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:
We’ll be including a category for these on our Tales of the Gun page, too.
Please click on the popup ads!
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!
I’ve been lusting over the SIG P226 Scorpion for some time now, and after a little bit of brushing up on my negotiation tactics, I pulled the trigger (figuratively speaking) on one this morning.
I like the looks of the SIG, I like that it is an alloy-framed handgun (I’m not a big fan of the plastic guns), and I like that it is a SIG. Good buddy TJ told me he believes these are the finest handguns available today, and he’s a guy who knows handguns. The US Army recently made their sidearm decision and it’s SIG. That’s a strong endorsement, I think.
I bought my SIG Scorpion at Turner’s, the gun will be in the store this Thursday, and that’s when I get to start the PRK (Peoples Republik of Kalifornia) 10-day waiting period.
My tried and trusty Model 59, the gun that got me hooked on 5.0 grains of Unique and a 125-grain cast roundnose bullet.
I’ve got a boatload of 9mm ammunition reloaded and ready to go, but that got me to thinking: What load might work best in the new SIG? I’d found in the past that 5.0 grains of Unique and a 125-grain cast roundnose bullet provided great accuracy in my Model 59, but then I got lazy and I stuck with that as my standard 9mm load in everything. I’ll be the first guy to tell you that to find the best load in any gun, you need to experiment and develop a load specifically for that gun. I have a couple of other 9mm pistols (a Springfield Armory 1911 and the Model 659 Smith and Wesson that I’ve blogged about before), and I’ve simply used my 5.0-grain Unique/125-grain cast roundnose in all of them. Is there a better load for each of these handguns?
The 659 with my 125 grain cast roundnose reloads.The Springfield 9mm 1911. It seems to like the 5.0 grain Unique/125-grain roundnose load, too.
So here’s what’s coming up: I’m going to do a load development comparo for the 659, the 1911, and the P226 to see where the accuracy lives for each gun. I’m thinking Unique, Bullseye, Power Pistol, the 147 grain Speer, the 125 gr cast RN Missouri, and maybe a 115 full metal jacket or hollowpoint bullet. I’m looking for inputs, so if you have a favored load for your 9mm handgun, let me know and I may throw it into the mix, too. Please add your suggestions to the Comments section here. I’ll keep you posted.
We’re thinking about another book, one that would include all of our Tales of the Gun stories and much more. What do you think? Let us know if you think you might have an interest in this new book to help us assess the market. In the meantime, you can see our other titles here.
A Remington Model 700 BDL Varmint gun in .223. I spotted this at the Gunrunner in Duarte, and it followed me home.
There’s gun stores, and then there’s gun stores. I can’t pass a gun store without stopping in. The issue is that most gun shops today are soulless retail outlets with black plastic. Glocks, ARs, you get the idea. Guns with no soul and gun shop owners with even less. But there are exceptions. One that comes to mind is the Gunrunner in Duarte. It’s a favorite, partly because the team working there consists of older guys a lot like myself (crusty, maybe carrying a few pounds more than they should be, and a sense of humor). But it’s mostly because they get it. “It” being, of course, blue steel and walnut. And military surplus rifles. I can’t drive by Gunrunner’s without stopping in. You never know what they might have in stock, and even if I don’t buy anything, it’s always fun looking.
One day a few years ago on just such a stop, I noticed an older Remington Model 700. It was the varmint model and it had a price that was just too good to walk away from. And the photos don’t do it justice. It had a real contrasty bit of walnut with horizontal dark stripes that were unusually nice on a production gun. As the saying goes, I pulled the trigger. I bought the rifle for a scant $400, which I thought was a hell of a deal (I think new ones are about a thousand bucks now).
The Remington was pretty well gummed up with old oil (so much so the firing pin and trigger were stuck), and the standard M-700 BDL high gloss urethane finish was going south in a big way. I took the barreled action out of the stock and gave it a thorough cleaning. Then I spent hours on the stock with 0000 steel wool.
