Rimfire Porn: NIB 1613 Anschutz

[Hip's Ax]

I'll assume this was made about 1979. Never assembled, everything in its place as it left the factory. Blows me away that this even exists.
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[btroj]

Wow, what a find

[Hip's Ax]

Yeah, it totally caught me by surprise. Makes my head hurt, LOL.

[btroj]

I have a 1413 downstairs but it was opened long ago......

[Hip's Ax]

I have a Super Match 54 from the late 50's, once upon a time it was the only rifle I had. Back in the late 90's when I made my "triumphant" return to smallbore that bad boy would still make one hole with the scope at 100 yards with that wonderful Lapua gold box that was around then. That 54 was purchased new in the late 50's, a shooter shot his whole career with it and then it became a club rifle sometime in the 80's when I started using it. I got to purchase it in the 90's when the club dissolved. That rifle must have a billion rounds through it and it still shoots. I don't think Anschutz rifles ever give up. :)

[texassako]

That rifle find is sweet! I can't shoot it being a lefty, but I can still envy the find. I have a lefty BSA Int'l Mk II(my avatar) with all of Al Freeland's goodies that had not seen the light of day since the fifties judging by all the club and competition paperwork in the case.

[Hip's Ax]

BSA's are awesome, I got a MkIII a year or so ago. Have not made the time to shoot it yet but I know they hammer.

BTW I have a lefty thumbhole stock this 1613 would bolt right into, you just have to put up with flipping her over to reload. :)

[Hip's Ax]

Just to bring things into the 21st century, heres what I use for position now. Anschutz 2013 in a G&E RSII stock. She was the "it" gun to have when I bought her in 2005.

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[enfield]

Looks like you are all geared up to go to the woods for a squirrel hunt ! Ha Ha

[Hip's Ax]

LOL you would not want to hump that rifle around the woods to shoot tree rats LOL, not to mention the heavy sail cloth jacket/pants and super flat sole shooting boots would make for a very long day. :)

[Forrest r]

Very nice!!!!

I also have a 1979 1613 but it has been factory test fired & assembled but never used by the original owner. Had it a year now & haven't gotten around to cleaning it & shooting it. The factory oil has turned gummy & everything needs tore down & cleaned.

The receiver bolt area.

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The bolt

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The walnut & blue steel on these rifles are beautiful, maybe some day this one will get shot/used.

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Heck, I bought a mas45 2 years ago that is still in cosmoline/unfired & haven't cleaned/shot it yet. It's hard to use these rifles when they are in this condition, there just isn't that many of them left.

Enjoy your time capsule.

[Bigslug]

Greaaat! Now I learn this forum has smallbore geeks too. Just what I need - more enablers. :veryconfu

The square-actioned Anschutzes and their thousand-axis adjustable stocks whisper to me, but for what I do (and as little as I play) the 52C seems to get it done.

But I'm not sure it's possible to beat the BSA's for sheer unmitigated cool factor - if the 24th Regiment of Foot were to go to the Olympics. . .

[Hip's Ax]

Forrest, Wow! Nice to know my rifle is not an only child. :) Hard to believe there are two rifles in this condition after all these years.

[Hip's Ax]

Bigslug, yes the 2000 series Anschutz actions are awesome but your 52C is from another era where quality and pride were paramount. As space age as I go for position shooting I go the other way for smallbore prone. I shoot a Remington 37 most of the time and I have a Ray Morgan as back up. Of course after all these years they have been all redone by the smallbore gods (Kenyon, Klienedorst and Sitman) but I love it when one of the juniors notices my rifle is different and then I tell him/her what they are. The look in their eyes is priceless.

[Bigslug]

Bigslug, yes the 2000 series Anschutz actions are awesome but your 52C is from another era where quality and pride were paramount.

Yeah. . .they don't do them like that anymore. Let me bounce my assessment off you to see what you think:

Having shot a lot of bughole groups with a number of good old .22's, the REAL advantage of the top-end modern smallbore guns seems to be not in the mechanical accuracy, but rather in the ability to more precisely fit the rifle to the shooter. Maybe possibly a bit of lock-time advantage which would show up primarily in offhand (where most of us are bringing WAAY more error to the party than a couple miliseconds would show)

[Doc Highwall]

Having any rifle fit you to shoot your best is paramount but even more so as the bullet velocity gets below the speed of sound like a match 22lr at 1080 fps or slower. The absents of recoil and muzzle blast in small-bore shooting compared to high-power shooting is very deceiving as to how difficult it really is.

[Hip's Ax]

Yeah. . .they don't do them like that anymore. Let me bounce my assessment off you to see what you think:

Having shot a lot of bughole groups with a number of good old .22's, the REAL advantage of the top-end modern smallbore guns seems to be not in the mechanical accuracy, but rather in the ability to more precisely fit the rifle to the shooter. Maybe possibly a bit of lock-time advantage which would show up primarily in offhand (where most of us are bringing WAAY more error to the party than a couple miliseconds would show)

Well, along with lock time, the triggers have improved a great deal but I think you are correct. The modern stocks that are fully adjustable I think are a huge improvement. As you can see above my smallbore prone rifle are wearing modern fully adjustable stocks and I can just lie there all day on them. When my friends and I have a vintage prone session we are about crippled when we get up after a single target when we are shooting our factory 52's, 37's and the like. The stocks are like shooting a canoe paddle LOL.

