phattire.net

The other night, a friend from work, taught me the basics of loading my own ammunition.  I've always been interested in loading my own, and with the recent spike in ammo prices, I was pretty jazzed when my friend offered to show me the ropes.  My father had recently gifted me a beautiful Winchester Model 1895.  The rifle is a Winchester-made, reproduction of the rifle that was produced from 1895 to 1932, totalling 425,825 pieces in all.  Although this rifle was chambered in many calibers with many intended uses, including military, mine is chambered in the heaviest of them; 405 Win.  This '95 is the rifle Teddy Roosevelt used in his famous African safari in 1909, and the rifle which he referred to as "big medicine" (Read more about Roosevelt's safari here).  It was used to take down hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and lions as well.  The big advantage of this rifle, at the time it was introduced, was its ability to hold pointed bullets, stacked in its non-detachable magazine.  Up until this rifle was introduced, lever action rifles held their bullets in tubular magazines, that paralleled their barrels. Due to the fact that the bullets sat in the magazine, with the nose of one bullet resting upon the primer of the next, rifles with these tubular magazines were limited to holding only flat-nosed bullets  Like many of my rifles, I look at this one as a marvel of engineering geneous.  Coincidentally, this was the last of the lever action rifles, that John Browning designed for Winchester. Surprising to me, is the fact that a musket version of this rifle, with an extended forestock and bayonet lug, was even used by the Army of the Russian Empire, in WWI and Finland in WWII.

A bunch of guys from work invited me to go on their annual "company camping trip". They're all hunters and from what I've heard, the trip is basically a weekend in the woods, shooting skeet, pistols, and bow & arrow during the day, and roasting chickens over a spit & drinking at night. Sounds good to me! I'm going to bring my Rock Island Armory Mig 22 for this trip. With the amount of shooting I expect we'll do, I figured this was the most fun and economical route to take. But, I have recently removed the scope, so I needed to zero it again. I took it down to Hap Baker Firearms Facility yesterday morning and shot about 300 rounds through it. I have it zeroed for 25 yards, where it will hold a dime-sized group. I really love this rifle. Its a work of art and functions great, BUT, it has a serious Achilles heal. The barrel comes loose on my rifle after about 20 rounds. I have to unscrew the barrel shroud enough to access the small set screw and tighten it back down.  This set screw passes through a forward portion of the receiver and into a detent in the breach end of the barrel.  This screw is removed when you want to remove the barrel, consequently, it loosens during use and suddenly your shots are landing way off the mark.  Very frustrating.  I've used two different grades of loktite to rememdy the problem; both failed as fixes.  I now keep an allen key with this gun, when I carry it.  I hope someone at Rock Island Armory is reading this.  

Despite the frustration of having to keep my rifle from falling apart at the range... it still holds excellent groups.  Above are my results at 25 & 50 yards.

 

I picked up a few new pieces of "iron" over the last several months and have been itching to get them to the rifle range.  Yesterday, a beautiful 65°F Saturday morning, I finally got the chance.  I loaded up the truck and popped over to the Hap Baker Rifle Range, here in Westminster.  I like this range a lot.  It's local, well run, has target posting ranges (in increments of 50 yards) all the way out to 200 yards, and its very cheap.  Its just $10 for an in-county resident like myself.  I took with me, my Remington Model 81 in .300 Savage (1945).  Also, my Winchester Model 63 in .22 (1939). And my Colt 1911 A1 in .45 (1943).  A sucker for the older guns, I sort of had myself an old-timey session down at the rifle range.  These three pieces were all made during the same era.

I started off with the Remington Model 81 first.  I really love the shape of this rifle.  It's Remington's first semiautomatic, big game rifle.  Chambered in .300 Savage it really packs a punch.  The internal magazine holds four rounds.  Although, it was made in November of 1945, I was lucky enough to find this rifle with 95% of the original bluing in tact, and not a flaw to speak of in the stock.  It's a tank of a gun; very heavy.  One of John Moses Browning's designs, it does not use gas to operate the action, instead, it uses a long spring, around the barrel, shrouded by an outer jacket.  The action is very similar to that of Browning's 1911.  The barrel actually moves for and aft with each shot.  I find it neat that it utilizes a very large safety on the right side of the receiver.  Keep in mind that Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47 (which uses a very similar safety lever) debuted in Europe, shortly after the Remington released their Model 8's & 81's...  

