.22 Boolit Project, Part 6 (Semi-Final)

[Whitespider]

Well, I had a revelation since my last post. I hadn’t shot that little Handi-Rifle off a bench for a couple years, I’d forgotten how picky it is with the forearm screwed to that skinny barrel, any pressure applied to the gun when it’s on sand bags will change POI, sometimes a lot. So today I tried it again, with 11.5-grains of Accurate 1680. Despite the fact that I had way too many cold adult beverages last night (enough that my heart beat could be seen in crosshair movement) and a 90-degree cross wind gusting right to left at almost 30 MPH, I managed get the technique worked out. In all, I fired 50 rounds without a hint of barrel leading, at an honest 2300 FPS muzzle velocity (see chronograph results in part 5). Below is the target with the last fifteen rounds fired into it, I’m sure the wind opened it up somewhat even though I tried to shoot between gusts. I’m anxious to give it a go on a nice cool, calm morning... I’ll be trying some final tweaking and fine tuning.


http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt321/Whitespider8591/Hornet.jpg

.22 Boolit Project (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=50531)
.22 Boolit Project, Part 2 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=53637)
.22 Boolit Project, Part 3 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=54892)
.22 Boolit Project, Part 4 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=55516)
.22 Boolit Project, Part 5 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=56355)

[leftiye]

'S good work considering all of the intervening factors!

[Larry Gibson]

whitespider

Is that still at 50 yards or have you moved to 100 yds. Either way it's looking good.

Larry Gibson

[Whitespider]

Larry

That's 15 rounds, still at 50-yards.
It was way too windy for anything meaningful at 100-yards.
And I'm still having a little trouble with "bench technique" and that skinny barreled, light weight rifle (as the grouping above kinda' shows).

[Larry Gibson]

Whitespider

Understand the wind and bench technique problems with light rifles. I've learned that I get better accuracy with such if I hold them "hard" back into the shoulder. That's still pretty good for 15 shots:-)

Larry Gibson

[BerdanIII]

How is the fore end attached to the barrel in the Handi-Rifle? My Contender uses a threaded post dovetailed into the barrel and I "free-floated" the barrel by dropping a couple of washers into the hole in the forend. This pushed the fore end away from the barrel and made a useful improvement in accuracy.

I also went to small pistol primers pretty early after reading that they improved accuracy, which they did.

[Whitespider]

BerdanIII,

The forearm is held in place by a screw, through the forearm, and into a threaded boss that is attached to the barrel about a foot forward of the chamber. Any pressure applied to the gun when the forearm is setting on bags will directly apply pressure to the barrel. My Handi-Rifle is of the sporter configuration, a really skinny barrel (maybe less than a half inch diameter), just laying your hand on top of the scope will raise the POI enough at 100-yards to be off the paper.

I originally bought the rifle, several years ago, for my son to use; he has since grown, moved out of the house and acquired a serious preference for chasing girls at this time in his life. There is a certain technique used to get this little rifle to shoot consistently from a rest; I just need to re-learn it, or more accurately, I am in the process of re-learning it. Larry's technique of pulling the butt tight into the shoulder sounds familiar... so long as no downward pressure is applied to the forearm.

[44man]

BerdanIII,

The forearm is held in place by a screw, through the forearm, and into a threaded boss that is attached to the barrel about a foot forward of the chamber. Any pressure applied to the gun when the forearm is setting on bags will directly apply pressure to the barrel. My Handi-Rifle is of the sporter configuration, a really skinny barrel (maybe less than a half inch diameter), just laying your hand on top of the scope will raise the POI enough at 100-yards to be off the paper.

I originally bought the rifle, several years ago, for my son to use; he has since grown, moved out of the house and acquired a serious preference for chasing girls at this time in his life. There is a certain technique used to get this little rifle to shoot consistently from a rest; I just need to re-learn it, or more accurately, I am in the process of re-learning it. Larry's technique of pulling the butt tight into the shoulder sounds familiar... so long as no downward pressure is applied to the forearm.
Just for fun, find the "null" point of the barrel by rapping it with your hand. Hold the grip and you can find it. Then rest the barrel at that point. Use a skinny bag or sticks.

[Whitespider]

"Null" point?

[44man]

Yes, that is where vibration is at it's lowest point. Tap the barrel with the palm of your hand every inch and you will feel and hear a change in vibration and sound. Look for the dull "thud" point. That is the point where the rest of the barrel whip is increased from in both directions.
That spot has the least movement from bags or sticks when shot.

[BerdanIII]

44man:

Very interesting concept. I know that BPCR silhouette shooters rest their barrels and not the fore ends on shooting sticks, but then they've got barrels the size of fence posts. Do you think it would work on a tube magazine lever action? I have a Model 92 I'm going to wrap around a tree if I can't get it to shoot any better than it does now. Resting the rifle on the receiver helps, but resting it on the fore end equals shotgun patterns on the target.

Whitespider:

That sounds like one twitchy rifle. The fore end set-up on your rifle is the same as my Contender; it might be worth a shot (no pun intended).....

[jhrosier]

I found that my lever guns did better when I replaced the relatively hard front rest bag with a couple of layers of foam rubber padding. Also put the rest as far back as it would go.

Jack

[hornsurgeon]

on my nef hornet, i use a bipod for bench shooting. it helps stabalize the lightweight gun, and puts consistant pressure on the barrel. my best boolit is the bator. if i use ONE GRAIN unique, i can get about 1" at 50 yards. from there up i can't get better than 2". i have also tryed the lyman 45gr roundnose, but had horible results sofar. this is all with ACWW. my next round of tests will be with lilgun.

i will say that this load is slow, but accurate and will go clean thru a woodchuck or rabbit out to 50 yards. (2 chucks and a rabit both fell this weekend, only one chuck needed a second shot)