When I was finished, I was pleased with the results. The rifle looked way better than it did with the original high gloss finish (which never really appealed to me…it was too Hollywood for my tastes). The stock had a few nicks and scratches before; after the refinish, those completely disappeared. It became a thing of great beauty with a nice, subdued, European look. I grabbed a few shots, and then I played with them a bit in Photoshop to subdue the background and highlight the rifle. I like how the rifle and this photo in particular turned out…
The results of 0000 steel wool and a bit of work on my Model 700 Varmint rifle.
I mounted an inexpensive Tasco 6×24 scope on the Model 700. I wasn’t wild about the scope, as it didn’t seem to be able to focus the reticle and the target simultaneously (or maybe it was just my old eyes). A new Weaver or a Leupold might have been in order, but the results with this resurrected old warhorse were still outstanding. The rifle shot into an inch at 100 yards before I did any load development (which wasn’t too shabby) with what I regarded as junk .223 ammo.
More photos of the Model 700 after refinishing and with the new Tasco mounted.
I went to work on developing a load to get the rifle to shoot into a half-inch, and I succeeded: I broke the half-minute-of-angle barrier with a 0.498-inch three-shot group almost immediately!
A half-minute of angle!
That was with IMR 4320 propellant, and it prompted me to try several different propellants and charge weights:
Load results for the Model 700 .223 Remington. All of the above loads used the Hornady VMax 55 grain bullet. You should always start at the low end of the charge range and work up; do not simply take my accuracy loads and try them in your rifle!
You might think that with the above results the rifle was a keeper. It was, but not for me. A couple of my shooting buddies wanted it, and I transferred it to a good friend for what I had into it.
The Mosin-Nagant 91/30. These rifles are extremely accurate. This one is 84 years old.
I’m a Mosin-Nagant fan, as you know from reading our prior posts on these fine old Russian warhorses. I’ve got two, one I use with jacketed bullets and one I use exclusively with cast bullets. Today’s blog focuses on reloading and using cast bullets in a Mosin.
So what’s the deal on cast bullets? If you reload, you can use either factory-produced, copper-jacketed bullets, or you can use cast bullets. Cast bullets are cast of lead, lubricated with an appropriate grease, and sometimes fitted with a gas check (a small copper cap on the back of the bullet).
The cast bullets I’ve settled on as best for my Mosin. These are 200-grain, gas-checked bullets made by a local caster. The gas check is the little copper cap at the base of the bullet. It prevents the propellant gases from melting the bullet’s base and minimizes barrel leading.
Folks who shoot cast bullets either buy the bullets or they cast them themselves. I used to cast bullets 40 years ago, but I found it easier just to buy them from folks who know what they are doing and avoid the hassles of melting lead, breathing the fumes, etc.
Cast bullets are a lot easier on both the rifle and the shooter. The softer metal (lead versus a copper jacket) is easier on the rifling and the lower velocities reduce recoil. The downsides are that the trajectory is more pronounced due to the lower velocities associated with cast bullets, and generally speaking, cast bullets are not as accurate as jacketed bullets. But that last bit sure isn’t the case here. My cast loads in the Mosin are every bit as accurate as jacketed loads, and the Mosin I use for cast bullets is another one of my all-time favorite rifles. It’s the rifle you see in the first photo of this blog, and in the photos below.
My Mosin-Nagant has been worked on a bit. I stripped and refinished the stock, I glass bedded the action, and I did a trigger job to lighten the pull and eliminate trigger creep. It’s a great shooter.The desirable hex receiver Mosin. The Mosin-Nagant is an extremely accurate milsurp rifle.
My cast bullet Mosin is just flat amazing. It regularly cloverleafs at 50 yards, and when I do my part, I’ll get groups under 2 inches at 100 yards. Yeah, I know, other folks talk about sub-minute-of-angle shooting at that distance, but we’re talking about iron sights and cast bullets here, folks, and it’s all being done with a rifle manufactured in 1935. And wow, can that 84-year-old puppy shoot…
Open sights, 50 yards, shooting from a benchrest at the West End Gun Club.
