doubs43
02-24-2011, 12:43 PM
... and a lesson learned.
With 50 cartridges and new sights on my Oliver Winchester Commemorative rifle, I headed for the range yesterday afternoon. I'd mounted a Pedersoli globe front sight with aperture and a Lyman 66A rear peep to get the best accuracy with ancient eyes.
Load: 248 grain Lyman boolits sized to .377" in WW cases. 2.5 grains WW-231 and 34 grains of WC-860. This load has proven accurate in my Hi-Wall.
I posted two targets at 108 yards: a 12" & an 8" bullseye. Guessing at a proper sight setting, the first shot was low but on paper. Adjusting the Lyman sight was easy enough and I soon had the boolits in the center of the 12" bull. However, I'd get the odd flier out of the group.... waaay out! Strange. I'd weighed the boolits, keeping them all within 247.0 ~ 248.0 grains. Changing to the 8" bull, the pattern continued.
In an effort to improve the groups, I changed the front sight insert to a post & ball. More sight adjustments followed...... and so did the odd fliers. Could I be the victim of boolits that were too small?
Posting the same two types of targets at 150 yards, I adjusted my sights and was soon in the middle of the larger bullseye. Then I fired a group on the 8" bull and it was pretty darn good: 5 shots in a flat 3 inches with 4 in 2 1/16 inches.
A friend shot up the rest of my cartridges so it was time to leave the range.
The lesson? When I got home, I was considering a different front sight insert when I discovered that the two I'd been using were as loose as a goose in the globe!! Mystified, I checked the other Pedersoli globe sights I have and all inserts were tight. It was then I realized that the newest globe was actually different than the others... and so were the inserts!! The new globe has a ridge on top to provide the thickness needed for a screw to hold the securing bar in place. The other ones I have use a rivet to hold the bar and the ridge isn't there. The inserts I used were for the thin globes. They are too short and weren't being held tightly, flopping around with the recoil of each shot! The inserts that came with the new globe have an additional thickness at the top. Assuming they were the same as the ones I already had was my mistake.
Will the groups improve with a tight fitting sight insert? I'm betting that the fliers will go away and the groups will tighten. I hope to give it another try tomorrow.
With 50 cartridges and new sights on my Oliver Winchester Commemorative rifle, I headed for the range yesterday afternoon. I'd mounted a Pedersoli globe front sight with aperture and a Lyman 66A rear peep to get the best accuracy with ancient eyes.
Load: 248 grain Lyman boolits sized to .377" in WW cases. 2.5 grains WW-231 and 34 grains of WC-860. This load has proven accurate in my Hi-Wall.
I posted two targets at 108 yards: a 12" & an 8" bullseye. Guessing at a proper sight setting, the first shot was low but on paper. Adjusting the Lyman sight was easy enough and I soon had the boolits in the center of the 12" bull. However, I'd get the odd flier out of the group.... waaay out! Strange. I'd weighed the boolits, keeping them all within 247.0 ~ 248.0 grains. Changing to the 8" bull, the pattern continued.
In an effort to improve the groups, I changed the front sight insert to a post & ball. More sight adjustments followed...... and so did the odd fliers. Could I be the victim of boolits that were too small?
Posting the same two types of targets at 150 yards, I adjusted my sights and was soon in the middle of the larger bullseye. Then I fired a group on the 8" bull and it was pretty darn good: 5 shots in a flat 3 inches with 4 in 2 1/16 inches.
A friend shot up the rest of my cartridges so it was time to leave the range.
The lesson? When I got home, I was considering a different front sight insert when I discovered that the two I'd been using were as loose as a goose in the globe!! Mystified, I checked the other Pedersoli globe sights I have and all inserts were tight. It was then I realized that the newest globe was actually different than the others... and so were the inserts!! The new globe has a ridge on top to provide the thickness needed for a screw to hold the securing bar in place. The other ones I have use a rivet to hold the bar and the ridge isn't there. The inserts I used were for the thin globes. They are too short and weren't being held tightly, flopping around with the recoil of each shot! The inserts that came with the new globe have an additional thickness at the top. Assuming they were the same as the ones I already had was my mistake.
Will the groups improve with a tight fitting sight insert? I'm betting that the fliers will go away and the groups will tighten. I hope to give it another try tomorrow.