Improvement!

I had a very satisfying day at the range. I got my rimfire scope on the paper, corrected some rifle-shooting problems, and made real progress with the .38 Super. And now you have to suffer with all of it.

I stuck the scope on the Nylon 66 at 25 yards and managed to find the paper.

I was never able to completely sight the scope in. One of the pamphlets for my scopes says you can get shims. I had this problem with the K31, too. These .22 shots are aimed at the top of the bullseye, which is 5″ in diameter. You can see they’re all low. I think I used 25 yards for all of the .22 shots, but I’m not sure.

I guess people were right about the Nylon 66 being too wobbly for a scope. I’m not positive, for reasons I’ll explain later. But I should have shot better than this at 25 yards. As I recall, I shot this well at 50 with the open sights. The pattern was about twice this big.

I got out the K31 and went back to 50 yards. I made a change. The other day, someone sent me a link to something called the Appleseed Project, and it had information on rifle shooting. One thing it emphasized was finding a comfortable position. This is very hard to do at Trail Glades, because the cutout where you sit is about eight inches wide and maybe a foot and a half long. It’s nearly impossible to get behind the gun, so you end up pulling on it to hold yourself in position. I decided to improve things by moving the rest as far to the left as I could, and it helped a lot. The first five shots literally went through a hole the size of a nickel. The Caldwell rest kept moving around with the recoil, and it was hard to be consistent, but things went very well. I believe this is a dozen shots.

Next bunch, at 100 yards. If I figure out a position, I think I can do a lot better.

Final round at 100 yards. Two flyers, but it looks like I’m starting to get a clue.

The K31 was really starting to hurt my shoulder. Something about the new position. So I went to the pistol side and got out the .38 Super. Thank God, the blonde lady who shoots tiny patterns at 75 feet had left by then.

I decided to try to maximize my concentration by gathering brass after every 5 shots. It gave me a nice rest. First 25:

Those made me very happy. The reason is that, even though I lost concentration once or twice, the vast majority went into a very small hole. Nearly where I aimed them. I feel like I’m getting close to the point where I should start thinking about the quality of the ammunition and the state of the gun.

Second 25:

While I was shooting those, I realized that sometimes the trigger has a catch in the action. It stops and then continues back, driving the gun off the point of aim before it fires. That explains some of the vertical variation. So I’m going to get a trigger job. I think most of the horizontal movement is just laziness. But look how much better things are getting. I’m finally getting to where I can shoot about like I used to.

I think I’ll give the .22 one more chance, with the rest moved to the left, before I give up on scoping it. But my performance suggests to me that the scope is not working. Even if my position is bad, I should shoot better with a scope, off a rest, than I did with open sights and no rest.

I wore my “My President is Charlton Heston” shirt while I shot. I hope somewhere he’s smiling.