New to using a 'PEEP & GLOBE' at 50 yards...

[uscra112]

[B].."don't fool with the barrel, just shoot till it seasons and get on with it!"

That's been the received wisdom from thousands upon thousands of .22 shooters for generations, but it does no harm to test the theory.

"Trust, but verify".

[OS OK]

That's been the received wisdom from thousands upon thousands of .22 shooters for generations, but it does no harm to test the theory.

"Trust, but verify".

You know uscra112... I think that sage advice may have come from you. I can't help myself though, since I was a pup, my curiosity has got me into some tight spots!

About 1954 I took apart my Grandmas old wind up alarm clock and had to try to explain my way out of that when I couldn't put it back together again.
The loving soul that she was, she couldn't find fault and I was too young to know any better...I didn't get punished for that so I guess that set the tone for the rest of my life.

Old times aside...I do have an observation & a question to ask of you...

I have noticed, using the Aguila, that around 250 shots my groups seem to start opening & I have considered that a point where I need to wet mop the barrel. It seems to work as the groups will come back together after somewhere around 20 shots.
What do you think about that idea? I assume it probably varies from rifle to rifle and the ammo they shoot.
What do you and the other experienced .22lr shooters do about this phenomena?
or . . .
Am I assuming too much & there's something I haven't considered?

Thanks for your reply in advance, I appreciate it.
I know it must be an exercise in frustration for you and some of the others to watch an old geriatric one'eyed fat'Man going through all these motions regarding the why's & how's of this cartridge...but try to remember, I put the .22 rifles back in the safe when the kids grew up and left home in the 80's...went with center-fire handloading/casting/shooting...guess I never had a real respect for this cartridge, but now I just have to know.

[uscra112]

I have no personal knowledge, not having been a .22 competitor at any time in my life, but from what I've read (and I've read almost every issue of the Rifleman** going back into the early 1920s), 250 rounds between superficial cleanings sounds about right. The old belly-shooters said to shoot until the groups start to open up, then wipe. Only in the bad old days of corrosive priming did they ever really scrub out a bore.

**The American Rifleman was largely a technical journal up until the LaPierre regime. Now it's just another advertising vehicle.

[dverna]

OS OK,

I am "old school". We hardly ever cleaned our smallbore rifles or pistols regardless of what kind of lube was on the bullets. I believe I advised to reduce your cleaning regime a while back when you were struggling with groups.

It has been so long ago that I cannot recall how many rounds we would go between cleanings but it was more than 250. I suppose shooting with iron sights and three position, any slight derogation of accuracy we had got "hidden".

I like your approach not to clean until groups open up....it makes a lot of sense.

Just an opinion...but it seems .22 LR quality (at least for the affordable stuff) is not as good as it was 50 years ago. I would use Eley for matches but more for confidence than any huge improvement in accuracy. I recall using a Ransom Rest to test pistol ammo and shoot 50 round groups at 50 yards. I had a Hi-Standard target pistol and Eley would be 1 1/4" while the "cheap stuff" did about 1 5/8". That is amazing accuracy from a pistol.

[barrabruce]

I have a bad habit of running a lube patch though my bore when I’m finished shooting.
Still shoots good after 30-40 years doing this.
I can’t put a gun away uncleaned.

But I’ve never shot comps or anything.

One top shooter I know used to clean his rimfire all the time between relays.
Now not so much.
I think his new barrel likes to shoot with the fouling better , and the old one not so much.
He used to chase certain lots and machine numbers in his Eley tenx.
Fly a few thousand kms to test different lots and buy cases of the stuff when the reps bring it into the country for the next season.
Now he has even gone to using one of those tuner things.
He is very talented.
Like Australia rep level.

There you are not one bit of help to you.
Sorry about that.
I noticed he ditched his old worked Brno 1 gun when the eps points came out for a custom action and things .
I haven’t kept up with what they have gotten up to for quite a while thou; think he’s been though two barrel changes since then scopes and triggers.

[OS OK]

Thanks dverna... We never cleaned them back in the day either but then I wasn't trying to squeeze all the accuracy I could get from me and the rifle & the ammo, I knew nothing about this then...

I've been looking around on Amazon at 'bore scopes', don't know whether or not I'll buy one, looks like a $100 layout for a good one with side mirrors and dim-able lights.
But...I thought it might make this thread more interesting if we could see first hand the conditions of a clean, dirty, waxed or 'whatever' barrel condition.
I would also like to see a cartridge in battery from the front to see the difference in the common & custom chambers and where the common chamber is simply cut too long.

I'm thinking about this one since I use MAC stuff...



at Amazon... https://www.amazon.com/GEECR-Specifi...497250&sr=8-15


???? Anyone have any better recommendations ????

[barrabruce]

Chamber cast.

[OS OK]

Got out early ahead of the wind... Don't know if I learned anything specific today but I observed a lot of things...

