Great day at the range

Went to confirm zero on my deer rifles to head out to Greenridge Friday morning for the last two days of the early season.

Sako was doing its Sako thing of shooting 2” high on a cold bore. I really need to get the action out of the stock and see what might be pressing on it (best guess for what is going on). It did also need to come down about 2” at 100. I think I had it zeroed for M80 and not the 165gr PSP .308s I hunt with.

My 6.5 grendel was a touch low at 100, that was zeroed for 123gr ELD-M last i was shooting it and I hunt with 120gr fusion. That shoot same POI cold bore AND warm. And it shot .5MOA 2 shot groups. Yes, not large enough group sizes to mean much, but I was confirming zero, not piling casings. Last time I shot it with fusion I managed .9MOA 5-shot groups averaged (zero fliers and I think it was a .7, .9 and a couple of 1MOA groups). It certainly prefers Fusion over Hornady (haven’t tried SST, but the ELD-M and MHP are about 1.1MOA).

Next I tried out the Savage Rascal I got for my kids to shoot. I am not too proud to say I had a silly amount of fun with it. Not super accurate, but I was shooting some sub 1” groups at 25yds. 50 wasn’t so good, but that could have been because I switched what ammo I was using and it doesn’t like Aguilla SE. got it zeroed without too many problems.

I also ran my G17 80%. It’s been a struggle. It’s been failing to go completely in to battery about 1:15 rounds. Doesn’t matter the ammo type. I sanded and polished a bit more of the frame and I also got a Wolff SS guide rod and #18 recoil spring. Zero failures to go in to battery after 50rnds of 115gr UMC and 50 of Wolf. 2 failures to feed on the Wolf, but absolutely a mag issue (rounds caused the follower to bind a bit and the rounds jumped jamming). Very, very happy that there were zero FTF related to not going fully in to battery!!! This has been roughly attempt number 9 or 10 to get this thing sorted and it finally seems to be running like a raped ape.

Lastly my Cz82 (only 2 previous range trips since I bought it) was having issues with rounds jumping and causing a FTF with the round lodging against the top of the barrel. I noticed a week or so ago hand feeding rounds out of the mags that the front lips of the casings were hitting the front of the mag and if I pushed harder sometimes they push over and feed and sometimes they’d basically pop up and out and go flying.

10 minutes with a small file, sandpaper and some cold blue and the mags ran perfectly by hand. 64 rounds (all I had with me) ran perfectly at the range. Which is a lot better than the 1-2 rounds per mag FTF I was getting. So I think I solved that too!!!

Odd, because they have military acceptance stamps on them. They also needed to sit loaded as the springs were WAY too stiff when I got them NOS.

All in all an awesome day. My two problem guns seem to be fixed. Everything else rang great.

Though one minor worry is my 6.5 grendel at one no bang. Looking at the primer, the strike appeared good and a second strike and it fired perfectly. Only time I’ve had issues with this is when the trigger pin walked out (GWACS lower) and I fixed that with a non-rotating trigger pin that is locked in place. I cleaned the springs and FCG with some hoppes #9 as well as the BCG firing pin hole and firing pin. Otherwise I’ve never had a light strike. It IS a reduced power hammer spring. I am thinking I am going to get a nicer trigger for it, any suggestions on a low cost, good, drop in trigger? Hopefully it’ll go bang when I need it in a couple of days. Not too worried about it as the primer looked like the strike was good. *shrug*

Just occurred to me to swap in a regular power hammer spring for this hunting trip until I either get a nicer FCG for the rifle or have a chance to do a lot more shooting in different conditions with the rifle to ensure it was an issue with that one round and not an issue with the reduced power spring (other than the walked out trigger pin causing a light strike a few months ago I’ve had no light strikes in about 150 rounds through this rifle and this setup)

Busy day! A lot of stuff to sort out.

2 inch high at 100 is about dead in at 200 with a 308

bigjohn said:

2 inch high at 100 is about dead in at 200 with a 308

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That’s usually where I like it. It was 4” high with a cold bore to start though. Ended at 2” high (for the Sako).

Racer Doug14 said:

Busy day! A lot of stuff to sort out.

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Yup. Managed it in an hour fourty. Fast for all that. I usually don’t get to the range often enough and I’ve had a backlog of “problems I need to sort”. Normally I’d rather just bring 2 or 3 guns unless I have half a day (basically never).

Here’s the 6.5 grendel. Bottom 2 was the first cold bore group (well, cold bore and then a follow-up 10 seconds later). Top 2 were after a few clicks of adjustment and 20 minutes letting it cool (just to be sure). Very slight breeze from right to left (2-4mph). Ideally I’d rather exactly 2 inches high at 100...but I won’t split hairs. Happy as pie with it.

The grendel’s cold bore and warm all seem to go to the same POI, which isn’t necessarily the case with all my rifles (about half my guns seem to have a 1-2” shift from first shot to all the rest, the other half are pretty dead on till they get hot).

For a $500 gun...practically shoot the wings off a fly (one of those really big flies you see at Asateague maybe)

Dang it, picture is rotated 90 counter clockwise. I suck at this.