The Real Gun Guys

Plate Match

Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug…

Well, it’s not shooting at Blackwater with Todd Jarrett, but it was fun (mostly) all the same.I will state right up front that the gun performed flawlessly. All errors and misses were entirely my fault.

I did okay mostly, but it seems I’ve developed a bad habit of “losing it” when I shoot against someone else. Seriously, when I’m shooting the plates without being in competition, no sweat, I can do that all day, but put me head to head with someone and my grip falls apart and I rush things when I don’t need to. Below is a video of me doing it right for a change. I’m on the right.

In this video you can see me shooting five plates, four discs and one duck with six shots in about three seconds. Yeah I missed the duck on the first try.

Here’s a shot of the .22lr rack to illustrate what I’m talking about. The two poppers below are for the centerfire, autoloader and revolver divisions only. These are shot at 14 - 15 yards.

Piece of cake, right?

After the competition was over I convinced Jeffersonian to leave the plates up for a few minutes so people could practice. Wouldn’t you know it, I knocked them down repeatedly in five to seven shots; five shots being the norm.

There are at least three things I noticed about myself at the match. The first is my grip. If I concentrate on gripping the pistol in such as way as to leave my trigger finger “floating” I have much better luck hitting the target. Otherwise I find myself with a “death grip” on the gun and my shots tend to go low. I also need to work on not stressing out when shooting against someone else.”Hurry up and take my time” is a mantra I need to take to heart.

And the last thing…

Put a fracking magazine in the gun before shooting in a match! Yes folks, I actually did it, or didn’t do it, depending on your point of view. I don’t know how I managed to do it, I just know that I did it.

I hereby award to myself, the Special Bonehead Award for forgetting to put the magazine in my gun at the match.

Anyway, here’s a cool shot of me qualifying at the match. Notice the gas jets coming out of the compensator, the bolt on it’s way back under pressure and the empty case just clearing the ejection port. You may have to click the image to biggify it for the details.

Thanks to Jeffersonian for an outstanding photo!

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Range Trip

I took the Ruger 22/45 up to the range this afternoon to try out the new trigger group modifications. The first thing I discovered after loading up my pistol and firing my first shot is the trigger wouldn’t reset. I worked the action and was able to fire another shot. I kept having to do this in order to take a new shot. After consulting with Jeffersonian it was discovered the pre-travel adjustment was too severe and normal functioning resumed after it was backed off about a half turn. This left me with a little play in the trigger, but it’s something I can live with.

OMG! The trigger is amazing! It’s light and crisp and breaks like a glass rod! It actually took me a little bit to adjust my trigger technique before my groups started shrinking up. I went from the heavy (my opinion) factory trigger pull to a 2ish pound trigger pull. Soon I was putting them all into a “plate” sized target area (6″ circle) from 14 yards, shooting rapid fire like I do in the plate match. Did I mention how much I love this trigger? it’s like a completely different gun now!

In addition to the trigger modifications I did the other day, I’ve also got a tool coming to help me more realistically practice for the plate match. To round out my order I’ve also got a new titanium extractor coming for my custom Ruger 10/22.

So there you have it. Would I recomend this modification? Hell yes! Volquartsen makes some good stuff and the Accurizing Kit is no exception. As long as you’re at all mechanically inclined, you too can do this.

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More Home Gunsmithing - Ruger 22/45

I’m about to install the Volquartsen Accurizing Kit into my Ruger Mk II 22/45. let’s hope I can get it back together…

Update: After about an hour and a half I’ve got it back together and function tested. The pre and over travel adjustments were tricky, but the trigger pull is now at least down to two pounds or so with virtually no slop. I have no gauge so this is just an estimate. There is a noticable difference in the way the trigger feels now over the stock trigger.

The only visible change visible from the outside is it now has a black trigger instead of a silver colored one and the two adjustment screws. Oh, and you can be darn sure I loctited them! LOL Now all I have to do is take it up to the range and give it a good field test.

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Range Day

After this morning’s gun show, Jeffersonian and I went up to the range. He wanted to chronograph his Garand loads and I needed to sight in my Ruger 22/45 since I switched to a more visible reticule. I needed to  check the sights on my SKS as well. I only had twenty rounds for the SKS, so I got it sighted in at fifty yards with fifteen rounds and then took it down to the lower range to chronograph five rounds of my hand loads. I got it sighted in pretty quickly too, the other rounds were just because I could…and it was fun!

