Remington 783 Accuracy

I'd been reading about all these inexpensive rifles in the last few years that got generally good reviews.  When the Remington 783 came out it had some interesting features I was having trouble ignoring.  The Savage like floating bolt head and barrel nut, a fully free floated barrel, pillar bedded action, and adjustable trigger.  I had myself convinced I needed a 260 Remington, but the closest the 783 came was in 243, so a 243 it would be.  I could always change out the barrel later if I still had to have a 260 Remington.  Three hundred and fifty dollars later from Buds Guns and twenty bucks to my local FFL and I had the rifle in hand.

My first thought after seeing it was "hmm, looks pretty cheap".  Well, I guess it is cheap at $350 delivered.  What did I expect?  It has plain mat black bluing and a synthetic stock.  There is some heft to the gun and the stock is somewhat stiffer than I expected.  It has a nice soft recoil pad also.  I'm not going to get into a real review here since it has been done all over the net.  What I haven't seen was any accuracy testing outside of the questionable honesty of the normal mags, so that's what you'll get.

This isn't any custom barrel here.  In fact one writer said the bore resembled a coal mine.  With that in mind I slathered some JB on a patch and wrapped it around a nylon brush.  I gave it thirty strokes and reloaded a new patch with JB and gave it another twenty.  Cleaned it up and was good to go.  the scope is a Vortex Viper 6.5-20x44.  I may review the scope in another article because I'm very pleased with it.  For now let's just say it's mounted on inexpensive medium rings and everything clears, but barely.

I ordered a box of Sierra .243 100g Gamekings and started loading.   I have about 55 rounds through it now.  You can see my best group so far below.  That is a 5/8" five shot group from 100 yards.  I shot six five shot groups that day.  Of them all the biggest group was 1-5/8", and if you took away the flyer in that group you were left with a nice four shot group of 5/8" again.  Yes sir, this 783 can shoot!  If Remington comes out with a polished blue version with a nice walnut stock I think they'll sell tons of them, no matter what the model 700 fans claim. 

17 HMR Acurracy Again!

I've been doing a little more shooting again, this time with a Remington 783 in 243 Winchester.  On my second time out to the range I figured I'd warm up with the 17 HRM before shooting groups with the 243.  I've been working on my technique and wanted to make sure I was in the groove before getting started with the 243.  I put ten rounds down the barrel, two groups of five at a hundred yards.  Here is the target.

 

I realize there is a shot pulled in each group.  What surprised me was the group on the left has four shots in about a half inch, and the group on the right has four shots in just under 3/8"!  You can bet I'll be testing the rifle out again on a nice calm day!

Savage 93R17 Trigger Again

I've had the Savage 17 HRM for quite a while now and I couldn't help but thinking it could shoot quite a bit better than it does.  In a previous post I reduced the trigger pull to a little over two pounds according to my fish scale.  It turns out that two pounds was actually 3.25 pounds so I tore it the gun down again and got to work.

First I polished the sear and trigger surfaces using a small fine stone.  I'm told these parts are case hardened so I didn't take much off.  Just knocked down the machining marks.  After putting it back together I checked pull weight and felt for grittiness (technical term).  The pull was still too heavy for my liking so I went to work on the spring.  After a lot of adjusting and testing I got a 2 pound 8 ounce pull.  The problem was now I could feel the trigger travel before and after the shot and wasn't liking what I felt.  There is a little shelf where the sear and trigger engage and I could definitely feel the two pieces sliding across each other until it went over the edge making a lot of creep.  I don't recommend this for anybody else, but I carefully went to work on trimming that shelf down and it worked.  There is still a little creep but nothing like it was.  Pull weight is still 2.5 pounds, which I think is just right for this gun.  You could throw the gun off the roof onto the driveway and it still wouldn't fire so I'm satisfied on the safety aspect.

I have a couple ideas stirring around my head for taking out the over travel so watch for another post.  One involves drilling and tapping for an adjustable screw and the other involves JB Weld!  After that it's another trip to the range to see if all these "adjustments" had any affect.  Until then, keep your stick on the ice.

