A Quick Walk with Ruger American 6.5 Creedmoor and Ruger M77 African in 375 Ruger

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OK, it’s August and it is time to get the cobwebs out of my Gun Safe.  My two most accurate rifles for the price are the Ruger American Predator in 6.5 Creedmoor ( around $400 retail) and my Ruger African M77 in .375 Ruger ($900 retail). Today I am about to shoot them when I met fellow rifleman Joe Chicarello shooting his bull barrel .22 Long Rifle. I am sure he was having a great time and nearly done shooting when I arrived at our club range. Joe was easy to talk to and we resonated on shooting and safe handling practices. He has a Browning .223 that he has yet to shoot due to a scope ring issue. I hope you get the rings soon Joe! I invited him to check out my Ruger Rifles. He has never shot any of them so after putting a round down range in the larger bullseye at 50 yards off the Caldwell bench rest with the 6.5, I invited him to try it. I said, it does kick a bit more than the .223 so my bullet hit the center target just off the dead center by a half inch. I put three rounds in the clip with an open bolt and got Joe ready to try it, again at 50 yards, but to shoot a smaller target in the upper right corner. The scope was my Leupold VX-3, a superior hunting scope ready to hunt anywhere in the world

So he shot and I put  my binoculars on it and grinned. Joe it is dead center in the bull, I said excitedly. Kicks more than I expected, he exclaimed. So I put a neoprene pad on his shoulder and he fired again. Just that one hole there, I observed. How did the pad work? I asked. Much better, he added. You’ve got another shot left Joe. So he took aim again and fired. He said, “maybe I wiggled on that one!” Accordingly, I observed that same one hole there. Lets take a look Joe  and see what’s up. The range was made cold and we walked to the target.

Arriving at the target, here we are looking for strays but when we looked close enough there was one tri-cloverleaf hole in the upper right target. All the time Joe said, I’m a bit shakey.  I assured him that was not the way the bullets saw it,and congratulated him on such fine shooting.

In my testing this rifle a year ago, I shot 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards with other hand loads in the Ruger American and was thinking these were hand loads too but not so. They were right out of the Hornady Precision hunter box which features ELD-X™ bullets (Extremely Low Drag) that I used this past summer in a different rifle where I popped 8 inch balloons at 1000 yards at the NH Sig Sauer Academy with my son Jason.

Then I shot a .375 Ruger light hand load (2200 fps) of speer 235 grain heads out of the stone cold gun and it hit 1 7/8 high from the dead center. I invited Joe to try but he said he was done. Perhaps a bit fearful, I dunno. Doesn’t kick any more than my T/C Encore muzzleloader with 100 grains of Pyrodex I said. Nope, Joe wasn’t ready.

So I proceeded to put 2 more shots in the center bullseye using the same aiming point. If you look close you can see my first shot from the 6.5 in the center bull as well.

All said and done that was a nice short walk in the park (range) and made a new friend I too. I asked his permission to use his name in this article. Of course, he said.

Good Shooting!

© 2017

Time to Prepare for Hunting Season – Now!

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If you are a bow hunter, August is a must for practice and tuning your bow, arrows and razor sharp broad-heads, especially if you haven’t been shooting all summer long like at a 3D shoot.

Check out your tree climbing stand and safety harness gear to ensure you have all the parts and practice with a climbing stand to be safe. Try to practice in the dark to strap on your stand making as little noise as possible and climb a few feet up and mount your stand and pull up your bow. A clanky/noisy set up sends the message of warning to deer.

Avoid trees that have smooth bark, like birch and beech as your stand can slip.

Now is the time to put up ladder stands and begin to scout. I made the mistake of hunting in an area that had more ladder stands than deer. Once the deer get the idea there are hunters, paint the deer very wary and will often leave the area. You won’t see those adult deer in daylight either.

Muzzle Loader hunters clean your barrel again! By this time most barrels from muzzle loaders need attention and cleaning to prepare for the deer season. I like to pre-load my bullet and powder if possible in small containers you can purchase. I find in modern muzzle loaders such as my T/C Encore that PowerBelt™ Bullets seem to load easier (even with a barrel that has taken several shots already)  and are very accurate. I have used saboted bullets but find them a pain to load as the plastic does not go down the barrel easily. If that is all you’ve got then it works.

