Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Sunday, December 07, 2003

I Think it I Fixed It

About two years ago I had an 1896 Swedish Mauser "sporterized." I know some of you purists just winced at the thought, but this was a $100 rifle, no bluing, surface pitting on the barrel, considerable wear and tear - certainly not a collector piece. I had the action rebarreled with a medium-weight chromoly Shilen tube, 1-in-8" twist, cut to 24". I had the 'smith turn down the bolt handle, narrow the trigger guard, then polish and blue the barreled action and install a two-piece scope base. I then installed a Timney trigger and glass bedded the action into a Fajen thumbhole stock, making sure the barrel was free-floated.

I then proceeded over the next two years to try just about every combination of 140-grain bullet and powder to see what it would shoot well. The answer? Nothing. I tried 155 grain bullets. No good. I tried 120 grain bullets. A bit better, but still no great shakes. The gun simply would not group better than 2.5 to 3 MOA, and that only if I was lucky. Since I had built the rifle in order to shoot Metallic Silhouette, which requires you to shoot offhand up to 500 meters, that wasn't going to be good enough.

Finally, I decided I'd try preloading the barrel. I took an old expired credit card and cut it into strips, then stacked the strips in the barrel channel of the stock, and reinstalled the action. The plastic strips, located about 1/3rd of the way down the barrel channel from the forend, put an upward pressure on the barrel and change its natural vibration frequency.

I loaded up some test ammo last night - 139 grain Lapua boattail hollowpoints over Reloder 19. Here's my best group of the day, but not by much:

If you can't read the micrometer, it shows 1.016" outside to outside. Subtract one bullet diameter of .264", and the group size is 0.752"

I think I fixed it.

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