that’s God’s cartridge. Maybe it needs to send a few rounds downrange, and maybe I’m the guy to do it. We’ll see.

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