I will surely hunt with my newly created 50 Cal Pennsylvania Flintlock and 44 inch barrel I will stick with round balls from Hornady .490 with .015″ patch and are very accurate as well. Keep shots under 100 yards and preferably closer to 50 yards.

The time for scouting can begin but remember that food sources will shift to acorns and other mast such as beech or apples. Find the does and you will find the bucks.

Practice at the range, after sighting in should be standing, kneeling or using a tree for rifle support.

Good Shooting!

© 2017

Ruger Precision Rifle -Safety Bulletin

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Ruger has issued a Product Safety Bulletin for certain Ruger Precision Rifles due to the potential for interference between the aluminum bolt shroud and the cocking piece (also known as the firing pin back). Although only a small percentage of rifles appear to be affected and we are not aware of any injuries, Ruger is firmly committed to safety and is offering replacement aluminum bolt shrouds for affected rifles in order to eliminate the possibility of such interference. View Safety Bulletin PDF

 Or go to the website https://ruger.com/dataProcess/rprSafety/
where there is a short video.

Newfoundland Cod Jigging with a Hand Line…and More

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Back from a week of vacation in Newfoundland where the cod are so plentiful that our boat with three fishermen jigged up our boat limit of 15 fish (five fish each) in just 30 minutes of jigging with hand lines on August 2, 2017.

In the video’s below I am fishing off Fort Point Lighthouse in Trinity, Newfoundland with boat Captain Mike Hogarth of Trinity East and his Son Michael. His lovely wife is taking expert video with my IPAD, my apologies to her, as I did not record her name.  The cod jigs were banging into the school of fish on the way down to the 60 foot bottom and we sometimes hooked the fish in the side on the up side of the jigging.

 

Part of the story here, I’ve discovered, is about the high quality of the fish when they feed on their main diet of capelin, a sought after small school fish eaten by Newfoundlander’s and prized by the Japanese for its fish roe in sushi. It is essential for these cod to feed on the capelin to maintain the pure very high quality of its flesh. The capelin came in mid July a month later than usual and brought the wales too who feed prolifically on them.

My wife Susan and I  stayed in a small village called Jamestown at a family owned home on Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. My father-in-law built a second story walk around on the house that can see miles across the bay. Not too shabby,eh!

A view from the upper deck!

I purchase a vacuum food sealer to freeze our catch and take back home. On the return trip to Boston, US Custom’s agents in Halifax held all our luggage for further inspection of my Styrofoam cooler and frozen fish to ensure that was all that was in there. I feared for the fish but we received it still frozen more than a day later.

Fish and Chips at its very best!

I did try to Trout fish in the local ponds but the trout were not biting.

We did see a young cow moose in our travels but she did not like getting her picture taken and sauntered into the woods.

Got to love the Great Outdoors!

© Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

Savage 12 Palma in Mid Range Prone F T/R Match by Jason Hale

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Since I’ve started long range competition, I’ve been exploring ways that our readers may enter the sport at a reasonable cost, of course you can select your hunting rifle in your safe, but if you become serious, the modifications will start.  Enter the Savage Precision Target Rifle Line.  We reached out to Savage and requested the 12 Palma due to it’s unique stock configuration and caliber choice.  Most of the Precision Target Actions (PTA) have a screw spacing of 4.41″, however the 12 Palma has a screw spacing of 3.44″, the reason for which I am not sure.

To learn about Palma Rifle competition Click Here!

All PTA’s accept large shank barrels from your favorite Savage pre-fit barrel supplier.  What I really liked about this configuration was the adjustable stock and 3-way adjustable butt-plate.  See below for some stats on the rifle.

Savage 12 Palma Match Rifle

One thing you’ll notice right away is the odd twist rate of 1:13″.  This twist rate is indicative of the intended bullet that was intended to be used, 155-156gr bullets.  As soon as I received the rifle, I quickly picked up a rail for it and mounted the 7-42X55mm Gold Ring Leupold Competition Scope & Shade we are testing (Outstanding Scope) and ordered some 155.5gr Fullbore bullets from Berger. I recognize that this was not the set up that the rifle was designed for, but the purpose of testing was to determine accuracy potential of the rifle. You can tell that this was really meant for iron sights as you can see the front sight cut near the muzzle of the rifle so that you can clamp-on front sight tubes.  In the pictures below, you’ll also see the 3-way adjustable butt-plate which is fantastic for customizing the fit of the rifle to a specific shooter.  It can be adjusted for length of pull, cant, and height.  I made some minor adjustments to the cant and height, and left it there.  I could have spent more time on tuning the stock, but didn’t.

