Free Book Download from Sparks 31

I've been following Sparks 31's blog for awhile now, and bought his book Communications for 3%ers and Survivalists. He's decided to make the full text of that book and his other tome, The Modern Survivalist available as one PDF, for free.

https://sparks31.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/free-book-download/

It's worth a gander.

Shot My Cabela's Traditional Hawken Today

The last couple of times I've gone shooting it's involved charcoal burning and I've really been enjoying it. So, today I hit the range with my Cabela's Traditional Hawken, which I haven't shot in awhile. The rifle was made by Investarms in Italy, and is basically the same thing as a Lyman Trade Rifle with the addition of a cap box on the stock, double set triggers, and availability in lefty persuasion, which mine is. Checking the Cabela's website, it looks like they now carry a similar rifle made by Pedersoli, but not the same one I bought several years ago.

My load today was a .490 round ball, pillow ticking for a patch lubed with T/C Bore Butter, and 80 grains by volume of 2Fg Goex black powder. My rifle is a caplock, and I used CCI Number 11 caps.

I put around 20 shots through the gun. In the past I've alway wiped between shots: 2 sides of a wet patch followed by both sides of a dry patch. Today I decided to try just one side of a wet patch followed by one side of a dry patch. The wet patches were cut from T-shirt material that I'd moistened with water ahead of time and kept in a Ziploc bag. The dry patches were flannel patches sold as gun cleaning patches. This combo worked well to keep the fouling in check and I was able to load the gun easily, and allowed me to get more rounds downrange in less time.

I did experience one failure to fire. After about 10 shots the cap failed to set off the main charge. I tried a second cap but no dice. Thinking I'd dry balled, I removed the nipple and used my flintlock priming flask to dribble some 3Fg down into the bolster, put the nipple back in, and capped the gun. When I shot it, it recoiled the just like there was a full powder charge. The patent breech must have gotten really fouled, which was a first for me with this gun. (This is an example of why having a flintlock priming flask can be handy, even if you're shooting a percussion rifle.)

I shot OK today, nothing to write home about. All shots were offhand and I kept them in about a 6" group at 50 yards. I made my last shot count -- at an 8" gong which I hit squarely.

After I got home I finished cleaning the rifle by dismounting the barrel and putting the end in a bucket of hot water with a drop or two of dishwashing soap, then pumped the water through for a few minutes. This was followed up with some dry patches, then I sprayed WD-40 down the bore to make sure it was dry, wiped that out, then left it with a coat of FP-10. Petroleum-based lubes don't belong in a black powder gun's bore when you're shooting, but they are good to protect it in storage. I don't buy into "seasoning" muzzleloader bores. They are steel, not cast iron. As long as you get the petroleum products out before you load, you're good to go.

One thing I'm not happy with on this rifle are the sights. The front is a plain bead, which I could live with. However, the rear sight is awful. It's adjustable for windage and elevation but there is some slop in both the windage and elevation. Worse, the rear blade is shaped like a shallow "V" express sight. I am going to replace them with a Lyman set from Track of the Wolf that includes a fiber optic front sight and adjustable rear, also with fiber optics. Far from traditional, but now that I'm in my late 40s seeing plain metal sights isn't getting any easier.

After dinner tonight I removed the rear sight. This involved removing the elevation screw, driving out the roll pin on which the sight leaf pivots, then removing the two screws that attach the base to the barrel. One of the screws stripped so I had to drill it out and use a screw extractor. I used my mill for this. Here is how I used the drill chuck to apply downward pressure on the screw extractor held in a tap wrench.

I ordered the replacement sight set along with several other items from Track, and expect to get them towards the end of next week.

TNW Suomi SBR

Back in April I e-filed a Form 1 to turn my TNW Firearms M-31SA Suomi into a short barreled rifle. BATFE approved the Form 1 on July 19th, but never emailed it to me. I logged into atfonline.gov last week, and lo and behold, it was sitting there in approved status.

Friday night I engraved the receiver and then cut the barrel to 12.4”. I used a hacksaw to cut it off a little on the long side, then put the barrel in my lathe where I faced and crowned it. The Suomi barrel is about 19.5mm in diameter, so it just fit through my lathe’s 20mm spindle bore.