First the Ruger 22/45.

All went well with getting it sighted in. I had to go up seventeen clicks on the scope to compensate for the drop in POI when I changed reticules. Once I did this I was putting all of them inside a one inch circle at fourteen yards. Now I have the much more visible circle and dot instead of the easy to lose 1MOA dot.

I got the SKS sighted in so all the shots were hitting in the black at fifty yards and went down to the lower range to chronograph the last five rounds. I aimed at the top black circle and squeezed the trigger. Jeffersonian wrote down the MV for me and decided to check the spotting scope for S&G’s. I had a solid hit in the black at one hundred yards. I shot the last four shots the same way and they all hit inside the black, three of my five shots actually touching each other. If I didn’t have photographic proof I wouldn’t believe it either! In the photo below, you can clearly see the three shots at the 12 o’clock position, one below them at the 11 o’clock position and a flier at the 5 o’clock position. Just so we’re clear, the dot on my red dot scope covered the black dot of the target completely at one hundred yards. I basically covered the black dot with the red dot and fired. This was with my handloads which I made a while back. I need to find my load data!

Here are the MV’s for the five rounds chronographed:

2,209
2,263
2,251
2,219
2,230

Average Muzzle Velocity = 2,234.4 fps.

Jeffersonian informs me:

“Cartridges of the World, 11th edition, says 2300 for Federal factory, 2365 for Winchester and Remington factory, all with 123gr SP; 2329 for “Military load” with 122gr FMJ (Wikipedia says 2300 for 123gr); 2300 for “Black Hills factory load” with 123 SP and 2200 for the same with 150 SP.  So it seems you’re a tad slow.”

As was demonstrated, the handloads I made work very well so I’m inclined to make more of them, whenever I find the load data, but I’m not adverse to making some “full power” rounds to see how they perform.

All hail Loctite! Thanks to it, my rifle appears to be hitting what I’m aiming at now! Thanks also to Jeffersonian for the photos, information and graciously allowing me to use his chronograph!

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E-Postal Match Update

I went up to the range the other day and shot a bunch of match targets at 7 yards (my clubs pistol range is 7 and 14 yards) and this is the best target I got on that day. For some reason the turkeys made a turkey out of me, but I still haven’t given up hope of a perfect target. I’ll keep you posted…

I shot these with my custom Ruger Mark II 22/45 with Bushnell red dot scope and Volquartsen vertical compensator.

This should give you an idea of what the range looked like that day.

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Ruger 22/45 Post Extractor Replacement Range Report

So I took the Ruger 22/45 out to the pistol range after the Sharpshooter Shootout to give it a work out and see how it performed post extractor replacement. In a previous outing I was able to shoot just over 80 rounds through it before it stovepiped on me. Today I ran 300+ rounds through it with only one hiccup. For some reason, one round left it’s case in the chamber and didn’t eject. After removing the casing and verifying there was nothing blocking the barrel, I reinserted the magazine and continued shooting until I became physically tired and packed it up for the day.

What is it capable of? The below target should answer that question. Yes, I did shoot it from a sandbag, but in my defense, 300+ rounds can get a bit tiring shooting off hand. For this target I used the 1 MOA dot setting on my scope. This target was shot at a distance of thirty feet (10 yards).

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Home Gunsmithing - Ruger 22/45 Extractor

My replacement extractor arrived ahead of schedule (five days early) today from MidwayUSA. I cannot say enough good things about them! I’ve always received what I ordered on time, or early like today. I highly recommend them!

With some help from here, I was able to get the old one out (a process requiring at least three, preferably four hands)…

…and the new one in.

Notice the worn and rounded over claw on the old one compared to the sharp edges on the replacement. The old extractor wouldn’t hold a cartridge in the bolt, it would just fall out. Not so with the new one. All that’s left to do now is take it up to the range and see if the pistol malfunctions again.

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I’ve got to get me one of these!

The Ultimate Clip (Magazine) Loader:

Review at GunBlast.

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