This kind of accuracy doesn’t just happen and it’s usually not attainable with factory ammunition. This is what you can get when you tailor the load to a particular rifle, and you can only do that if you reload. I developed the load used to shoot the targets you see above trying different propellants and propellant charges, different cartridge cases, and different cast bullets. The secret sauce? It’s this recipe right here…
My Mosin load. SR4759 is a powder that works well for reduced velocity and cast bullet loads. It’s no longer in production, but I have a stash. When I run out of SR4759, I’ll turn to a current production powder and start the development process all over again.
Good buddy Gresh suggested I do a piece on reloading, and I actually had done that already in the form of a video some time ago. What you’ll see in the video below is the reloading process. When you reload a cartridge, you lube the brass, resize it to its original dimensions, prime it, flare the case mouth (to accept the cast bullet), add the propellant, and seat the bullet. With a little bit of music taken directly from Enemy at the Gates (a movie in which the Mosin-Nagant rifle was the real star), take a look at what’s involved in reloading 7.62x54R ammo with cast bullets…
Shooting cast bullets in a rifle is a lot of fun. A good reference if you want to try loading with cast bullets is the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (it’s the one I use). If you never tried reloading you might think about getting into it, and if you’re already reloading, you might think about giving cast bullets a go.
Check out our other Tales of the Gun stories! And, don’t forget to sign up for our automatic email updates. You might win our next quarterly adventure book giveaway!
The Remington Classic 700 in 7mm Weatherby Magnum: An unusual, collectible, and as it turns out, extremely accurate rifle.
A short while ago I wrote about my Dad’s left hand 7mm Weatherby Mk V, and how Roy Weatherby personally helped me select it. Well, here’s a story about another rifle chambered for the powerful 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridge.
About a year ago, I saw something unusual on Gunbroker.com. It was an ad for a Remington 700 Classic rifle chambered in the venerable 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridge. This rifle is quite a setup and, I think, quite a score for me personally. I’ve been a huge fan of Weatherby rifles ever since I was a little boy, when my father chased woodchucks in New Jersey with a .243 Winchester Model 70. Back in the day, woodchucks were about the only thing you could hunt with a rifle in New Jersey. I grew up in a farming community (there’s a reason New Jersey is called the Garden State), and the farmers in our area gave my Dad free rein to cull the chuck population. Those little woodchucks did a lot of crop damage, and the farmers were grateful that my Dad was able send those critters on to their reward. As a little kid tagging along with Dad, it was grand fun. It was not at all unusual for him to take (and make) 400-yard shots, with his rifle resting across the hood of his ’65 F-100 Ford (there were a lot of powder burns on that old pickup truck). Like I said, it was awesome.
Just before I went to Korea, my Dad bought a 7mm Weatherby rifle for me as a going-away gift, and I loved it. I shot the barrel out of that rifle (yep, I shot it so much I wore it out) and then I had it redone with a Douglas barrel in 300 H&H. But the 7mm Weatherby Mag cartridge had its hooks into me, and they never let go. The idea is that a 7mm projectile is aerodynamically more efficient than a .30 caliber bullet (the 7mm is 0.284 inches in diameter; a .30 caliber bullet is 0.308 inches in diameter). For the same weight, the 7mm cartridge has a lower drag coefficient, so it retains more velocity downrange and it has a flatter trajectory.
All of the above is probably more theoretical than real world, but I still like the idea of a streamlined, hard-hitting, flat-shooting, hot 7mm. And that’s what the 7mm Weatherby cartridge is. It was one of Roy Weatherby’s first magnum chamberings, and it has been the fastest 7mm cartridge ever for many decades.