[Hip's Ax]

Having any rifle fit you to shoot your best is paramount but even more so as the bullet velocity gets below the speed of sound like a match 22lr at 1080 fps or slower. The absents of recoil and muzzle blast in small-bore shooting compared to high-power shooting is very deceiving as to how difficult it really is.

Doc, yes I agree. I love it when a high power shooter joins us thinking its an easy kids game, just to get his butt whipped by pretty much everyone with any experience. They show up with whatever rifle with whatever ammo and expect to do well. That and their obvious limping and groaning at the end of the day as they find out 160 record rounds is a real grind. Some never come back, some get so interested they almost quit high power all together. I shoot everything, I have 14 NRA classifications right now but smallbore prone is my favorite.

[Forrest r]

Forrest, Wow! Nice to know my rifle is not an only child. :) Hard to believe there are two rifles in this condition after all these years.

The rifle came out of nj, go figure.

Smallbore is an art unto itself with excellent quality firearms & triggers to die for. The only other firearms I've ever seen rival the 22lr position rifles are the world class 10m airguns.

Thank you for sharing your rifles & experiences with us, I've always enjoyed your post here and on rimfire central. Your knowledge & commitment to rimfires and shooting sports in general has help countless 1000's of shooters.

[Hip's Ax]

The rifle came out of nj, go figure.

Smallbore is an art unto itself with excellent quality firearms & triggers to die for. The only other firearms I've ever seen rival the 22lr position rifles are the world class 10m airguns.

Thank you for sharing your rifles & experiences with us, I've always enjoyed your post here and on rimfire central. Your knowledge & commitment to rimfires and shooting sports in general has help countless 1000's of shooters.

LOL I came out of NJ too. :)

Agreed, my air rifle has an amazing trigger and the balance is superb. Where ever that hole is in the target is exactly where the rifle was pointed when the pellet left the muzzle.

Thanks for the kind words but I am not doing anything unusual, when I had questions back when the experienced guys always would help. Difference here is the internet was not around back then, I answer the questions to the best of my ability same and they did and the answered questions just stay here until someone searches and reads it. Unlike many other sports there are no deep secrets in shooting, we always tell each other the truth. Shooters are the best folks around. :)

[Bigslug]

That and their obvious limping and groaning at the end of the day as they find out 160 record rounds is a real grind.

This is probably my biggest turn-off that kept me - after a brief dabbling - from actively playing the game. My main purpose in playing with smallbore guns back during my active Highpower days was as a lower-cost practice alternative to 175 grain MatchKings. This was back when a case of 5,000 PMC Scoremasters and even Wolf Match was only about $150, and they're plenty good enough to tell you what you're doing right or doing wrong. What with the cost of Eley and other "REAL" match rounds, combined with the sheer number of them that the Smallbore game burns, it seemed there was ZERO economy to taking on it on as a competitive effort. And yes, there is the Bataan Death March aspect of the kneeling stage. . .

On the plus side, you guys tend to shoot in the shade, close to the parking lot. . .

What was funniest to me is how QUIET a smallbore firing line is in comparison - and I don't mean the guns. It's like the shooters took a vow of silence or something. In Highpower, when somebody throws one into the 6-ring, you can usually hear the "MF!" six lanes away!

[Hip's Ax]

Bigslug, yes you are correct. If you are going to shoot full weekend long matches outdoor smallbore really burns up the ammo, especially the prone matches. Prone if you want all the bananas your ammo must hold a 1" group at 100 yards and that stuff has more then doubled in price in the last decade. 3P I use ammo like you are talking about as the occasional "dropper" is lost in the noise of my aweful hand LOL.

Yes, smallbore shooters are not only quiet by nature when others are shooting, it is demanded. If I forget and start speaking too loudly the range officer lets me know right away. As you said it is in complete contrast to high power where it is just fine to yell a conversation to each other on the line.

Trust me, when we are shooting and shank one, the groans and expletives are there, we just try to keep it down.

[Bigslug]

Prone if you want all the bananas your ammo must hold a 1" group at 100 yards and that stuff has more then doubled in price in the last decade.

Though I can't really complain about the per-shot cost of the stuff - only the quantities needed. A couple years ago, I got to prone out and quality-test some Eley Team (basically quality-control rejects from the current Tenex EPS line) through a mid-1930's - vintage 52 (A or B uncertain) with a 16x Unertl on a 100 yard indoor range, and put in a ten-shot group of about 5/8ths of an inch.

It continually staggers me that this can be done not just AT ALL, but also with a 70+year-old unbedded, unfloated, untorqued wood launch platform, without tuned-to-gun handloads, with ammo basically considered factory THIRDS, with heel-based bullets, and the headspacing, case-aligning rim of the cartridge being violently crushed on ignition. No . . .you can't really blame the Brits for being proud of their ammo. . .