Before:

 

After:

I touched up the muzzle with some Birchwood-Casey cold blue, and it’s a pretty close match to the TNW phosphate finish.

Aside from looking correct, it now balances much better. It’s not nearly as muzzle heavy and actually handles pretty well, even though it’s heavy.

I was going to shoot it today but about 2/3s of the way to the range I realized that I had forgotten my range badge and key. Hopefully I’ll be able to put some rounds downrange through it next weekend.

Ted Cash Capper

One of the challenges of using a caplock muzzleloader in the field is finding a convenient way to carry your percussion caps. If you keep them in the original tin you need to handle individual caps every time you load. This risks dropping the small caps and spilling the tin.

Shortly after percussion caps came into use in the 19th Century, people developed cappers, which hold a number of caps. They can be as simple as a piece of stiff leather with holes punched in them to hold the caps, or can be elaborate spring-powered affairs.

This brass capper by Ted Cash Mfg. is simple and holds up to 75 caps.

In the picture above you can see a cap ready to be placed on a gun’s nipple. To get it into that position you press the L-shaped button sticking out the bottom.

To open it, slide the catch on the lid down so it disengages from the pin. This allows you to put in up to 75 caps and shows the simple mechanism.

I’m planning to keep this one in the Finnish gas mask bag that I’m setting up as a hunting pouch to go with my Euroarms Magnum Cape Gun. It’ll also be useful with my Cabela’s Traditional Hawken and Thompson-Center Renegade.

Note that this style capper cannot be used with percussion revolvers because it can’t fit into the nipple recesses in the back of the cylinder. An inline capper or other capper made for revolvers would be required. E.g., this one.

The workmanship is very nice on this capper, with a nice polish. I’m planning to let it develop a natural, non-glare patina. You can find them at various black powder suppliers or on eBay, which is where I bought mine.

Desktop PC Upgrade With SSD

This weekend I upgraded my desktop PC with a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive. (I bought the SSD locally at Microcenter but Amazon has it cheaper.)

The PC is a Microcenter PowerSpec B707 that I bought 4 or 5 years ago. It has a Core i5 CPU and I’ve upgraded a few components over the years, including the RAM to 16 GB, the video card, and the power supply (to handle the video card). The last remaining component to upgrade to improve performance was the hard disk.

Aside from the excellent reputation of Samsung SSDs a major reason that I chose one of their disks instead of a Crucial SSD is that Samsung includes a nice disk cloning software. I wanted to migrate my existing system over rather than rebuilding it from scratch, which would take days. After installing the cloning software, I used a USB-to-SATA adapter* to connect the SSD to the PC, then let it run for about six hours, finishing up after I went to bed last night. This morning when I checked on it the clone was complete.

Note that if you want to upgrade a Mac to an SSD, you can use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner, both of which are free. There are free Windows disk cloning tools, but other than CloneZilla, I don’t have any experience with them. Samsung’s clone app was easier to use and better for less technical people. It’s very pointy-clicky.

To install the SSD in a desktop you’ll also need a 2.5” to 3.5” drive bay adapter, in order to mount it in the case.

With the drive cloned and the SSD installed, I booted the machine, which went a lot faster than before. It did require a reboot to install the Windows drivers for the SSD. Then I installed the Samsung Magician software, which helps you monitor the health of the drive and optimize its performance. One thing it suggested to do was put the drive controller into AHCI mode by going into the BIOS. Unfortunately, that’s something you need to do before you install Windows. Windows blue-screened before booting fully when I tried this, so back to IDE mode it is.

The machine boots much faster, and I get a usable desktop much more quickly after I login. Even large applications like Word and Excel open very quickly from the SSD. I expected all this, based on my previous experience upgrading my mid-2009 MacBook Pro with an SSD.

Another nice thing is that the PC is a little quieter without the spinning disk.

If you have a PC that’s a little older and in need of a performance boost, replacing the spinning hard disk with a solid state drive is probably the best bang for your buck.

 

 

*Mine is a Newer Tech USB-to-IDE or SATA adapter that I got from Macsales.com several years ago. One of the cheaper USB-to-SATA units should work fine, if you never  have need to read IDE disks.