The 7mm Weatherby cartridge. Note the classic Weatherby double radius shoulder…the theory is the double radii act as a venturi, providing higher projectile velocities. It’s probably more marketing magic than real world measurable results, but I’m a believer.
I’ve also always been a fan of the Remington 700 rifle. They are inherently accurate, and when I used to shoot high power metallic silhouette competition back in the ’70s and ’80s, it was rare to see anything other than a Model 700 in the winners’ circle. I’ve owned a few of these rifles, and they are indeed extremely accurate.
Remington had a run of Model 700 rifles they labeled the “Classic” for a little more than 20 years, with the idea being that each year they would do a rifle in one chambering only. Remington stopped making the Classic series more than 20 years ago, and I always wanted one.
Recently, I saw an ad on Gunbroker for one of the rarest of the Classic series, the single year they chambered these fine rifles in 7mm Weatherby Magnum. That was a “must have” rifle for me. A Model 700, chambered in 7mm Weatherby. Wow. The rifle was advertised as new in the box, the cartridge is an awesome one, and unlike most of the Classics I had previously seen, it had killer wood. Hey, what’s not to like? I bought the rifle from Heritage Shooting Academy in Triangle, Virginia, and it was a great deal. If anything, the rifle was better than advertised, and I sure couldn’t argue with the way it shot (more on that in a second).
When it arrived, I was more than impressed. It was indeed new in the box, it was flawless, the walnut was understatedly elegant, and as I was to learn, it shot very, very well. The only thing that initially concerned me was that these uber-velocity cartridges generally give up accuracy for what they gain in speed. But that sure isn’t the case with this rifle. I reloaded different cartridges trying various powder charges using two different bullets, and the groups that resulted (all at 100 yards) were fabulous.
Whoa! Out-of-the-box accuracy!
My initial testing showed that the trick here was to load toward the higher end of the powder charge spectrum to more fully fill those big belted magnum cases. The theory is that doing so results in a more uniform pressure wave/flame front when the go-juice lights up, and I guess it worked that way for me. More powder results in more velocity and that meant more recoil, but wowee, the Model 700 provided great results! It shot phenomenally tight groups and the little bit of dispersion you see is undoubtedly more me than the rifle or the ammo. I am one happy camper!
After a couple of months of not being able to shoot because the creek was too high, good buddy Greg and I were finally able to get out to the range this weekend. It was sorely-needed range time, and I brought along two rifles. One was the .375 H&H Safari Grade Remington you read about a few blogs down; the other was a very nice Weatherby Mk V you haven’t heard about yet. It’s the one you see in the photo above.
This particular rifle is a bit unusual. It’s a Mk V Weatherby (Weatherby’s top of the line bolt action rifle), but it’s not chambered in a Weatherby magnum cartridge. This is one of the very few rifles Weatherby has offered over the years in a standard chambering, and in this instance, it’s the mighty .30 06 Springfield. You’ve read about the .30 06 on these pages in earlier Tales of the Gun blogs. It’s one of the all-time great cartridges and it’s my personal all-time favorite.
So, back to the Weatherby. There were four things that made this rifle particularly attractive to me when I first spotted it on the rack in a local Turner’s gun store: The stock was finished in their satin oil finish (not the typical Weatherby high gloss urethane finish), the rifle had an original 3×9 Weatherby scope, the .30 06 chambering, and the price. It checked all the boxes for me. Those early Weatherby scopes are collectible in their own right. I like an oil finished stock. And the price…wow.
The Weatherby was something I knew I had to have the instant I saw it, and (get this) it was priced at only $750. This is a rig that today, new, would sell for somewhere around $2500.
The shop had this Weatherby on consignment at $750. It would have been a steal at that price; I got it for $650.Pretty walnut on both sides. Weatherby builds a fine rifle.
Back in 2008, when the Great Recession was going full tilt and still gaining steam, there were fabulous firearms deals to be had if you knew what you wanted and you weren’t addicted to black plastic guns. Nope, none of that black plastic silliness here. For me, it’s all about elegant walnut and blue steel. I carried a black plastic rifle for a living a few decades ago. Been there, done that, don’t need any more of it.
