Inherited Target rifles

[ClaytonT88]

Hi all,

I've recently inherited several rifles, one of which is a Ruger M77 .308 with a sprinter barrel fitted, by all accounts/from what we can tell it's been 8-10 years since it's been shot, I'm looking to give it a clean before I get out to my local rifle club and just wondering about the process, do target rifles require certain processes?

Certain bore cleaners? Do stainless barrels require different cleaners?

I've got heaps (nearly 400) rounds that were loaded for it before my Poppa passed so I'm only looking to go out and shoot it at some targets to get used to the set up before I really start chasing accuracy and reloading myself.

There was also a Nielsen MN600 7.62 X 51 in the estate which I will hopefully get the PTA for in the next week or so which I'm also keen to try out, I hear good things about the Nielsens..

Cheers!

[No1Mk3]

Rifles a rifle, clean as normal. Some people do not like using Sweets on stainless barrels.

[Larry]

Just check it over and shoot it. Post a pic or two of it. It will most likely be the most accurate rifle you own. +1 on the Nielsen

[in2anity]

I use a Neilson MN600 for TR - has just enough features for it to rub shoulders with the modern era builds. It wears a modern 1:11 28" barrel and the Eagle Eye. I added the curved adjustable buttplate from JJJ imports and now it does it all.... if you can. I once had left over ammo and time, and the wind happened to be forgiving on that day... so I double bagged it (just out of curiosity), and the group remained in the 600m X ring without much effort, I just cranked through it without thinking or even looking at the digital or flags so yar... they will shoot.

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One thing I will add, if you dry fire it a lot, you will eventually break the bolt head retaining pin. This is something you should check every time you lay down on the mound - make sure the pin is present and the head is locked in place. You see, the pin takes the force when the striker is arrested by the head, which puts a sheering force on it - eventually the metal splits. You should try and carry spares.

[ClaytonT88]

Thanks guys, I'll take some pics and share them over the next day or two. All looks to be in working order, the scope rail is set up for long distance it seems, I'll be out to shoot it next weekend all going well.

[ClaytonT88]

Hi again, I got some pics taken yesterday, gave it a good clean, there was noticeable green fouling at the crown and the first 6 patches came out dark green/black, with only marginal improvement, 2 wet brushes through with some shooters choice, let it sit for 10, then another brush once through, then patches until it came clean, probably 8-10 patches until they came out dry, then 1 patch of G96 and a clean one to follow to clean out the bore cleaner.

The custom rail has a fair bit of MOA built into it so not sure what distance it's set for at the moment. First step will probably be level it out and sight it in at 100m to get a baseline for the accuracy/load development. I also added a piece of foam on the cheek piece to get the correct cheek weld/eye relief.

It's set up for peep sights aswell, but unfortunately all the peep sights I've found have sat in a foam box that has disintegrated and they're rusty/filled up with sticky foam, might try and clean them up as time goes one but I figure they might be too far gone.

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[bladeracer]

The custom rail has a fair bit of MOA built into it so not sure what distance it's set for at the moment. First step will probably be level it out and sight it in at 100m to get a baseline for the accuracy/load development. I also added a piece of foam on the cheek piece to get the correct cheek weld/eye relief.

Pull the bolt and sight down the bore at a target at 50m, then see how low the scope crosshair is on the target. You can calculate the range it's zeroed at fairly closely if you know the load it was shooting with. I wouldn't try zeroing it back to 100m until you've done this at least. Do you know what the scope is, or how much elevation adjustment it has? If it's got a lot of cant in the rail then you may not be able to zero it back that close.

[ClaytonT88]

The custom rail has a fair bit of MOA built into it so not sure what distance it's set for at the moment. First step will probably be level it out and sight it in at 100m to get a baseline for the accuracy/load development. I also added a piece of foam on the cheek piece to get the correct cheek weld/eye relief.

Pull the bolt and sight down the bore at a target at 50m, then see how low the scope crosshair is on the target. You can calculate the range it's zeroed at fairly closely if you know the load it was shooting with. I wouldn't try zeroing it back to 100m until you've done this at least. Do you know what the scope is, or how much elevation adjustment it has? If it's got a lot of cant in the rail then you may not be able to zero it back that close.

I've got a bushnell bore sighter in with the kit and it's about 60 moa below the centre cross hatch (the gradations finish at 45 moa) if that is to be believed.

[bladeracer]

The custom rail has a fair bit of MOA built into it so not sure what distance it's set for at the moment. First step will probably be level it out and sight it in at 100m to get a baseline for the accuracy/load development. I also added a piece of foam on the cheek piece to get the correct cheek weld/eye relief.

Pull the bolt and sight down the bore at a target at 50m, then see how low the scope crosshair is on the target. You can calculate the range it's zeroed at fairly closely if you know the load it was shooting with. I wouldn't try zeroing it back to 100m until you've done this at least. Do you know what the scope is, or how much elevation adjustment it has? If it's got a lot of cant in the rail then you may not be able to zero it back that close.

