My New Shooting Bench / rifle /ammo

[Tesorodeoro]

Guy I was torn between buying a high end 17 HMR or .22. I went .22 and am now stuck with it. I love to compete and am trying to learn how to shoot this rifle. I have a ways to go yet I believe with just what I have available to play with. But yesterday using Eley Force I came close to 5 shots in a 1/4" group 4 times. That may be all I can hope for using rimfire ammo. Even cleaning the rifle and barrel moves the groups in micro increments.

But I damn near went with a .17 HMR. I just didn't have the range here to play with. YOU would have a blast (and a learning curve) with an 8 ounce trigger. But you'd like it.... I promise.

Listen, I’m not a caliber snob. I love them all. I’m hesitant to mess with any firearm that shoots good. but you’re probably right. I’ve seen folks getting crazy with jeweled trigger units that were so unsafe they would reliably go off by lowering the barrel! That violates my #1 rule above accuracy.

 

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[Tesorodeoro]

Very nice Brad!! I went this direction for now... being a home builder you think I should/could build a beauty!


View attachment 2172417

Have it and use it. I do shoot 1/2 minute groups at 100 yards off it. Not very stable in the woods where I shoot. the barrel support got thrown away pretty quickly. mine doesn’t have the back rest. it’s a swivel barstool seat. that one looks like you could sit back and brag after you outshot your buddy!

 

[Limitool]

Listen, I’m not a caliber snob. I love them all. I’m hesitant to mess with any firearm that shoots good. but you’re probably right. I’ve seen folks getting crazy with jeweled trigger units that were so unsafe they would reliably go off by lowering the barrel! That violates my #1 rule above accuracy.

I agree with ya.... shooting safely trumps accuracy any day. When my eye leaves the scope or my finger leaves the trigger well my gun safety is engaged.

Tesorodeoro: Maybe you've already done this but this 99.9% free improvement really helps with grouping shots. When I installed my KIDD receiver and bull barrel into my thumbhole stock I floated the barrel in AFTER I had already sighted the gun in. I took a crisp $ bill and put it under the barrel where it leaves the stock and tried to see the clearance by moving it back and forth and toward the receiver. I got half way before hitting a high spot on stock. Torn down, hand sanded spot and reassembled. Now that the high spot was gone IT GOT WORSE. Now I had no clearance past about 2". I repeated this process about 6-7 times before I had clearance 100% to the receiver.

Floating that barrel in really made this rifle come "alive". And the groups really got tighter. Maybe I should do my 10/22 also. I never did. Maybe it would help your 10/22....? It's not hard to do. Just aggravating repeating the process till done.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

I have really

I agree with ya.... shooting safely trumps accuracy any day. When my eye leaves the scope or my finger leaves the trigger well my gun safety is engaged.

Tesorodeoro: Maybe you've already done this but this 99.9% free improvement really helps with grouping shots. When I installed my KIDD receiver and bull barrel into my thumbhole stock I floated the barrel in AFTER I had already sighted the gun in. I took a crisp $ bill and put it under the barrel where it leaves the stock and tried to see the clearance by moving it back and forth and toward the receiver. I got half way before hitting a high spot on stock. Torn down, hand sanded spot and reassembled. Now that the high spot was gone IT GOT WORSE. Now I had no clearance past about 2". I repeated this process about 6-7 times before I had clearance 100% to the receiver.

Floating that barrel in really made this rifle come "alive". And the groups really got tighter. Maybe I should do my 10/22 also. I never did. Maybe it would help your 10/22....? It's not hard to do. Just aggravating repeating the process till done.

upset a Browning Medallion rifle. Barrrel wasn’t floated properly, so I took it upon myself to relieve the stock till a dollar would slide under the barrel. Long story short it messed up the detachable magazine so the bolt will not close on a loaded mag. The action and the stock have to be aligned properly for the detachable stock to function properly.

Really disappointing, I’m not into fancy shiny hunting guns so i have shelved it for the last 30 years or more. It likely needs glass bedded. but it was so crooked in the stock you can visibly see where the forearm wood is thinner on one side. It was a left and right issue, not so much an up and down issue.

 

[Dejure]

My shooting bench. Built 30 yrs ago. Legs are hedge.View attachment 2172342

It saddens me that things like this little piece of art cannot be, safely, displayed anymore. Too many scum who would remove it from our possession in our absence during a shopping venture and such.

 

[Dejure]

Ah yes, the 10-22. Probably the most famous 22 out there. Mine cost $10.00 at a garage sale. It had a trigger problem. Looking into it, it was a fix for less than a buck, BUT I opted for an improved trigger. Nothing stupid, but nice (about 4 pounds). That, of course, brought the price up a bit.

ALL that aside, NICE JOB on the bench.

A hint or two for those not deep into woodworking:

(1) Surface coats of any kind don't play well with exterior weather, OVER TIME.

Even if the entire project has a finish applied to it, the wood will expand and contract at a different rate than the finish will, whether poly, lacquer or something else. That is because the wood will still find a way to gain and lose moisture, and because the wood will expand and contract with heat and cold.

(2) The more surface of a project covered with finish, the slower will be the overall gain and loss of moisture. Thus, expansion and contraction due to moisture gain and loss will be lessened. For example, chest of drawers never get finished on the inside, so moving them between a dry desert environment and a wet one causes problems with them.

(3) Paint is said to be the ultimate finish ("top coat"), but there is no silver bullet, so it needs to be maintained to protect the project.

If using a poly finish, a long oil finish will hold up better in the outdoors. A short oil finish will hold up better to foot traffic and other uses that result in wear.

Calling a finish a long oil finish is just a way of saying there is more oil in the finish. A short or is, therefore, a finish with less oil. More oil means the finish is more flexible and can shift with some changes in the moisture content of the wood. The short oil flexes less, but holds up to abrasion better. High end poly finishes used for nautical applications are, for the reasons noted, long oil finishes.

There are two types of oil - hardening oil and non-hardening oil. Motor oil, mineral oil and other petroleum products are non-hardening. Tung oil, flax seed, from which boiled linseed oil is made, walnut oil and a few others are hardening oils. They harden by way of reaction with air.

You can use non-hardening oils to penetrate wood, also limiting how much water can get into the wood. It, also, has the advantage of making wood treated with it more flexible (think of dry cedar shakes that would crack and split, if you walked on them).

Oil has an advantage over other finishes in that it never has to be [and cannot be] stripped before applying fresh applications.

Non-hardening oil will soak in anywhere the wood lost moisture. It may look like the oil is evaporating, but it is just wicking to dry spots. When it does, more oil can be added. In time, the wood can become somewhat or fully saturated with the oil, making it pretty bullet proof, with regard to weather and even though it is the least durable, insofar as abrasion resistance goes.

Thinning will help speed the penetration process with both hardening and non-hardening oils. Though hardening oils start hardening with contact with the oxygen in the air, constantly flowing the finish around can slow the reaction time and allow more time for the applications to penetrate.

Non-hardening oil applications generously applied and left to sit can swell wood back toward its original state, causing small cracks and splits to seem to disappear. I've done this with old butcher blocks and the result was a night and day difference in appearance.

Once you are satisfied with the results of treating wood with oil, and if you must, you can clean the surface oil off with thinner and apply an oil based paint or poly. If the wood is cleaned of all surface oil, you could even use a latex or acrylic finish.