When I spotted the Weatherby I asked the store manager about it. She told me it was a consignment gun, and when I asked if there was any room in the price (it’s a habit; I would have paid what they were asking), she asked me to make an offer. So I did. $650 had a nice ring to it, I thought.
“Let me call the owner,” the manager said. She disappeared and returned a few minutes later. “$650 is good.” Wow. I couldn’t believe I scored like this. I felt a bit guilty and asked her if I was taking advantage of the guy who had put it on consignment, and she told me not to worry. He needed the money, I needed the rifle, and the price was good for both of us.
The Weatherby had a few minor dings in the stock and the finish was a bit worn in a few places, but the metal was perfect. Because it was an oil finished stock, it was a simple matter to steel wool it down and add a few coats of TruOil, and the Weatherby was a brand new rifle again.
TruOil and fine walnut…a marriage made in Heaven. TruOil really brings out the grain. You can leave it glossy, or knock it down to a luxurious subdued satin finish with 0000 steel wool (which is what I did on this rifle).
I’ve shot this rifle quite a bit over the last 10 years and I knew it shot well, but I hadn’t recorded which load shot best. I had several loads I’ve developed for other .30 06 rifles over the last few decades (like I said above, it’s my favorite), and I grabbed three that have worked well in other rifles. The good news is the Weatherby isn’t fussy. It shot all three well. The bad news is…well, there isn’t any bad news. It’s all good.
A few favorite 30 06 loads developed for other rifles. They all worked well in the Weatherby, too, as you can see below.The Weatherby did well with all three loads. All were fired at 100 yards. If you’re going to develop loads for your rifle, start lower than these and work up. These loads worked well in my rifle; you need to roll your own to learn what works well in your rifle.
The first load is one with a lighter bullet that has worked well on Texas jackrabbits in a single-shot Ruger No. 1. I found that load back in the 1970s when I spent entirely too much time chasing rabbits in the desert east of El Paso. It’s the 130 grain jacketed soft point Hornady with a max load (52.0 grains) of IMR 4320 powder. Yeah, the first two groups were larger than I would have liked, but don’t forget that I had not been on the rifle range for a couple of months. Folks think that shooting off a rest eliminates the human element, but it does not. I was getting my sea legs back with those first two groups. It’s the third group that tells the story here, and that one was a tiny 0.680 inches. If I worked on this load a bit and shot a bit more, this is a sub-minute-of-angle rifle.
The next load is the hog load I used in a Winchester Model 70 on our Arizona boar hunt last year. That one uses a 150 grain Hornady jacketed soft point with 48.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder. It shot well in the Model 70 and it shoots well in the Weatherby, too. The Weatherby averaged 1.401 inches at 100 yards with this load. The point of impact was about 3 inches lower than the 130 grain load described above.
The third and final load I tried this weekend was with a heavier 180 grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet. I had originally developed this as the accuracy load for an older Browning B-78 single shot rifle (I’ll have to do a blog on that one of these days; it, too, has stunning wood). This is a near max load (48.0 grains of IMR 4064 propellant) and with those heavier 180 grain bullets, recoil was attention-getting. But it was still tolerable, and the average group size hung right in there with the 150 gr load. It averaged 1.456 3-shot groups at 100 yards. Like they say, that’s close enough for government work. Another cool thing…the 180 grain load point of impact was the same height above point of aim as the 130 grain load, but the group centers were about three inches to the left of center.
There’s one last thing I wanted to share with you before signing off today. Good buddy Greg is an accuracy chaser like me. He was out there with his rifles this weekend trying a few of his loads. When I measure group size, I always use a caliper. Greg has an app on his iPhone (it’s called SubMOA and it’s free) that allows him to simply take a photo of the target and it computes group size and a bunch of other good data. I always wondered if the results from Greg’s iPhone app were as good as the real thing, so I asked him to take photos of two of my targets and tell me what the iPhone app felt the group sizes were. He did.
