Five-shot groups from today. Bench rest, 50 yards, ammunition Lapua Center-X. Groups fired left to right, top row, second row. The first upper left was fired after cleaning the bore and then things tightened up as shown. Not bad, I would say, for a rifle that was purchased used in the mid-1970s.





(If you saw my earlier, now-deleted post, I should have searched before asking, and when I did I found what I wanted at EGW Guns.)

Oh, yeah: the gun itself.

Nice shooting sir! Those model 52s were fine rifles...our club has some with diopter sights and they're really impressive at 50 feet. I've never had a chance to try them further out than that.

Very nice!

I had a 52 on more-or-less permanent load from a friend. He bought it for his wife but she didn't like the weight of it. We shot a 50' indoor league for one season, but those matches were on Friday nights and Friday was my 'kick back and relax with a pizza and a movie after a hard week' night, so I only did it the one year. I returned the rifle to my friend when I moved away a few months ago. We would occasionally take it and his Anschutz out and shoot them at 50 yards, that was fun and challenging (also good practice for Highpower or F-Class matches). They are great rifles though, for sure.

I shot a 52 in outdoor prone matches many years ago. But my real passion then was working toward Freepistol tryouts

Beautiful classic you have. They will shoot with the best rifles of today no problem

What a beautiful and accurate rifle. I love wood and metal.

We had a lovely Model 52D in our base club, with the original diopter sights - all that is allowed in modern day prone shooting in the UK NSRA and ISSF shooting.

Many a noob cut their shooting teeth on it over the years - and since I would get posted back there every few years, it was around for about twenty years TMK.

Last time I shot it, it was as fine a shooter as ever, and in first class condition, too, thanks to caring club management. When they wanted to buy a couple of new Anschutz rifles, I offered to buy it for a reasonable price, commensurate with what a dealer would have wanted, at that time, around £250. Then I got sent to Northern Ireland on TDY for four months. When I came back and called in at the club to get the rifle, the new secretary was there doing some bookkeeping. She advised me they'd given it, and four other older BSA Martinis, to the gun scrappers for a WHOLE £25. I nearly brained her with a chair right there.

quote:

Originally posted by tacfoley:
She advised me they'd given it, and four other older BSA Martinis, to the gun scrappers for a WHOLE £25.

That's enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Howdy, are we seeing a Lyman Super Target Spot atop your rifle? I look at the 52s often on line. You would not believe the 40X set up I purchased many years back for a meeger $225.00. I took the 40X over the many 52s available at that time. Had my share of heavy targets to include 2 Anschutz, US M12 HRA x 2, various medium weight Remington targets, one NIB from Uncle Sam sales program. Also had one fine 1922 M2.

My rifle as pictured has a Redfield 3200 20× scope with fine crosshairs and central dot reticle.

I am, however, about to put a modern scope on the rifle that has a side knob for focus/parallax adjustment. The Redfield is great for competition shooting at fixed known distances, but one of the things I like to do is shoot reactive targets at different ranges (as I did today with a 77/22), and using the adjustable objective lens is not convenient.

All those vintage 22 LR target rifles are so appealing, and just one of many reasons why I wish I had known then what I know now.

many moons ago, a friend built up a nice 10/22 rifle,
it shot very well, great trigger, etc etc,

this was in the early 90's or maybe earlier

I have picked up a pre A 52 and a 16x Unertl,

and despite his fancy 10/22 and scope, and a few other friends 10/22 and scopes that Pre A 52 and Unertl ate them for lunch,

only issue I had and the one time they beat me was when we were using irons on my 52 (they kept the scopes) and it was a buff paper, red target,, I got whooped, but switching to a black on buff target and they lost again,


I ended up with several 52's an a Rem 37, (and 75's , 513's and a few others) as well as more of those long vintage scopes,

love um

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:
but switching to a black on buff target and they lost again

Yes. I go on and on about proper targets being necessary for best accuracy and precision. With magnified optical sights that’s something that makes the best sight picture possible with the sights’ reticles, and that’s almost never a big, black bull’s-eye.

On the other hand, with iron sights nothing is better than a high contrast target that is sized for the best match with the sight’s features. Long ago when I shot 50-foot smallbore competition (with the rifle pictured), I found that three circles worked best: the rear sight aperture, the front sight aperture, and the bull’s-eye target that appeared just slightly smaller than the front aperture. That combination coupled with young eyes and a young, strong body in the prone position often made it possible to shoot a five-shot group that wasn’t much bigger than a single .22 caliber hole.

My current target 22 stable has a 40X, Walther KKM, Martini, and two Anschutz 1413. I don't shoot them much these days. I have a idea to fit the 1413 actions into a spare 40x stock I have. Then the huge Olympic stocks could be sold.

Here's one of the 1413

Beautiful!

The Win. 52 is a beautiful rifle. Even more so with the long tube scopes on them. I have several, from a standard weight barrel, to several heavy barrels to a true bull barrel.
I believe the difference between the heavy and bull barrels is almost 1 pound. If I recall, the heavy barrel rifle, without sights, is about 11 pounds. The bull is about 12.

Beautiful rifle and some nice shooting!