200 Yard Surprise

I was working at the range the other day when In walked Roy and Pam.  They are a couple I've known for awhile and they always have interesting rifles.  We chit chatted for a few minute before I got called away to check the line.  A little while later Roy asked me if I wanted to fire his rifle.  He's a lefty and I shoot right and I didn't want him to have to change sides so I politely declined.  After a little coaxing I gave in and said "sure!  Why not."

On the bench sat what I think he said was a Rock River Arms Precision in .223 with a Geissele trigger and Bushnelle Elite scope, and unknown bipod.  We just slid the rifle and rear bag over to the left side and I was ready to go.  He had a series of targets set at the 200 yard line with the lower right one unfired on.  It took me a minute to find the target with the scope set at 25 power and some squirming around to get everything set.  Bang!  A little high and just left of center.  I grinned, told him I was in the bull and was getting up when Roy insisted a make a group of it.  I didn't know what size the target was but I was pretty impressed with where the first bullet landed and not disappointed with the next two.

After Pam retrieved the target I realized just how good that rifle was.  Three shots, .59" center to center at 200 yards!  Holy Cow!  Roy told me to keep the target so here it is.  The best 200 yard shooting I've ever done and with somebody else's rifle.  I'm looking at the AR platform in a whole new light!

Rubber Band Snap Cap!

I was doing a little work on my Savage 93R17 the other day and decided to check the trigger pull.  My trigger pull scale consists of an old milk jug and some string that I hang off the trigger with the action out of the stock.  You simply add or subtract water out of the jug until it just barely breaks the trigger.  Then I weigh the jug of water on my wife's kitchen scale that is accurate to an ounce.  With the trigger adjusted as light as it would go it broke at 3.25 pounds.

Not bad, but what does this have to do with snap caps you ask?  Well, during testing I threw a fired case in the chamber just to make sure nothing bad happened to the firing pin or chamber.  As I was testing, my super-human observation skills noticed the cocking piece on the bolt slamming forward!  Holy cow!  Who would have ever thought?  But, hey, that gave me an idea.  Instead of beating the crap out of an old case with every pin strike, I wrapped a rubber band around the back of the bolt.  When the cocking piece or whatever you call it slams forward it's cushioned by the rubber band.  See the picture below.

The beauty is this can be used on many bolt actions, not just Savages.  Even better, I must have a hundred of these snap caps in my desk drawer!

Keep your stick on the ice.
                                           

Savage 93R17 17 HMR Accuracy

This is the continuing story of my experience with the Savage 93R17 FV.  After my last trip to the range I was starting to feel this gun just didn't have it.  It would group a couple shots nicely then throw a couple way out.  At first I thought it was me but soon realized no matter how steady the shot, fliers ruined my groups without fail.  That is why I was so pleased that while I was cleaning the barrel the forward action screw literally fell out!  Ahha, I proclaimed to myself.  That's the problem.  I put that screw back in, snugged her down, and had a whole new outlook on my next trip to the range.

It's been a month since my last post and there is good reason for that.  It's been spring here in Wisconsin and the winds have been howling away.  Gusty winds take their toll on low ballistic coefficient bullets.  I'd been waiting for a mostly calm day to get back to the range and I finally had my opportunity with winds 5-10 mph last weekend.  I started off pretty rusty.  My cheek pressure on the stock was varying causing some still pretty wild groups, but it didn't take long for me to settle in.

I had some CCI full metal jacket 17g, Federal V-shock 17g, Hornady 20g XTP's, and some Hornady 17g V-maxes.  The CCI FMJ's were up first.  Since I only shot three groups they didn't get quite a fair shake.  I'd say those first three groups were my warm up.  They shot decently though with five shot groups of 1.375", 1.813", and .875" before I ran out.

Next up was the Federal V-shock Premium 17g.  So far I'm leaning toward this being the most accurate load in my rifle.  Five shot groups ran 1.875" (vertically strung, only 5/8" wide), .813", 1.625" (without one called flyer group was .75"), 1.25" (actually seven shot group.  I forgot which target to shoot at), followed by a .75" three shot group (I used up two of the shots on the previous target).  You can see two of these targets directly below.

