Range Report

Dad and I made it out to the range today for a couple of hours.  Dad had his Colt AR-15A3 while I brought my Savage 93GL in .22 WMR, 1944 Underwood M1 Carbine, and my Marlin 336 in .30-30.

Dad was shooting mostly Wolf 55 grain .223 today in his AR-15 and experienced a couple failures of the action to stay open on the last shot with it.  He also ran some Radway Green SS109 loads through it with no problems.  He probably has less than 500 rounds through the gun so it's not broken in yet.  I suggested that he stick with the hotter milspec ammo for another couple hundred rounds, after which time it should run better with the Wolf ammo, which is not as hot as American .223/5.56mm.

This was the first time shooting the Savage 93GL since I put a Nikon 4x32mm Prostaff rimfire scope on it.  I did my initial zero using some Winchester Dynapoints I picked up over the summer at Wal-Mart.  I've read that they are a bit less destructive on game than most .22 WMR JHPs so I wanted to give them a try.  Accuracy with the Winchesters was good -- well under an inch at 50 yards -- but I had two rounds in one box of 50 which required a second strike on a different part of the rim to go off.  Very dissappointing.

I also shot some CCI Maxi Mag JHPs through the Savage to confirm the zero, since this is my normal .22 WMR load of choice.  I had my first ever dud with CCI rimfire ammo today.  One round failed to fire even after being hit on three different places on the rim.  {grumble}

This was also the first time shooting the Savage after installing a Rifle Basix sear.  My rifle was made before Savage put Accu-Triggers on their rimfire bolt actions.  The factory trigger was heavy and had a lot of creep.  With the Rifle Basix sear most of the creep is gone and it breaks at about 2.5 lbs, greatly improving shootability.

I only put about 30 or 40 rounds of Remington UMC FMJ through the M1, but experienced no malfunctions.  As expected it shot a little high at 50 yards but I kept all shots in about 2 or 3 inches, typical for an M1 Carbine in my experience.  This Carbine was one of the batch imported from Israel last year.  It has a fair amount of surface character but the bore is excellent.  The recoil seemed a just little brisk for an M1 so I think the recoil spring may need to be replaced with one from Wolff Gunsprings.