Wes has been watching my son grow up for many years now and he has informally adopted him as his own grandson. As we're shooting more together, and now shooting on the same team in the Vintage Sniper Match, we've been sharing a rifle. Wes told me that it wasn't right and he felt that Anthony needed his own rifle to shoot during the matches.

Wes decided to gift one of his favorite rifles to Anthony that he felt would be perfect for the VS matches. Out of his collection, he chose to give Anthony the rifle he calls his "Super Stocker."

This rifle is made from a LRB M14SA receiver with mostly GI parts and a Ted Brown SAI Screw-N-Glue unitized gas cylinder. The barrel is a medium weight Criterion.

I already had a backup Bassett mount that was new, so I ordered a Leupold Freedom 3-9x40 and a set of Warne Maxima low rings. The rings arrived on Tuesday evening with just enough time to get the scope mounted and sighted in at 100 yards just before we ran out of daylight.





This rifle has fantastic tiger-striping to the wood. The stock was originally refinished by Doug Carlton











I got the scope dialed in and let my son shoot his new rifle.



This was the final group I shot at 100 yards to test for accuracy using 125 grain TNT's.



We got up at 4:30am yesterday and headed out to Port Malabar for 200, 300 and 600 yard practice.







After letting him get familiar with the rifle at 200, and at 300 I fired the last 6 rounds we had of 155's at 300 yards to see what the rifle was capable of. I shot two sighters and adjusted the scope and shot the last four for a group. The group size came in at 0.6 MOA! Very nice!


Admittedly, Anthony was more familiar with my M14 and he struggled a bit at 300. We also forgot his shoulder pad and after getting his collarbone whacked a couple of times, he developed a wicked flinch. He was all over the place at 300 and the wind was picking up substantially.

Once at 600, we decided to spend about 10 minutes dry firing. Another shooter loaned us his backup shoulder pad and we used up the last of our ammo at 600. We were fighting some pretty harsh full value cross winds and my son was holding the left edge of the 7-ring and rounds were still landing to the right. I kept adding left clicks to the scope as well.


He loves the rifle and he'll grow into it. He said this is his new favorite rifle.

Thank you again @weshowe! The rifle will be shot very often!

Tony.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: benny6,

What a great story, and what a great guy! Congratulations to the young man. He has been given a very special gift.

That's a gorgeous rifle. I shot an M1A for years in IPSC type matches before switching to an AR. Then I shot the M1A in NRA Highpower for a while. Good on you for keeping the next generation interested in the shooting sports. AFAIK I never met Wes when I lived out there, but I've heard nothing but good things about him.

Great! And I can personally attest to Wes’ generosity as well.

Looks like I forgot to add the 300 yard group. Updated!

That is outstanding, Tony - what a great gift for a young man...

THAT.IS.AWESOME!

quote:

...after getting his collarbone whacked a couple of times, he developed a wicked flinch.

Gents,

Thanks for the kind words. Anthony is a very special young man and needed a rifle of his own to shoot vintage rifle matches, instead of sharing his dad's rifle. He will grow into the rifle and is already performing very well. That's one of the reasons I gifted the rifle to him. Expect great things from this young man in the future...

Semper Fi,

Wes