Ball Bag

{Insert Beavis and Butthead huh huh here.}

In setting up a Finn gas mask bag as a possibles bag to go along with my Euroarms Magnum Cape Gun, I needed a small bag to hold the .690 round balls I'll use for deer hunting. You can buy ball bags fairly cheaply, but I decided to make one using some pigskin I had laying around from my last visit to the Allentown, PA Tandy Leather shop.

The base is about 3" across, and it's a little less than 4" tall. I had the lacing from a past trip to Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop. I sewed the base and sides together using artificial sinew. It'll comfortably hold 25 .690 balls, far more than I need for a day in the woods.

Euroarms Magnum Cape Gun Range Report

Today I got the chance to shoot the Euroarms Magnum Cape Gun percussion shotgun that I picked up last week at Dixon's. Like last week, I shot it over at a friend's place, this time after we installed a trailer hitch on my Nissan Xterra, so I can mount a bike rack or cargo carrier. That took about 45 minutes and afterwards we drove to the back of his yard where he has a short range for pistols and black powder guns.

Earlier this week I'd ordered some .690 cast lead round balls, 0.020" thick patches, and a few other items, from Track of the Wolf. I'd also ordered a 10 lb. bag each of Lawrence copper plated No. 5 and No. 7.5 birdshot from Rotometals, via their Amazon shop. Both orders came yesterday.

I patterned both sizes of shot at ~15 yards. The birdshot loads were 80 grains of 2Fg Goex and an equivalent volume of shot (i.e., a "square load"). On top of the powder I put a corrugated cardboard wad and a 1/8" thick lubricated felt wad. The shot was secured in place with a second corrugated cardboard wad. The wads were punched out using a 3/4" arch punch that I got from Amazon, which I chucked in my mill, with a piece of wood held in the mill vise under the wad material. I put the mill on a low speed, and the wads were cut out easily. Beats using a hammer!

We used IDPA paper targets for patterning. I put some blue painter's tape in the middle for a well-defined aiming point.

First, the No. 7.5s, used for informal trap shooting:

I pulled that shot a little to the left.

Next, the No. 5s, which I'll use for upland birds and small game:

(The bullet hole in the top right was from my friend's .45 caliber Euroarms Kentuckian flintlock carbine. The hole in the left of the -1 ring is from a wad.)

We then took some shots with patched round balls on the above target from ~25 yards, but I forgot to take pictures. My load was 80 grains of 2Fg Goex, a 0.020" patch lubed with Bore Butter, and a .690" lead round ball. At that range, the gun shoots a couple inches high but is easily minute-of-whitetail.

I took three more shots, recycling the target I used when I patterned the No. 7.5 shot.

You can really see the difference in the .45 and .69 caliber holes. I yanked the first shot, which is the one to the left of the tape. Point of aim was 6 o'clock on the blue tape, so it shoots a little high with this load at 50 yards.

I recovered a couple of my patches, which show a perfect fouling pattern with no cutting, as expected.

This load looks like a winner for close range deer hunting. It's accurate enough to 50 yards and even after 11 shots with no wiping, seated easily. In fact, the balls can be started in the muzzle with only thumb pressure.

I noticed that fouling was starting to build up in the breech after about 9 shots. I could've continued shooting after 11 shots if I wiped the bore, but by then it was lunchtime and we called it quits.

One thing that helped make loading easier was that last night I'd measured out all my powder and shot loads, and put them in speed loader tubes from TOTW. Likewise, I'd prelubed my shooting patches, which saved a lot of mess, since Bore Butter gets runny when it's 90 degrees out.

Aside from preparing my powder and shot charges and lubing my patches, I'd prepared a Ziploc bag of cleaning patches by soaking them in water with a little Windex squirted in. I used a few of these after shooting, then completed cleaning once I got home. At home I took advantage of the gun's patent breech and dunked the breech end in a bucket of hot soapy water, so I could pump it through the bore. I then followed up with some dry patches, and then a few with WD40 to make sure that there wasn't any water left inside. Finally, I left the bore with a good coat of Ballistol to prevent rust.

I am really looking forward to carrying the Euroarms Magnum Cape Gun afield this fall.

Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States

Edit: Welcome Twitter users! Please poke around the blog. If you came here because of this post, you'll probably find something else of interest.

Back in 2004, I posted Percentage of Adults With Carry Permits in "Shall Issue" States. It's been probably the most popular post on this blog, and several times I've been asked if there's an update. Well, now there is.

Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States is a new scholarly paper by John R.Lott, John E. Whitley, and Rebekah C. Riley. Here's the summary:

Since President Obama’s election the number of concealed handgun permits has soared, growing from 4.6 million in 2007 to over 12.8 million this year. Among the findings in our report:

• The number of concealed handgun permits is increasing at an ever- increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million additional new permits have been issued – a 15.4% increase in just one single year. This is the largest ever single-year increase in the number of concealed handgun permits.
• 5.2% of the total adult population has a permit.
• Five states now have more than 10% of their adult population withconcealed handgun permits.
• In ten states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing so much faster than the number of permits.
• Since 2007, permits for women has increased by 270% and for men by 156%.
• Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.
• Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per 100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 178%. Overall violent crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.
• Regression estimates show that even after accounting for the per capita number of police and people admitted to prison and demographics, the adult population with permits is significantly associated with a drop in murder and violent crime rates.
• Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies at one- sixth the rate that police officers are convicted.

Well, that sure doesn't fit the president's or Bloomberg's narratives, does it? Especially the points about women and minorities.

Digging into the data, the state with the largest numbers of permits is Florida with about 1.4 million, followed by Pennsylvania with about 1.1M. C'mon PA folks, we're slacking.

If you look at percentages, the top five states are

• Alabama 12.64%
• South Dakota 12.3%
• Indiana 11.62%
• Pennsylvania 10.64%
• Tennessee 10.21%

From my post of 11 years ago, the top five states in 2004 were :

• 7.45% South Dakota 
• 6.79% Indiana 
• 6.76% Pennsylvania 
• 5.23% Connecticut 
• 5.12% Washington

If the Democrats are upset by this I have two things to say:

1. Good.
2. You have only yourselves to blame. You've been simultaneously beating the drum for more gun control, fanning the flames of racial tension, and tearing down our country's institutions. Don't be surprised when people decided they need to take affirmative steps to preserve their own security.

First Shots With the EOA Magnum Cape Gun

Yesterday I was able to shoot a few rounds through the Euroarms gun at a friend's place. I don't know where I have my stash of 12 gauge wads and shot leftover from when I had my Pedersoli 12 gauge double, so I just tried some of the .662 balls I'd bought when I got my MVTC .69 caliber M-1717 musket. I used 80 grains of 2Fg Goex and pillow ticking patches lubed with Bore Butter. At about 20 - 25 yards I kept 6 shots inside an 8" bull, with POI = POA.

Not bad for a way undersized ball and a gun with only a bead front sight.

For 3 of the shots I used a single patch, while the other 3 I double patched it due to the small ball. POI at that range seemed the same but I was definitely getting a better gas seal with the double patch, based on slightly more recoil. For my last shot I retrieved a patch, relubed it and shot it again.

While I was reloading in between a couple shots, a fawn came barreling out of the woods and screeched to a halt about 15 feet away. We stood still and he hung out for about five minutes, trying to figure out what we were. Eventually, he took off and we went back to shooting.

Tonight I put in an order with Track of the Wolf for some .690 balls, .020" cotton shooting patches, a 12 gauge jag to fit my cleaning rod, a spare nipple, and a few other accessories.

This looks like it'll be a really fun gun to shoot and useful for anything I can hunt in PA.

Muzzleloading Single Barrel Smoothbores

One of the most common (possibly the most common) types of civilian arms from the 1600s up through the beginning of the 20th Century was some kind of single shot smoothbore gun. They were highly valued as meat getters and weapons for both defense and offense. Such guns were traded in large quantities to the Indians as well as other indigenous peoples around the globe. Probably the best known of these guns in North American was the Northwest or Hudson's Bay gun.

(Pic found on the 'net.)

Another well known muzzleloading smoothbore was the French Fusil de Chasse. I have one in 20 gauge from Middlesex Village Trading Company.

(Pic borrowed from MVTC.)