One thing is that these stick-on targets are deceptive. That inner 10-ring is 1" but the rings progress outward in increasing 3/4" radius circles...I sat after the shoot with my cold beer and had to get up and measure several times because they just didn't look just right, my mind is used to the regulation rings and the scale here is way off.



Anyway . . . here's yesterdays work, I can't decide on spots 1 ~ 3 whether the barrel is seasoning slowly and coming 'in' so to speak...or whether it was my trigger hand on the stock making an influence?

The last two spots, 4 & 5, I took my hand off the stock and used the 'trigger pinch' technique where my hand is under the rifle, any influence is weight added straight down.



Today I am going to 'pinch the trigger' all the way from the warmer spot through to spot 5 and see if these groups actually pull together much quicker or not?
The way this looks so far is that the 'wax patch' helps to keep that 'cold barrel shot' corralled in a little closer but it still takes around 20 shots for the barrel to 'warm & season' for the session...I can't say yet.

POST SCRIPT ADDED . . . I tried to get a photo of the barrel condition before starting, this is after the 2 dry patches & the wax patch from the day before. It seems that the camera wants to look either at the far end, the bolt face or the muzzle and a limited amount of rifling that is focused well, I can't get a shot of the whole thing as our eyes can see it.
That's why I mentioned getting a borescope.



The barrel is running very clean looking and I can't see any smears of wax or fouling that's collecting.

[303Guy]

Is that a 45 degree crown I'm seeing? Like this?



This is the type of crown I prefer.



I have only done square crowns because of the difficulty in lining up the bore and a square crown will always be square to the bore.

I do not not know how much if any difference a crown makes but I would just routinely square a crown with no chamfering, just a light deburr using 800 grit emery paper with light oil pressed against the cut with a finger and that's it. Now I should point out that I have not won any Olympic medals nor have I produced any one bullet diameter hole ten shot groups with my crowns. It's just potential variable I like to eliminate, rightly or wrongly.

I did my 511 because it had some corrosion at the muzzle. I went in deeper to clear that corrosion. You may remember it.

[OS OK]

Is that a 45 degree crown I'm seeing? Like this?



This is the type of crown I prefer.



I have only done square crowns because of the difficulty in lining up the bore and a square crown will always be square to the bore.

I do not not know how much, if any, difference a crown makes but I would just routinely square a crown with no chamfering, just a light deburr using 800 grit emery paper with light oil pressed against the cut with a finger and that's it. Now I should point out that I have not won any Olympic medals nor have I produced any one bullet diameter hole ten shot groups with my crowns. It's just potential variable I like to eliminate, rightly or wrongly.

IT IS.

I don't know much about crowns either other than recognizing one that's been damaged.
It would be a good thread subject to discuss them in...prolly a lot we don't know but I imagine they put a 45º for a good reason...I think that'd be more work than cutting it straight.

[OS OK]

THE LAST WAX PATCH TEST . . . I've seen enough, looks like it reduces the cold shot's distance out of the bull but I can't see any other benefit...I thought the groups might come in tight sooner but I have my doubt's about that now.



This morning they did but as you see in the 4 & 5 spot it started opening back up.
I was on my best behavior 'pinch triggering' the release but it still opened....I'm at a loss to explain it, don't have enough ammo to run 2 or 3 target sessions to see a better sampling progression.
I hope Eley gets their shipment soon!

[303Guy]

My eyes keep glancing over at target # 2. Do you remember the scene in Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston as George Taylor finds a plant and plucks it out and says; "Where there is one, there will be another and another and another"? That is actually an MOA group.

It's curious that the groups seem to drift to the left and open up. Makes on wonder what could be going on.

I once built a hands free rest with a remote trigger. So once aimed, the rifle stayed put. The trigger was a hydraulic device using a pair of syringes. I seem to remember seeing something like that recently. Electric perhaps. Not sure.

Thinking about that rest, it was a bit clumsy and pretty heavy. It folded away to fit in my boot, having it's own legs. Anyway, it was useful for establishing the rifles accuracy potential. In retrospect I would say I needed the remote trigger and the rest to give me the confidence to know that I could extract the rifle's potential. To me that is important. I also learned sight picture and trigger control (I moved away from the remote trigger once I had the accuracy sussed then from the rest once I had the sight picture sussed).

Now I find myself back to basics again but I can tell you that your journey is helping me on mine.

I never got to getting any Eley Club for my shoot tomorrow but I'll go get some on Monday in readiness for the next shoot. I'll also try get that material I need for my aperture sight mount. For now though, I am actually quite happy to explore the rifle's and my own potential using a scope.

[uscra112]

I saw one which was a small balloon with a little tube attached. Blow into the tube to fire the rifle. Ain't sayin' whether the balloon was a repurposed condom. No, not me!

[303Guy]

I found these comments on the chamfered crown on Sniper Hide.

Any chamfer will cause gasses to escape unevenly. The lands will disengage first, with a jet of gas from each one. Then the grooves will disengage with a high pressure release all the way around the bullet. This will upset just about any bullet to some degree, because most bullets are not perfect. A boat tail will suffer from this more than a flat base bullet.