Next up was the Hornady 20g XTP.  This is a controlled expansion bullet made for those shooting things bigger than ground squirrels.  The first group went well at .688", followed by 1.438", and a curious 2" group.  The 2" group had three in .75" just left of center and another two considerably higher and to the right.  Probably another loose nut.  Only this time behind the trigger.

On to the most popular round for the 17HMR, the Hornady 17g V-max.  The first five shot group went 1.125".  Surprisingly, four went into a nice 1/2" cluster.  The next try yielded a 1.313" group.  I'm starting my excuse for the next group early.  This was Mother's Day and I was in a hurry to finish this last target before the cease fire was called.  This was a 2.313" group!  Three shots left of bull at 5/8" and two shots right of bull at 5/8".  I wasn't going to post this embarrassing target, but what the heck.  It's the last one at the bottom.

There you have it.  I didn't get the fantastic 1/2" groups every time like some guys claim.    I'm sure a really skilled shooter could easily best my numbers, but I'm not a once a year shooter either.  The facts are this rifle will best a lot of it's center-fire counterparts.  For a rifle I only paid $249 for, I'm impressed.

Cleaning the 17 HMR - The Easy Way!

All of my center-fire rifles copper the bore to some extent.  If I go too long without cleaning they buildup significant amounts of copper that can be a real chore to remove.  Since the 17 HMR uses a jacketed bullet at 2550 fps, I figured it would be just like my center fires.  I use a 17 cal cleaning rod for my 204 Ruger so I was set in that department.  The first few times I cleaned the 17 HMR barrel I was looking for the green-blue color on the patch that tells me copper is being removed.  You know what I found?  Nothing.  Nadda.  Zilch!  There was no sign of dissolved copper whatsoever.   I shined a light at the end of the barrel and even took it outside in the sun looking for copper and never found any.  I'm not saying it doesn't copper foul at all, but if it does it is minimal.  Ramming my cleaning rod through a barrel with lands only a few thousands of an inch tall just to get powder fouling out makes me a bit nervous, so I looked into a bore snake.  Dragging a dirty rope down the barrel didn't sound like the best idea either so I kept looking.

Somewhere in my internet searches a forum member mentioned a patch worm.  What the heck is a patch worm I thought to myself.  I tracked it down to this Patch Worm.  It is essentially a length of weed wacker string with one end sharpened to pierce a patch and with the other end having a small fitting slightly larger than the string.  For different calibers a different size button is slid down the string to the large end.  That button is a little smaller than the bore.  Then you use the sharp end of the string to pierce a patch and slide it down the string to the top of the button.  Soak the patch with some solvent, push the sharp end of string through barrel out muzzle, and just pull the patch through.  Bloody genius!

Me being fiscally challenged I skipped on the nice commercial version at a whopping $6.50 and headed out to the garage.  I cut about five feet of weed wacker string and headed back to the basement workbench.  With the gentle use of a lighter, I heated the end of the string and pushed the end into some sheet metal I had laying around.   Then I sharpened the other end of the string with a Dremel tool with a sanding drum.  I used the same Dremel setup to carefully round the previously heated fat end of the string so it fit the bore with a patch over it.  A little trial and error and had a good fit between my flannel patches and the bore. 

Time to test this thing out.  The little Savage was dirty having close to a hundred rounds through it without cleaning.  Heavy carbon fouling was easily seen the entire length of the barrel.  I whipped out my general purpose gun cleaner that consists of a 50/50 mix of automatic transmission fluid and acetone in an old saline solution bottle, (remember that fiscally challenged thing I mentioned earlier?) and wetted down the patch.  With the excitement only a do-it-your-selfer would display, I pulled the patch through the barrel and held the gun up to the light looking through the barrel.  Son of a gun!  That looks pretty clean!  I'm sure it's not as clean as I'd get it with a rod, but this is so much quicker and doesn't risk damaging the rifling.  I ran another wet patch followed by two dry patches and called it done.  I intend to use this cleaning method on the 17 HMR from now on.  I'll probably still pull out the rod and jag on occasion, but not after every session.

I posted a picture of my home made patch worm below.  Another nice thing is it stores easily in a ziplock sandwich bag which fits inside my gun case a lot easier than a cleaning rod.  Let me know if you have any questions or comments.