Ransom Rest

[wv109323]

I was doing some ransom testing today with .38 Special loads. One thing that proved consistent was the groups were always taller than they were wide. Of the loads tested they averaged 2" wide and 3 1/8" tall or 50% taller.
I was shooting a S&W Model 14.
Does this agree with your results?
Do your Ransom Rest results have round groups or are they strung vertical?

[M-Tecs]

How solid is the table? Insert fit can cause issues also

http://www.bullseyeforum.net/t3900-ransom-rest-groups

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=476070

http://ransomrest.com/contact-us/sample-page/

[Scharfschuetze]

With a standard Ransom rest, the only variable that can be induced (given a solid foundation) is in the vertical axis so this is probably where the problem lies. Unless of course it's your Model 14 or its loads.

Perhaps you could tighten up the friction disks?

[Tatume]

My Ransom Rest shoots round groups, so something is wrong. Whether it's the rest or the gun I can't tell.

[44man]

What was said is correct but with heavier recoil, we have seen it and never fixed it.

[dverna]

Agree with others, with the Ransom Rest groups are round but we only used low recoil rounds. .22's and target .38's

Ours was attached to a concrete pillar set into the ground.

Don Verna

[Rick B]

Chronograph data is necessary when testing with a Ransom rest. Larger extreme spreads will induce vertical stringing. Many pistol and revolver loads exhibit large extreme spreads. I try to keep the spreads under 30 fps. Vertical stringing tends to become a non issue at 50 yard testing.
Rick

[Victor N TN]

Kind of off subject...

When I was shooting benchrest (for 15 years) a few years back, vertical stringing in a group was powder related. either slightly too much or not enough. Very close if it wasn't shotgun splatter. If the stringing was not spread too much horizontally you're getting close. Or at least if you were shooting a rifle from a good rest. Shooting from a Ransom Rest is the best thing for testing a pistol.

Edited to add:
A friend of mine that had a Ransom Rest passed away and his family sold his Ransom and all the grip inserts before I thought to ask. Since then I use a wooden device I built. It's 2 pieces of 2 X 8 the base about a foot long. The top is joined for an upright and has a deep "U" cut in it. I lay a sand filled shot bag in the "U" for height adjustment.

Good luck.

[wv109323]

M-Tec.
The table stand is a 8" H beam. It has four arms of 24" each on the base. It is set in the ground 32" and has 2300 pounds of concrete around the base and four arms. The table is 1/2" plate.
I looked at the groups again. On some groups the "flyers are above the group and some are below the main group. The main groups are acceptable at less than 2" with 7,8, or 9 rounds.. The flyers open the group up to 3-4 ".
All rounds were fired with 3.5 gns. of WST and Winchester WSP primers.
All rounds were loaded on a Star machine with "thrown" powder charges.
Things that could have contributed to the flyers are:
1.) Variance of powder charge.
2.) A less than perfect cast bullet.
3.) A cylinder throat was is on the small side.
4.) An unstable bench or the rest machine itself.
Things I observed in my small testing sample were:
My cast bullets shot smaller groups than a popular commercial caster's bullets.
My Star lubed( Whites Red Carnuaba Red) shot better than twice tumbled lubed bullets. (JPW+LLA+ Mineral Spirits)
There was little or no difference between RN or SWC groups.
All groups would have scored between 98-4X and 100-8X on the NRA slow fire target.

[pergoman]

I have experienced the exact same first shot flyer anomaly with several of my semi-auto pistols and never with a revolver. I have gone over everything on my Ransom rest that I could think of with no success. My experience tells me there is something different about the way some guns lock up for the first shot so I disregard that shot and load /fire 6 for a 5 shot group. The magazines don't matter since I have proven to myself that some guns just do this in the Ransom rest.

[Scharfschuetze]

One of the tricks used sometimes is to just use one specific chamber in the cylinder to fire your groups and see what you group looks like. This will take any variables from the other charge holes out of the picture. While not realistic in establishing the grouping of the revolver as a whole, it will sometime shrink a group to some extent... and in your case, perhaps determine an issue with one of your charge holes.

[44man]

Varying case tension on the boolits will cause fliers also. Strong pressure primers can move a boolit to different amounts before ignition.
Lots of little things to test.
Shoot from sand bags and if they are still there, the Ransom is not the cause.

[fecmech]

IIRC from my Ransom days(1970's) the advice was not to mount a Ransom on steel plates or "I" beams due to the lack of vibration dampening. The proper way then was to mount Ransom on at least 1" thick wood base bolted to a solid concrete or wooden bench. Someone at a local club made one with a concrete base that had a 4' "I" beam coming out of with a steel plate on top. I could shoot better iron sight groups off the bench then my Ransom could off that rest.