Curious to see how the Model 81 would handle, I loaded four rounds into the internal magazine, racked one into the chamber and lined up on my target 25 yards away.  Let me tell you, this gun packs a wallop!  I thought my featherweight Model 70 in .30-06 was damaging (to the shooter).  I'll be damned if this one isn't worse!  Granted; I was shooting in a T-shirt.  Again.  I sent the other three rounds, down range and ended up with a nice 1" group.  I'm happy with that.  No need to mess with the sights.  I then shot it at 50 yards and found myself shaking from the first four shots.  My shoulder was killing me.  I managed to hold a lousy 5" group.  This is good enough to put meat on the table, but otherwise could be a lot better.  I'll have to go back to the range with some shoulder padding and see how I do then!

Satisfied with how the old Remington semiautomatic performed (And not willing to subject my shoulder to it any more) I packed it away and brought the old Winchester .22 over to the bench.  This is a gun I've wanted since I was a little kid.  I just love the look of it's receiver, its feel in my hand, and the fact that it's Winchester's first semiautomatic .22 rifle.  I loaded ten rounds through the stock and set to work grouping shots at 25 yards.  Luckily, this rifle was shooting dead-nuts as far as left-to-right goes.  I say luckily, because my father replaced the front sight for me while I was last home.  Luckily, he tapped it into the grove in the barrel, centered enough that I didn't have to move it.  Elevation wise, it was a different storry.  At 25 yards, I was shooting an inch high of the bullseye.  I looked at the rear sight and saw that the elevator was moved all the way forward, yet still held the rear sight up and off of the barrel by about a 16th of an inch.  Just enough to cause my shots to land high.  With no way of lowering the rear sight, I just aimed an inch low and my bullets found their mark; no problem.

I have been working on the old Winchester, .22 that I picked up a while ago; the Model 63 made in 1939. Though I did put quite a bit of work into removing the rust from the receiver and barrel using four-ought steel wool, a flattened brass shell casing, and that wonderful smelling Hoppes No. 9, there were other parts of the gun that needed replacement. The front sight for instance, was badly bent. My father helped me to replace this sight with a proper Lyman sight of the correct dimensions and vintage (thanks dad!). Also in need of replacement was the rusty old butt plate. Perhaps this gun stood on end in a damp basement or garage for some time. Whatever the cause, the butt plate was so heavily rusted that removing the rust from it would thin the material too much. Turning to Ebay, I was able to find a beat up stock, containing the butt plate I needed, and in much better condition to boot.  Still, the new butt plate will require a bit of work to remove the light rust on both sides of it.  I'm just glad it has some of the original bluing left on it.  Looks a lot better already.  

The last piece of the puzzle was the elevator for the rear sight. When I bought the rifle, this elevator was missing. I didn’t want to just throw any old elevator in there. And I certainly wasn't going to follow the advice of the gentleman I bought the rifle from:  "Throw a dime in there!"  (Yeah, thanks buddy)  I wanted it to be correct for the rifle. A Winchester factory original is what I was looking for. Again, turning to Ebay I was able to find an entire set of correct sights for my 63.  At any rate, I am having fun restoring this rifle as best I can.  I am eager to get it to the range and sight it in and think it will be a lot of fun for squirrel hunting next season.

With only three more weekends left to hunt before the small game season ends on February 28th, I took a trip down to Patuxent River State Park to try and bag a couple more squirrels.  I've been switching scopes around from gun to gun and didn't have a scoped .22 that was zeroed, so I took my Marlin .17 caliber.  Some say that .17 caliber rifles are ideal for squirrel hunting.  But, I believe a rifle in .22 caliber is best fitted for hunting squirrels.  My experience has taught me that the .17 caliber round, even when firing the lighter 17 grain bullets, is a little too hot for these little guys.  Unless, of course, you hit them directly in the head.  I always aim for the head, but more often than not, my bullet lands in the shoulder or neck area.  As a result, the shoulder meat is usually wasted due to the destructive nature of the fast and small round.

Well, I was in the woods by 9:00am and except for woodpeckers and chickadees, I didn't see any activity. It as 27 degrees out and virtually no wind.  I did find the remains of a deer that the animals have picked clean.  I tried to determine if it had been shot, but there was no way of telling, that I could see.  I also found an old dump area, which held some neat old bottles and other interesting junk.  I found an old glass two-liter Pepsi bottle, with an aluminum cap which broke when I tried to free it from the frozen earth.  I had never seen one of them before.  Among the old garbage were various bottles, cans, childrens' toys and random household items.