I've got a bushnell bore sighter in with the kit and it's about 60 moa below the centre cross hatch (the gradations finish at 45 moa) if that is to be believed.

From memory, the 30-minute rail on the Ruger Precision put me about 500mm high at 50m.
With a .308, 60MoA probably puts the zero somewhere around 1000m, depending on the bullet and velocity.

[ClaytonT88]

That would make sense, my poppa regularly shot 900,1000 and 1100 yards at the Woomera Rifle Club back in the day. The latest score sheet I can find is from 2007 and at 800m..

[JohnV]

I hate to say it but that scope rail on the Ruger is not made properly and it may be costing some accuracy .
That's a dodgy job mate .

[ClaytonT88]

Yeah, definitely looks like a backyard special. To be honest, I'm probably not going to keep this one long term, I'll just be using it to get used to .308 target rifle before getting the Nielsen set up if/when I get it.

[in2anity]

It's conjecture, but I would be willing to bet there is hardly any accuracy cost in that mount, if at all. Probs still still hold the F-Std X ring if you are paying attention to the flags. The wind is where you will lose points. Target shooters don't stick with things that don't work; makes no sense. You're poppa would have known what he was doing.

[ClaytonT88]

It's conjecture, but I would be willing to bet there is hardly any accuracy cost in that mount, if at all. Probs still still hold the F-Std X ring if you are paying attention to the flags. The wind is where you will lose points. Target shooters don't stick with things that don't work; makes no sense. You're poppa would have known what he was doing.

Thanks for that, All the score cards I can find my poppa was 2-3 points lower on average then all the other shooters with this rifle, a couple of older guys from local club who knew my Poppa and feature on the score cards mention he was chasing accuracy with load development and different projectiles, brass, etc. with this rifle for the best part of 10 years, might be why he bought the Nielsen, I just can't find any ammo/scores/loads for the nielsen so I'm wondering if it ever got shot.....time will tell.

[JohnV]

It's a far bigger chance that a badly fitting rail that is overhanging like that will reduce accuracy rather than help accuracy .
Also the poorly bedded rail may be bending under screw pressure and putting the scope tube in a bind .

[ClaytonT88]

Just thought I'd let you know how it went on Saturday, not great...haha...

Local club had a 500 yard shoot, so I took the ruger out....at max scope adjustment, I was still roughly 2 targets low...so we surmised it was set up for >1000 yards....

I swapped in the ruger target mounts that came in the bag with it and they were set up for about 700m at max scope adjustment, bit odd.

Plan is to take it to a local gunsmith and see if there's an easy/cost effective way to put a rail on this, looks like there's a few rail set ups you can buy for the M77 Action but it doesn't look like there's any/many in stock in Aus...back to the drawing board. Still waiting on the PTA for the nielsen to come back.....

[JohnV]

If you get a zero degrees Picatinny rail and then buy an Quick Detachable ARMS mount that has the MOA slope built into it's Ring base rail . That way you can buy the MOA mount you need for longer range and if you take the scope and mount off it leaves a flat rail to mount other shorter range lower profile sight systems . This base unit http://armsmounts.com/shop/mounts/r-m-s ... ver-mount/ You buy the ring heights you want with 2 , 30 mm to 1 inch inserts to cover other scopes . You have to search around for all the parts they don't putt them together on the site . Then buy the MOA rail that bolts onto that QD base and mounts the rings . The whole thing slides back and forth on the Picatinny rail with the QD levers and can adjust to slight rail width variations which is better than the model I have , you can also unbolt and move the MOA taper rail back and forth that the rings bolt to and move the rings on that taper rail. This picture gives a better idea of what I am saying on my Mauser 98 varmint rifle during construction . The mounts are not that attractive but they are strong and rigid and it's the most adjustable system on the planet .

[in2anity]

Jesus JohnV, looking at that, we may have a fighting chance battling the AI!

[ClaytonT88]

Jesus JohnV, looking at that, we may have a fighting chance battling the AI!

Thanks for that JohnV, road trip to Darwin soon so rifle play time takes a back seat until I'm back but I'll look into it after that. that's a serious set up!

[JohnV]

This is the gun further along with the elevation adjustable canter-lever rear mono-pod , it can shoot from several platforms . Front Rest or Bi-pod , Rear bags or mono-pod or a combination . Sorry for the strange image colouring at the bottom as it was 47 degrees Celsius that day .

[in2anity]

wowsers. And what does the F-brigade think of this?

[ClaytonT88]

That's a serious looking contraption!!