I measured this group size with a caliper and found it to be 0.680 inches; the SubMOA iPhone app clocked it at 0.640 inches. That’s a 0.04 inch difference, or 5.8%. That’s pretty close, I think.I measured this group size to be 1.245 inches; SubMOA found it to be 1.200 inches. That’s a 0.045 inch difference, or 3.6%. In both cases, the SubMOA program found the group size to be smaller than my measurements.
So there you have it. If you’d like to read more of our Tales of the Gun Stories, you will find them here.
You remember my post on being a bad influence? You know, I get a new rifle, get all pumped up about it, and then my buddies buy the same thing? And you remember that at least couple of the gun blogs we’ve done have been “A Tale of Two (fill in the blank)” gun stories, with the other guns owned by good buddy Greg, or Paul, or one or another of my shooting buddies?
Well, it turns out I’m not the only bad influence in town. There was a movie not too long ago (Wind River) where the main character carried a stainless steel, scoped, .45 70 Marlin lever gun, and he reloaded his own ammo to boot. Good buddy Greg saw that movie and decided his life wouldn’t be complete unless he had a similar rig. Here’s the trailer for Wind River to give you a bit of background if you haven’t seen the movie…
You might have noticed the Harvey Weinstein credit at the start of the movie (now there’s a guy who’s fortunes have certainly reversed). I saw Weinstein speak (in person) at a Bud Ekins and Steve McQueen motorcycle tribute event about 10 years ago, but I digress…that’s a story for another blog and another time. Back to the main attraction for this blog.
Anyway, Greg pulled the trigger on what I’m calling the Wind River Marlin, and we took his new rifle to the range this weekend. Greg’s new 1895 is awesome from both accuracy and power perspectives. Highly-polished stainless steel, laminated stock, big loop, long-eye-relief scope, Picatinny rail mount, 16-inch barrel, and more. It’s very impressive…
Greg and the Wind River Marlin, settling in to drop the hammer.Deep breath, let it halfway out, gently squeeze……and another 400-grains of lead heads downrange. I tripped the shutter just as the rifle was recoiling and caught the thing in midair. Note the rifle lifting off the rest in recoil.
Here’s a very short video of Greg firing the Wind River special…watch it bounce around when it recoils. The lens caps dance around a bit, too!
And here’s what it looked like on the target at 50 yards…that’s outstanding accuracy and great shooting.
The guy is good. That’s four 5-shot groups, and it’s great shooting in any caliber. It’s amazing in a cartridge as powerful as the .45 70.
The concept of a scoped lever action rifle, and particularly one with a long-eye-relief scope, kind of fits in with the Jeff Cooper Scout Rifle idea. I like it because I’ve always wondered what kind of accuracy these big bore lever guns are truly capable of, and Greg’s new stainless steel 1895 confirms that the Marlin lever guns can be tack drivers with the right load and a skilled rifleman. Some might argue that a lever gun should use iron sights (the traditionalist approach), or that a scope looks out of place on a lever action rifle. Greg’s rifle dispels both notions. The Wind River rifle looks great, and it has the accuracy t0 match its looks.
Another school of thought holds that the modern Marlins are not as good as the older ones. These folks generally push the notion that when Marlin was an independent company (before Remington acquired Marlin a few years ago) the quality was better. That’s hogwash, again as shown by Greg’s stainless steel Marlin 1895 and Paul’s blued-steel version of the same rifle. The current production Marlins are every bit as good as the older ones.
I, too, had a new Marlin on the range today (mine was of the .30- 30 flavor, but it was different rifle than the 336 Octagon covered here) . But that’s another story for a another blog, which is coming up in the next few days. Stay tuned!
A Tale of Two .22s (a CZ Model 452 and a Remington Model 504)
, and the Weatherby was a brand new rifle again.
from Amazon.