Crown a barrel with 11* and shoot several groups. Now cut a chamfer and shoot a few groups. With the same ammo, the groups with the chamfer will be bigger. Not always by a lot, but it's there.

I make the (11*) cut and then hold a piece of scotchbrite on it for a second to polish it and break any microscopic burrs.
Works great.

I'm not sure that what is happening with you is crown related but for me, I would sure like to eliminate that possibility. Maybe it would be worth looking into?

[uscra112]

I was taught to cut a flat crown, using square ended milling cutter held in the tailstock drill chuck. Then deburr the edge using a large brass dome nut as a lap, with 600 grit compound. Hold the lap's shank in an electric screwdriver, rotate the barrel in the lathe, rotate the lap, apply light pressure and rock the lap back and forth through about 30 degrees for about 15 seconds, no more.

This supposedly derived from a technique for grinding lenses.

Never done anything else, so I don't know how it compares.

I can't feature that cone-shaped crown. Hard if not impossible to make it 100% concentric.

[Pressman]

OS OK, I really like the picture down the bore in #608, how did you accomplish that?
Ken

[OS OK]

303Guy & uscra112 . . . I appreciate the comments you have made but I can't contribute to this until I get some reading done...(I don't know my butt from my elbows) about crowns. This guy does, this is a collection of his articles from over the years he wrote about champions & their rim-fire rifles from a gun smith's perspective. As far as I know he is one of the definitive answer guys to all 'gun smithing' things in this competitive world...he has built several National Champions rifles over the years.
I'll get back at you when I find something that'll benefit this question of crowning.



Pressman . . . I put the iPhone on a tripod in front of the muzzle...



then rubber banned my bore light to the scope so I can have my hands free at the camera end...



Then...I zoomed-in a touch to fill the screen and by adjusting the focus point on the iPhone screen by touching it where I wanted the phone to focus, I got several different depths of barrel photos...(these photos are not edited and cropped, it is the amount of zoom I used).
This by the way, is a dirty barrel from yesterdays follies...this is what we most likely prefer to start with..."it's seasoned! right?"



I can't explain the distortion of parts of the photo either (something else I don't know my butt from my elbows about!), the barrel is not goofed up inside...I just take the best photos I can and go with that.



By adjusting how much light went into the breech, I can control how much light is blinding me on the camera end...this is what you get when there's too much light...



It's WINDY today ... so unless there's a calm this afternoon, there will be no shooting today.
Besides . . . I have a ton of reading to do...it's amazing the little secrets and facts Bill Calfee reveals in this 721 page book, it is enthralling!

[303Guy]

It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about crowning and other stuff too. I'm off to the range shortly.

[303Guy]

I had an interesting incident with the 510 today. I had used the 511 bolt because its own bolt is a bit tight on closing. It was having feeding jambs in which the cartridge would clip onto the bolt face skew requiring the bolt removal to unclip. This one particular cartridge got damage but I managed to feed it in. That shot went off to the side and so did several consequent shots.



It took several more shots after this group to settle in again. I'm thinking a piece of boolit got sheared of and smeared somewhere in the chamber area. Thereafter I fed the rounds into the chamber instead of just dropping them onto the feed tray.

This got me thinking about unexplained group opening up or shifting POI.

[OS OK]

303Guy . . . The tendency of a group to open or tighten up has been a deep rabbit hole.

We see this from spot to spot as it progresses....if the barrel was on that round count where you have been seeing it slowly open, that make sense to you.
When it is progressively tightening I think..."things are mechanically right, the wind is not pushing....there's only me & the ammo to make her perform now."

So many times now, I've seen these spots look like I changed shooters from one spot to the next. It simply amazes me...especially when the groups are moving around. I'm constantly on myself about getting that cheek weld the same, same ... same every time yet they move.
Hahaaa....if someone was secretly videoing me at the bench, I would imagine it'd look like a man obsessed...talking to myself, reminding myself of this and that...even the trip out to the 50 I'm coaching myself & telling me what the focus of today's session will be.
Then there's the chastisement that follows when I've pushed my breath window or broken some other little step in the release...OMG!

Like I said...this is a deep rabbit hole, I love it.

This last session I had another FTF...that's two in this month now.
The first one I rotated 180º and refired, it hit just out of group up at 11:00 or so (if I remember right)...this one I rotate & go again and it fell right in with the others.
Blows my little mind every day!

About the crown... I haven't found the paper (old published article) where that is the main subject of his writing, sometimes he gets sidetracked and gets onto another subject when he's talking twist or percentage of lands & grooves or how to push a slug and what you want to feel, he rambles on like these papers are a conversation...all I have seen thus far is it's better to put an angle on the barrel so it better fits the live center of the lathe...but he hasn't said what to do about that yet as to what to do to finish it off when done?

I'll find it, gimme some time...I'm not an avid reader, my mind wanders off the page to something that is pressing me and I find I've wasted the last half hour as my eyes tracked the printing but the mind was on something else entirely.