Once the bullets came in, I took inventory of the powders that I had on hand and selected IMR 4166 which is supposed to be temperature insensitive much like Hodgdon Varget and got to putting some test loads together.

Following a break in process, the rifle immediately demonstrated it’s accuracy potential.  Being limited for time, I settled on a load of 45 gr of IMR-4166 with a COAL of 2.800″ which was limited by the Palma Chamber, which has a very short throat.  See the group shot below.  Not bad at all for an afternoons work.

In all fairness, if this was my rifle I would have spent more time tuning to reduce Standard Deviation and Extreme Spread of velocities, but given the limited distance (600 yards), vertical dispersion would not be as bad as longer distances.  Wind would be more of a challenge.

The day of the Mid-Range Prone match, I was excited to take the rifle out and see what it could do.  I knew that with good loads, it would likely out shoot me, which is a good thing.  The prone match included 3 strings of fire at 300, 500, and 600 yards, with 15 rounds for record with unlimited sighters at each distance.  The wind picked up during the day peaking with 10 mph switching winds during my 500 yard string after settling into a more predictable rhythm for my 600 yard string.  Overall I was pleased with the day, but was a bit frustrated during the 500 yard string being behind on some wind calls that cost me more points than I wanted.  I was only one of two F T/R shooters there, the other being a good friend and great shooter Barbara Lamb, she only dropped 3 out of a possible 450 points for the day, which is fantastic.

Barbara Lamb scoring for me, while Art Lamb (in line for saint-hood, in my mind) was graciously scoring for all on our target.

My scores were 143-0X (300), 131-0X (500), and 144-2X (600), with an aggregate of 418-2X.  The rifle shot great for the little time I put into load development.  I am sure that I could have done more tuning, but in the end I needed more time on the rifle to improve.

One thing I can say, is that if the other rifles in the Savage 12 PTA series shoot similarly, you can’t deny the value, considering the cost of most custom F-Class rigs being between $3000 and $5000, or more even.  Great bang for your buck.  If you’re interested in a quick and relatively inexpensive upgrade that can be further modified easily in the future, check out Savage’s M12 Precision Target Action line.  If you want to start from the ground up and build one, you can purchase an action from Northland Shooters Supply. I’ve done plenty of business with Jim; they’re awesome!

Shoot Straight and Shoot Often!

See you at the range!

Copyright © 2017 All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Do You Carry?

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Second Amendment Friends,

I have been a Second Amendment Advocate all of my adult life. I am an armed citizen ready to protect my family if a life threatening situation occurs. If you carry a firearm every day in public, it is wise to consider the NRA Carry Guard or similar program offered by USCCA’s Self Defense Shield.

I received an email from Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA today offering a free aftermath guide. I signed up for one. Please take time to study what best suits your needs. There is information on the internet that can help decide.

I know many who have carried for some time but never had to use deadly force in a life threatening situation, thank goodness. It is life changing.

Check your email and study up on it.

 

 

 

Lancaster Flintlock at 100 yards

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I took 2 shots yesterday with my Lancaster Flintlock. One at 50 yards… see the left hole. The second shot at 100 yards hole at right after some minor sight adjustment with a tap from my hammer. I determined in a previous outing that the bullet rises in its parabolic trajectory out at 50 yards and drops at 100 yards. At 100 yards the point of aim is equal to the 25 yard point of aim. I am pleased with these shots from open sights. If this were a deer’s vitals, I be skinning by now.

Good Shooting!

My Circa 1770 Lancaster Flintlock Rifle Pictorial Essay by Ed Hale

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My finished Lancaster 50 Caliber Flintlock Rifle Custom Build in a Jacob Dickert Method. Shot extremely well in a recent outing, see the last article with video.

The rifle build took over 100 hours of fitting, filing, carving motif’s, mortise and tenon, inlay of the Patchbox and Star using Tiger Maple and is still under way for details. Look back at my recent articles and you can see the plain maple look hiding the Tiger stripes within. I even performed controlled rusting of the barrel.

The Brass Cricket has been hanging around my fireplace for some time. It took great interest in my work so I kept him in the picture. I just may name the rifle “Cricket” it does chirp louder.

I have enlisted a master engraver to do some additional work.

Worth to me? Priceless!

The End

Copyright © 2017