Being smoothbores, they can shoot birdshot, buckshot, or a single ball, making them useful for any game from birds and squirrels on up to moose. They also saw a lot of use as fighting weapons. The modern equivalent would be a single shot shotgun like my old H&R 20 gauge.

When the muzzleloading single barrel shotguns were state of the art, most were produced in smaller gauges -- 24 to 20 gauge. They were cheaper to load, requiring less powder and shot, important when you are weeks or months away from resupply.

Most of the currently produced muzzleloading shotguns are 12 gauge doubles, and most of the single barrels are flintlocks. Pedersoli lists a percussion version of their Mortimer 12 gauge shotgun.

One percussion single barrel smoothbore that was imported for awhile but is no longer was the Euroarms of America "Magnum Cape Gun." Normally, a cape gun is a double with one rifled and one smoothbore barrel, but I guess EOA thought the name sounds cool. The gun was made by Investarms* and is still listed on their website as the "Gallyon," but doesn't appear to be imported into the US at present.

One of the Magnum Cape Guns has been on my want list for awhile and I found one in excellent shape yesterday at Dixon's for a reasonable price, so it came home with me.

Closeups of the lock and breech area:

It's a 12 gauge percussion smoothbore shotgun with a cylinder bore, i.e., no choke. The bore appears to be chrome lined, which will help cleanup. The barrel is fitted with a hooked patent breech, so if you remove the ramrod, drive out the barrel wedge, and put the hammer on half cock, you can lift it out of the stock. You can then dunk the breech end in a bucket of water and using a wet patch, pump water through the bore to clean it.

The Magnum Cape Gun is very well made with a nice polish on the metal parts, and a deep, beautiful blueing job on the barrel, but, and trigger guard. The lock was left in the white. The wood is fairly plain but serviceable, and the checkering was well executed. The inletting of the buttplate could have been better, though. This specimen was well cared for, with only some wear on the buttplate where it rested on the ground while being loaded, and only a few handling marks on the wood.

My plans for this gun include small game, upland bird, and maybe even deer hunting. For deer I'll use a patched round ball. For shot, I plan to get a punch and make felt wads from the same felt I use to make wads for my percussion revolvers. (According to this article, felt wads perform better than card and fiber wads.)

Once I get the chance to try the gun out I'll post some more thoughts.



*Investarms makes the Lyman Great Plains Rifle, Lyman Trade Rifle, and Lyman Great Plains Pistol. They also make the Cabela's Traditional Hawken, one of which I have.

Pole Lathe

This morning I went up to Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop in Kempton, PA, for their annual Gunmakers' Fair. Among the more interesting things I saw was this pole lathe, which was being used for turning the wooden ends for powder horns.

Back of the lathe, showing some of the linkage:

Closeup of wooden spring:

Closeup of the mandrel, which holds the piece being worked on. The wooden block visible behind the work and the mandrel is the tool rest. You can also see the wooden bar the operator steps on to run the lathe.

And finally, a gratuitous shot of some old farm machinery.

Gun Training in Nasty Weather

Over on gundigest.com, Dave Morelli has an article in which he advocates gun training in bad weather.

I see nothing in the article with which I disagree. The author isn't advocating going out in crappy weather to learn the fundamentals. He's telling you to get out there in sub-optimal conditions to learn what your gun does -- and what you do -- when it's windy, rainy, or cold.

Based on my own experience in shooting practical rifle matches at my club, operating your gun in extreme weather conditions stresses the shooter in ways not experienced when it's 75 and sunny. If it's humid, lenses (both eye glasses and scope lenses when you accidentally breathe on them) get fogged. If it's snowing ice can form on your gun while you're waiting to shoot, rendering it slippery. When it's hot, your sweat gets in your eyes and on the gun.

Or step in a 10" deep puddle of ice water while your waterproof boots are only 8" high, then go on to finish the stage.

In cold weather your clothing limits your movement and makes working fine controls more difficult.

Get the basics down in good weather. Then go see what happens when it's shitty out.

It was about 12 degrees out when this pic of me was taken back in January.

Under stress you will default to the level of your training. If you train easy, you will fail get life gets hard.

New Scanner

This week I got a Uniden BC396XT scanner from Amazon. I have a couple posts up about it over on Survival Preps, here and here.

