22 rifles sounds good as I have my excuse loaded up! We’re in a high wind pattern for awhile up here!

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Originally posted by offgrid:
We’re in a high wind pattern for awhile up here!

The local Taco Bell is open again, following the renovation?

Hey, we like .22s, too! Added bonus right now, shooting rimfires I won't lose reloadable brass shooting it in a foot of snow !

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The local Taco Bell is open again, following the renovation?

Ha!

Scenario: In the Everglades after dark, your team has stalked smugglers loading an air-dropped container of fentanyl into their 200HP Ranger bass boat.
Your task is to disable the smuggler's outboard, while your team stands by in a fast boat to arrest them or pursue if you fail.
Standing in the bow (to see over the cattails) of your blacked-out inflatable, you can expect to get off six suppressed shots before the smugglers can react.

Please download and print this 2013 US Coast Guard Transitional Target image:
https://shop.actiontarget.com/...nsitional-target.asp
If it works, the dimensions of the outboard should be about 9 1/2" tall and 7 3/16" front to back. Scoring is as shown on my printout, the center oval ( 1 3/4" wide) is a 'ten.'

Three ten-ring hits are needed to disable the outboard motor, or the chase will be on.
Post it at 50 feet from the firing line. Twenty-two rimfire rifles ( any sights) will simulate suppressed high powered rifles at longer distance.
The wave interval on this windy night is about two seconds; to simulate the instability of the position, when ready to fire at will,
rock all your weight on your left foot, fire, rock onto your right foot , fire, etc, at two second intervals until all six shots are sent downrange.

I haven't tried it yet, so if its too easy, we'll all get participation awards.
Let me know if the targets don't print correctly.

Cool we'll give it a go!

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting Mewcuwies...
Hahahaha

Well, we tried today with a couple of Marlins, but had nothing but trouble. Noah took his scoped model 25, and I opted for the 56 Levermatic. Noah's gun developed this obnoxious failire-to-feed issue, due to the mag catch not holding the magazine all the way up into the action. It's never had this problem before, but apparently today was the day. It's fixable...just needs a dab of JB Weld and a little work with a file.

The Levermatic kept having light strikes...the gun is a little finicky, but I've never had problems with it like I did today. Maybe it was the cold.

Either way, neither of us was able to get completely through the string of fire without having a malfunction, so we're going to have to try again on a different day.

My son said his S&W 15-22 malfunctioned a lot at his 30ºF Kentucky Steel match. The other shooters said it was the cold.

What's best lube up there in the Arctic Circle, powdered graphite?

I used my old Remington 582 w/ a relatively new 1X4 Leupold. I bought the rifle decades ago when my first rifle (14 years old, Christmas), a Marlin-Glenfield wore out the feeding mechanism.



I guess these Aguila HV .22 Shorts impact a little higher than the .22 LR's.

Fifty-four and failure to neutralize, only two shots cut the ten oval.
No one asked me why I was rocking side to side; I'd have told them to hush and get in the boat. lol

I hope I severed a fuel line or hit the cooling system impeller.

That's good shooting...better than we did. Lol at the rocking...that'd have been funny.

Was in the teens today, so I guess it's possible that the cold played a part in the levermatic's issues...the springs are already pretty weak to start with, so any additional resistance definitely won't help. And good luck finding new springs for that thing!

I've got jbweld setting up on Noah's magazine right now, and I'll probably just use my 39a next time...it's a bit slower due to the longer throw, but has never had any light strike issues.

It was kinda a crummy day at the range overall. I had a bunch of stuff I was trying to get done, and the cold just made it hard to do anything. My "new" Remington 03A3 shot way left and had feed issues (think I figured that one out after I got home...and it did group ok), my newly-mounted Holosun 407c isn't sitting level on my P320 and I ran out of adjustment trying to get it on target, and I only managed to capture 2 bullets out of the .357 in my gel block before it fell apart...although thankfully I started with the most important ones so I did get those tested. At least the chronograph worked.

Most of it I figured when I got home to the warmth, but I couldn't get anything done at the range even though I just about froze my fingers off trying.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
My son said his S&W 15-22 malfunctioned a lot at his 30ºF Kentucky Steel match. The other shooters said it was the cold.
What's best lube up there in the Arctic Circle, powdered graphite?

A few years ago at the Blue Steel Ranch (Team Safari), I sat next to John Paul during dinner. John Paul owns JP Rifles and the Blue Steel Ranch. There were many of us competitors at the dinner table, and the conversations covered a bunch of topics.