I recently picked up a Winchester that I have wanted ever since I was a kid. The shape of the Winchester Model 63 has always appealed to me. It’s like a lever gun, without the lever, chambered in .22, as a semiautomatic. The receiver is solid and sleek. In fact, the whole gun is a hefty little piece that feels good in your hand as well as at the shoulder. I do not regularly visit pawn shops, but there is one close to home that advertises “GUNS” on its sign out front.  So, on a whim, I pulled in to have a look around. Needless to say, I was shocked when I saw this old 63 standing in the rack! It is not in the best shape; but not the worst shape either. I took these “before” pictures to compare to the pictures I will post when I finish cleaning it up. Based on the serial number, this rifle was made in 1938. That’s 76 years ago.

One thing that I think is neat about the 63 is that it is a takedown rifle. By simply turning the takedown screw at the rear of the receiver, the internal mechanisms release and the gun simply parts in two pieces.

The 63 uses a tubular magazine in the butt stock, which holds ten cartridges. To load it, you simply give the tube a half-turn and pull the magazine aft until port in the side of the stock opens. You then load your cartridges in through a slot in the right side of the butt stock.

While I was visiting my little brother, down in at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, I picked up a much needed piece of equipment for my AR-15.  Because my Mossberg is a flat-top, I needed to raise my scope much higher off the receiver than is typical with rifles. The piece I needed is called a "rail grip".  It simply raises your top rail by about an inch so that when you shoulder the rifle, the scope aligns comfortably with your eye.  Without a rail grip, you're left to using ridiculously tall scope rings, that just look silly.  One of the tactical gun shops that my brother took me to last weekend has the rail grip I needed for a mere $15.  Now I am finally ready to get this rifle to the range!  (If only this cold weather would break)

The other day I attempted to attach a scope to my new Mossberg MMR Hunter (Mossberg's version of the AR-15) but was unable to, due to a lack of Quality Control at the Weaver factory. Weaver, a reputable manufacturer of numerous optics, sites and mounting systems, failed to provide the correct size nuts for the screws they packaged in there scope ring kit.  The nuts were simply way too large.  I'll be taking the scope ring kit back to my local gun shop for a replacment; I need a taller set of rings anyway.  

And yes, a full review of my Mossberg is forthcoming.  ... And, yes, I am aware that Christmas too, is coming.

I mentioned before that while I was home, visiting my folks, last weekend, my father gave me a brand new deer rifle and a few encouraging words: "You won't miss a buck with this one Michael". Well, his words absolutely ring true. I just got back from the rifle range. My shoulder is pretty sore, but I know it's nothing compared to whatever finds itself on the receiving end of this rifle this season. He gave me a really pretty Winchester Model 70 Featherweight. It's a bolt action rifle in .30-06. It's light and extremely accurate. I zeroed it for 100 yards, which is just about as far of a shot that I'd ever have, where I hunt at the Frederick Watershed. With it zeroed for 100 yards I had no problem switching between my targets at 50 & 100 yards. I was firing some milsurp ammo; M2 Ball (FMJ) and some hunting ammo; Winchester 180 grain hunting rounds. 

Zeroing for 100 yards:
It was awfully hot at the range today. By 10:30 this morning temperatures were already in the high 80's. Sweat dripped from my eyebrows and fogged my shooting glasses while I tried to focus through the scope. Because it was so hot, I wore a T-shirt to the range. I sent 60 rounds down range before my shoulder had had enough. Even with the soft rubber butt pad, my right arm was taking a wallop each time I pulled the trigger. So much so, that I found myself flinching just before completing my squeeze. I caught myself doing this a few times and made a conscious effort to let the gun go off on its own. Just line up, breathe, exhale and *CRACK!* (Ouch!).   Some of my results are below.  At left is a group I shot at 50 yards and at right; 100 yards. Good enough to bag a deer, but I attribute the larger group at 100 yards to my shaking right arm.  Even with my elbow on the table, my arm was shaking after shooting so many rounds.  I better eat my Wheaties.  Winchester claims that this rifle holds a 1" group at 100 yards.  I believe it.  But I think I'll need a bipod to accomplish that.