[JohnV]

A mate at the range named it the " Swordfish " lol. For the feint hearted it can also look like this with a sporter weight blued barrel in 30-06 and a pillar bedded Butler Creek stock . Registered as .243 and 30-06 . The funny thing is the more innocuous looking setup is the more portable and therefore th more dangerous . That rail stock weighs 17 lb and you not running around with that . In 243 with full power loads it's like shooting a 222 Rem. The minimal testing I have done I identified that the main loss of group accuracy was at the bi-pod connection and the side to side uneven recoil tracking of the bi-pod feet especially in dirt . I fixed the connection with an American defense QD adapter , bolted and epoxied to the bi-pod base . Not much I can do about the bi-pod feet but the groups tightened up considerably . You can buy a special competition bi-pod with big ski feet but it's not worth it and it's real bulky and expensive . It basically shoots better than I can anyway . One other advantage is if you miss and get charged by a big nasty wild boar you can use it as a club , lol .
Actually this project was really interesting as I discovered several weird things about it . Like one was when I shot the gun it would ring faintly like a tuning fork but after I fitted the QD 3 position carry handle it stopped ringing , well I could not hear it that is . The main rail is 7075 so it's quite a bit harder than ordinary soft aluminium . I think the handle is operating like a vibration dampener , like they have on compound bows . The QD block of the handle is bulky for a reason as it offsets the weight of a Lithium Ion Battery pack that clips onto the Pic rail on the other side to run the NV scope on external DC .

[ClaytonT88]

I got out to the club last week and shot a 59.3 and a 55.2 with a friends Dale, taking out honours of the day, spoke to a gunsmith who has advised not to spend any money on the ruger and what for the nielsen, so wait I shall.

[JohnV]

You could put a normal set of scope mounts on the Ruger and it would be a nice longer range hunting rifle . The Ruger 77 is a good rifle .

[JohnV]

You could put a normal set of scope mounts on the Ruger and it would be a nice longer range hunting rifle . The Ruger 77 is a good rifle .

[ClaytonT88]

Yep, I did think about trying to find some standard mounts (the ones with it are for >700 yards) but there is another paddle stock .308 WIN sporter there if I wanted to take that hunting.

[ClaytonT88]

We shot at 700 yard today so I took the Ruger out and had a go, after several shots sighting in on a bucket, I went on the target and got a 46 then second string, a 43.1. Speeds are pretty low (1532ish at the target) compared to others in the club who are running 45.7/45.8 grains of 2206H with the same projectiles (1740ish at the target).

These are labelled as 45 grains of 2208, and reloaded on 19-03-01...at over 20 years since they've been reloaded, it probably doesn't help.
Top .308 score of the day was 100.2 in fairly trying conditions so I'm not too unhappy with my efforts, and happy to put some rounds through.

I've still got several boxes of similarly labelled ammunition to try so I'll keep going with the Ruger (if we shoot at 700m again) and see how it goes.

All in all a good day spent, and much preferred to the current activity of writing Physics prac reports.

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[in2anity]

I have old handloads like that from late shooters. In my experience, handloads back then were not made to the same standard as they are now. Heck many blokes were on the lee class loader. Furthermore, my understanding is that at some stage, the sizes of the scoring rings were reduced. Not exactly sure what year it was - it could have been before 2001. Long and short of it, loads that may have been competative back then, may not stand up to today's standards. Particularly, the importance of consistent neck tension was not appreciated. I was reloading 308 fullbore loads for the schools comp in approximately 2002, and i distinctly remember thinking how inconsistent seating "felt" load to load. But this was not for me to judge; our coach was the one ordering us what to do. Annealing was certainly not a common thing back then.

[ClaytonT88]

I have old handloads like that from late shooters. In my experience, handloads back then were not made to the same standard as they are now. Heck many blokes were on the lee class loader. Furthermore, my understanding is that at some stage, the sizes of the scoring rings were reduced. Not exactly sure what year it was - it could have been before 2001. Long and short of it, loads that may have been competative back then, may not stand up to today's standards. Particularly, the importance of consistent neck tension was not appreciated. I was reloading 308 fullbore loads for the schools comp in approximately 2002, and i distinctly remember thinking how inconsistent seating "felt" load to load. But this was not for me to judge; our coach was the one ordering us what to do. Annealing was certainly not a common thing back then.

Yeah, from how they're labelled, they're around .6-.8 grains of powder short of what the guys are running at the moment for the same barrel length/projectile, so I'll be looking to load some more soon and see how they go, also keen to see if maybe these were loaded for the nielsen I'm still waiting on as they've got a fair jump (.200") to the lands according to the measuring gear on this rifle.

If I get the nielsen and they're still not much chop, I might get an...unloader? and see if I can save the primers/projectiles and get some new brass, there's still over 250 loaded rounds and probably that again in fired rounds so plenty to get started with as I get into the sport.

At the moment I'm just getting used to firing the .308, she's got a fair kick and I've got a bruised collarbone so I might be looking at a limbsaver or maybe a jacket with some padding.