"Technical Glitches." Uh huh.

Unless you were under a rock, you know about the following three things:

1. The Chinese stock market dive.
2. "Technical glitches" grounding all United Airlines flights in the US yesterday.
3. "Technical glitches" causing all trading to be halted for several hours on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

On Tuesday, this was tweeted by Anonymous:

Unless the network and system admins at UAL and the NYSE are totally incompetent, they have major redundancy in place to prevent shutdowns like this from happening. There's simply too much money at stake to have single points of failure.

Now, was Anonymous responsible? Perhaps it was someone looking to divert attention from the Chinese stock market meltdown. Whatever really happened I doubt that the powers that be would share the truth, for fear of upsetting the apple cart.

My tinfoil hat feels a bit warm. It would be a good time to revisit your emergency preparations.

Rimfire Range Day Number 4

Amanda and I hit the range again yesterday. She shot her Savage Rascal and my 10/22, while this time I brought my Remington Apache Nylon 77. Here's an older pic of it with my Remington 550-1.

Amanda mostly shot Aguila Super Extra SV loads from the same brick we'd tapped into earlier. This time, however, she had several rounds that failed to go off the first time they were hit by the firing pin. This happened in both rifles she shot. All went off when loaded back into the gun but rotated so that a different part of the rim was hit. After blowing through a couple hundred of the Aguilas she shot some Federal Automatch, which didn't give her any problems.

In the Nylon 77 I mostly shot Remington Golden Bullets from a 550 count box that I bought several years ago. It functioned perfectly with them and accuracy was good. I also tried some Federal Automatch, which did not shoot as accurately as the GBs, and with which I had a couple stovepipes.

I have to admit that after shooting at least 500 Golden Bullets in a few different rifles this week, I am reassessing my opinion of it. I do know that my Ruger 22/45 Lite and Norinco ATD do not like it, and my Beretta Jaguar isn't as reliable with it as with CCI Mini Mags, but it does work well in a few other .22s I own. I'll keep buying it when I run across it at a reasonable price, since it's one type of .22 LR ammo that seems to be more available than CCIs, and generally cheaper.

On the other hand, I'm underwhelmed with Federal Automatch. It's one of the .22 LR loads that I've noticed becoming more available, but I get more malfunctions with it in several of my guns than other loads, and accuracy is nothing to get excited about. Also, the waxy lube gets gummy if it's over 90 degrees or the gun is hot. My daughter's Savage Rascal will start getting stuck cases if she shoots a lot of Automatch when it's hot. The remedy is a quick chamber cleaning using a Q-Tip with some gun oil on it, or running a Boresnake through the barrel.

.22s in general tend to be finicky as to what loads they shoot accurately, and semi autos often function better with some loads than others. The only way to find out what shoots and functions well in any given .22 firearm is to try a variety of loads in it.

Another Rimfire Range Day

I made it to the range again today, this time with my 11 year old in tow. This was her first chance to try shooting my Ruger 10/22 fitted with Tech Sights and a Choate M4-style stock.

She did well with the Ruger. With the stock fully collapsed, it is short enough for her to shoulder and get a proper sight picture.

We shot the Ruger with Aguila Super Extra standard velocity .22 LR. It runs well in the Ruger but the powder does have a funny smell, similar to that of a lot of Russian ammo that I've fired. We had a few failures to feed but I tracked them down to an old 10 round magazine we were using. It also caused FTFs with CCI Mini Mags. That particular mag dates to the late 1970s and belonged to my father. Considering how much my brother and I shot his old 10/22 when we were kids, G-d only knows how many rounds have been through it. I'll try taking it apart and cleaning it to see if that'll make a difference.

I also brought my Remington 550-1 again, and this time grabbed a half-full brick of Winchester Xpert .22 LRs to try in it. I bought the Xperts the year before my daughter was born. The reason it lasted so long is because it was the worst, gummiest, dirtiest .22 LR I'd ever tried. The last time I tried it in the 10/22 the rifle choked on it. I'd shot it in my Old Model Ruger Single Six and a S&W Model 18 (both revolvers) and it gummed them up.