Towards the end of dinner, I asked JP for advice with occasional failures to extract and light strikes on my JP 22lr AR-15 upper. I stated that the upper now had a few hundred rounds down the pipe. I keep it clean and well lubed. I use only match grade ammo from Eley, Lapua, RWS, and Wolf. Cycling issues seemed to occur only in colder temps.

JP said that even the best 22lr ammo experiences some wax buildup issues in colder weather. This becomes especially true with semi-auto rifles and any rifle with a tight chamber. JP suggested putting a single drop of thin lube on the first bullet of each magazine when shooting in cold weather. This lube cuts through the wax and helps to reduce the buildup.

I did this in colder weather and it works.

Thanks, fritz, I'll pass that suggestion along.

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JP said that even the best 22lr ammo experiences some wax buildup issues in colder weather. This becomes especially true with semi-auto rifles and any rifle with a tight chamber. JP suggested putting a single drop of thin lube on the first bullet of each magazine when shooting in cold weather. This lube cuts through the wax and helps to reduce the buildup.

That's good info, thanks. I'll give it a try next time I take that gun out in the cold.

RichardC is still on the top of the leaderboard -- I did 53, with two hits in the center. This was harder than I expected.

As usual, work before play. Burned a tank of fuel in the Stihl chainsaw and drained one battery in the Ego before shooting. Still have 2-6" of snow on the ground, and moving around was challenging.

Shot it with a Kimber Classic bolt action, NF SHV 4-14x, Wolf Match Extra. Cycling the bolt while rocking back for forth was interesting. I dry fired a few times to get a hang of it before loading up. The upper left target is the first go, and what I'll use for score. Thought I could do better, so I tried the drill three more times. Practice helps, and finally got three hits in the center on the fourth time.



I then tried the drill on a slow-fire basis, without rocking prior to the shots. I initially held the rifle like the biathlon shooters do -- left elbow on my hip, left hand just forward of the trigger guard. Didn't work so well for me -- see the 4 low shots in the 8/9 rings. I went back to a more traditional hold, gripping the stock maybe a foot forward of the action. See the 9 shots in the 9/10 rings.

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Cycling the bolt while rocking back for forth was interesting.

Nice targets, fritz!

"Cycling the bolt while rocking back for forth was interesting." <--- That DID make it more fun, eh?

Nice shooting, Fritz! Hoping to get back out tomorrow or Thursday and get this done. I'm working every day this week, so it's cutting into my range time.

Finally got a chance to get out to the range...it's been a horribly busy week. We both shot the 39a today, because I knew I could count on that gun to work, and it ran perfectly today. It was a beautiful 40 degrees out, which was far nicer than yesterday's 12...and the only environmental excuse I can claim was the mud and all the melting snow dripping off the overheads down my neck .

The rocking back and forth is very unsettling. We shot it some later from a traditional standing position, and it was definitely easier to make hits.

Neither of us was able to neutralize (but hey, who doesn't like a good pursuit? ). I got two hits in the center ring, one just outside, and I'm not sure what happened with that flier down low. Noah got 5 on the target and had one hit just above the paper on the backer.

You gave us a tough one this time, RichardC, but it was a fun exercise!

nice shooting, guys. Nice levergun, too.

Back to the 3-25 yards with a carbine drill, with 3x5 cards as targets. This time with a pair on each of two targets. I ended up setting the 3x5 cards 32" apart -- I measured after shooting. I had one miss on each card -- 9 o'clock on the right target and 3 o'clock on the left target. The misses occurred at either 20 or 25 yards. From the same high ready we used a few weeks ago. 2 shots on the right, then 2 shots on the left target. 9mm AR SBR again.

How the targets looked right after shooting:


And with them parked next to each other:


For all seven distances my splits averaged
1.02 + .46 + 1.05 + .39 = 2.92 seconds

I did noticeably better at distances of 3, 5, 7, and 15 yards. Splits here averaged
.83 + .39 + 1.03 + .30 = 2.55 seconds.

Not my speediest at 10, 20, and 25 yards. Burned only 1 tank of fuel with the chainsaw prior to shooting -- not certain if it made much difference. Transitions aren't the easiest thing to do.

Looks like another good day at the ranch, Fritz. Adding transitions is an interesting twist..I like it!

RichardC...looks like you took the win this week by one point (but by far the tightest group)! Nice work! What are we shooting next?