However, the waxy lube seemed to have dried out a little over the years. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Remington 550 fed them with only a few hiccups. I did get a few stovepipe failures to eject, but for the most part it functioned OK with the XPerts, and shot them fairly well. I wanted to burn up the rest of XPerts so when I noticed the FTEs starting to increase I added some additional FP10 to the bolt and inside the action, and the rifle kept going.

That Remington 550-1 has become my favorite .22 semiauto rifle. It's accurate, reliable, and handles even .22 CB Shorts as a semiauto.

The Williams Floating Chamber

Yesterday, I mentioned shooting some .22 CB Shorts in my Remington 550-1. The rifle is designed to feed .22 Shorts, Longs, and Long Rifles interchangeably. The mass of the bolt and the strength of the mainspring are balanced for .22 LR, so in order to feed .22 Shorts as a semi auto, they need a boost.

This is accomplished by the inclusion of a Williams floating chamber in the breech end of the barrel. When installed and shooting .22 Longs or LRs, the seam between the end of the floating chamber and the rest of the barrel is sealed by the cartridge case. However, it's uncovered when shooting Shorts, so some of the gas from the cartridge goes into the gap and floats the chamber, allowing it to recoil a short distance, giving additional impetus to the bolt. If you go over to Numrich Arms' website and look at their exploded diagram of a Remington 550-1, the floating chamber is part #50.

I thought it would be a good idea to give my Remington a thorough cleaning, since I'd never removed the floating chamber, and since I bought it about 2.5 years ago it's seen close to 1,000 rounds through it, including 60 or so CB Shorts yesterday. It was filthy inside. After I got the floating chamber out and cleaned up I took some pics, here are a couple that came out halfway decent.

There was a fair amount of lead buildup on the shoulder of the piece, which I was able to scrape off with a small screwdriver.

Before being used in the Remington 550, the Williams floating chamber was used in the Colt Ace and .22 conversion kits, which were designed to mimic the recoil of a M1911 in .45 ACP.

It's a really clever solution to a couple interesting engineering task: make a semi auto that can feed .22 S, L. or LR interchangeably, and make a .22 pistol recoil more like a .45.

Another Rimfire Day at the Range

I was able to put some more .22 LR downrange today, from both my Ruger 10/22 and my Remington 550-1. Most of my shooting was done from the bench at some NRA 50 yard small bore targets that I printed up this morning. The 50 yard target has a 4" diameter bullseye. At 50 yards, the bullseye appears to be the same diameter as bead front sight on the Remington. IOW, it looks like a black dot at that range. The rear sight on the rifle is an open rear notch.

The top left target was shot with Federal Automatch 40 grain solids, the top right with Winchester Super-X 37 grain HPs, and the lower left with CCI Mini Mag 36 grain solids. (The holes in between the top two bulls were leftover from someone else.) I figure that with a scope I should be able to get the rifle grouping in about an inch or less at 50 yards with the right ammo. It definitely likes the Mini Mags.

I also put 20 rounds into an AQT-type target at 25 yards, offhand. This target is a 100 yard target scaled for shooting at 25 yards. The lower edge of the black is about 6.5" wide.

The front sight needs to be drifted a little left to move the POI to the right, but I'm pleased with the group. The Remington has a nice balance for offhand shooting.

I wrapped up the afternoon by doing some plinking at some 50 yard gongs. The largest of these are about 8" in diameter and I was able to hit them most of the time.

The Remington has a Williams floating chamber designed to allow it to function with .22 Short, Long, or Long Rifle, so I tried some CCI .22 Short CBs in the Remington and was happy to see that the rifle functioned most of the time with them.  I did get a number of stovepipes with the CBs, though. I suspect it would function better with regular .22 Shorts, either standard or high velocity loads. The tubular magazine will hold 20 .22 Shorts, which is fun for plinking. Shooting the CBs, the Remington sounds like an air rifle and no hearing protection is needed. The CBs dropped about a foot more at 50 yards than the HV .22 LR loads I shot earlier.

Today I Met a Real GI Joe

This afternoon I was at my club to send some .22 LR downrange. While I was there an older gentleman was also on the line and I saw that he needed to be reminded of our current cease fire procedures. After he packed up his stuff I walked up to him and introduced myself, and politely went over some range rules with him.

We got to talking and I saw that he was wearing a 75th Infantry Division cap, so I asked Joe where he was sent during World War 2. He told me Europe and that he went through the Battle of the Bulge.

Joe told me that during the Bulge, his company of 182 men got down to 16 men, before they got replacements. He said that a lot of the casualties were from trench foot.

One of the things Joe recounted to me how if you qualified as Expert with one of the small arms issued to the Army, you would get a three-day pass. He was issued an M1 Garand, but he qualified Expert with an M1 Carbine.

Joe's still pretty spry at 92 years old, but it's hard to imagine this old man who is maybe five feet tall slogging his way across Europe carrying an M1 Garand and fighting the Wehrmacht. God bless him and all those who served.

Here's some info about the US Army's 75th Infantry Division. 

Rimfire Range Day

I had a very therapeutic day at the range shooting two of my .22 rifles: a Ruger 10/22 and a Norinco ATD.

The Ruger is one that I bought in the early '00s, largely out of nostalgia. My father had a 10/22 that my brother and I shot quite a bit when we were kids in the late '70s/early '80s. I bought mine with the intention of leaving it mostly stock, sans a Power Custom hammer to improve the awful factory trigger. However, over the years it's picked up several mods:

• The Power Custom Hammer,
• A Volquartsen oversized left handed safety,
• "Slingshot" mod for the bolt release,
• An extended mag catch,
• A Butler Creek folding stock, which has now been replaced by
• A Choate Machine and Tool M4-style telescoping stock, and
• Tech Sights.

So much for leaving the rifle mostly stock.

I installed the Choate stock and Tech Sights last week so that my almost-11 year old daughter could shoot it. She's been wanting to move up from her Savage Rascal single shot, but most .22 rifles have a  stock that's too long for her. She should be able to shoot the Ruger from a rest with the stock in the fully collapsed position.

I really like the Choate M4-type stock. Stylistically, it looks like a cross between an M1 Carbine stock and an M4 stock. It feels solid and the shape of the buttstock gives a good cheek weld. The stock has two storage tubes for batteries or whatever. The texture of the stock gives a good grip. It installed easily, although I did need to relieve an area inside the stock to accommodate the oversized lefty safety.

I installed Tech Sights because my daughter didn't want to use a scope or red dot. She likes peep sights. Shooting with iron sights is a valuable skill so far be it from me to discourage her. I got the TSR200 which is fully adjustable.

I bought the stock and Tech Sights from E. Arthur Brown Co. They were great to deal with and I'll probably order more gun stuff from them in the future.

One mod I did to the Tech Sights was to replace the front post with a Hi Viz fiber optic unit. At 47, it's not as easy to see iron sights as it used to be, especially in low lighting. The Hi Viz fiber optic from post is an improvement over a plain black post.

I got the Tech Sights zeroed at 25 yards with Remington Golden Bullets. I figured that if the rifle shoots the cheap Golden Bullets well, my daughter can use them for plinking. I also tried Federal Automatch and Aguila Super Extra subsonics in the Ruger. They also shot well.

Along with zeroing the Ruger I was able to run plenty of rounds through my three Ruger BX-25 magazines to wring them out. The BX-25s are the mags to get if you want high capacity magazines for the 10/22. Last year I found this Rothco pouch at Amazon, which hold three BX-25 magazines and has a small pocket to hold accessories like a sight adjustment tool or basic cleaning kit. It has a belt loop on the back.

The Rothco 2-pocket ammo pouch is inexpensive but fairly well made from canvas. It's a good choice for long .22 magazines.

After I got the Ruger's sights zeroed I switch to my Norinco ATD, which is a copy of the Browning SA-22 that's been in production since 1914 or so. (I previously posted about the ATD here and here.) I wanted to try the Federal Automatch and Aguila Super Extra in the Norinco. It shoots very well with both rounds, although I had a couple failures to eject with the Automatch. Accuracy with both loads was good. Each target is 20 shots.

The sights on the Norinco consist of a bead front with a buckhorn rear. Frankly, they suck. I am very pleased with this accuracy.

Since I'm on vacation this week I'm hoping to get to the range at least one more time.