He told me about a weird technique. You grasp the pistol grip of the gun lightly, and you put your left fist under the butt of the gun to manage elevation. You don’t touch the foregrip. It rests on your bipod or whatever. I’ve seen people doing this, but I always figured they were insane.<\/p>\n
I loaded up the .17 HMR and the K31, and off I went.<\/p>\n
I’m sorry to say, the technique doesn’t work too well with the tiny Savage stock. It’s just a matter of geometry. But it still gave me an excuse to shoot.<\/p>\n
Before I could start shooting, the guy to my left apologized to me; he had just fired two rounds into my target. I told him to make sure he made me look good. He and his buddy were shooting two very odd-looking rifles. They had composite target stocks and muzzle brakes. They were bolt actions. I had no idea what they were. Every time either of them fired, the shock wave hit me with the force of Michael Moore’s breath. And they were shooting exactly the way Jim told me to shoot.<\/p>\n
It worked well for them. The guy who hit my target put 30 .308 rounds into an area smaller than a lemon. He said shooting that gun at 100 yards was boring.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be a Remington 700, with some crap added. I may have to get me a Savage .270 with an Accutrigger and see what I can do.<\/p>\n
The Savage shot well today. For rifle shooting, I use 5″ Shoot-N-C targets. Each comes with 4 black pasters about 1 1\/4″ in diameter. I put the target in the middle of the paper, with the pasters around it. The scope’s zero was a little off for some reason, so I got it sighted in and started shooting.<\/p>\n
I find that a typical 5-shot group is smaller than a golf ball. I can’t reliably keep five shots on a paster; it seems impossible to sight the scope in at 100 yards so it reliably hits the point of aim. I settled for shooting slightly low and to the left. I used the pasters to warm up, and then I shot a couple of targets. I did better than last time. The groups were only a little smaller, but there were fewer flyers. The bulk of the shots concentrated in a smaller area. Here’s an example:<\/p>\n
![\"09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20.17%20HMR%20003%20tgt%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.hogonice.com\/Pixes\/09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20.17%20HMR%20003%20tgt%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nAny animal bigger than a tennis ball and small enough to be killed by a .17-caliber round will have a very limited life expectancy within 100 yards of this gun. I consistently shoot a little worse than 2 MOA, and I am still not a great rifle shot.<\/p>\n
Here’s a typical paster:<\/p>\n
![\"09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20.17%20HMR%2004%20paster%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.hogonice.com\/Pixes\/09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20.17%20HMR%2004%20paster%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nI got out the K31 and my weird Swiss ammunition. I noticed a few things. First of all, it’s much more steady than the Savage. It probably weighs twice as much, and that reduces the movement. That tells me I should look for a heavier stock for the Savage. Or maybe there is some way to weight the existing stock. Second thing: the trigger is crap. It breaks cleanly, but the pull is very heavy compared to the 2-pound factory setting of the Accutrigger. Third, the person who designed the gun’s butt was a sadist. It has two points on it. After a couple of dozen rounds, you get tired of having them jabbed into your shoulder. In all likelihood, it was designed for underfed Europeans with 36-inch chests. Europeans used to be spindly and feeble compared to Americans. My grandfather was about 6’3″ tall, and when my family made a trip to Europe in 1972, he was almost always easy to find in a crowd, because people there were so short. That isn’t true any more. Another thing: I lost my luggage on that trip, and my mother had to buy me pants and a shirt in Luxembourg. The shirtsleeves were so narrow they fit like spandex.<\/p>\n
I shot thirty rounds with the K31, and I felt like it just was not as accurate as the Savage. It was easier to aim, and I believe I pulled the trigger well. But the shots covered an area the size of a grapefruit. I don’t think all of that error can be attributed to me. And it’s not acceptable. I want to learn to shoot, and I can’t do it with guns that hide my errors within their own. I know people swear by K31s, but it’s a used rifle, so there is no guarantee that every barrel is good.<\/p>\n
![\"09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20K31%20tgt%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.hogonice.com\/Pixes\/09%2019%2008%20trail%20glades%20K31%20tgt%20100%20yds%20web.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nI learned something interesting about the K31. I mounted the scope with something called an Accu-mount. It’s machined out of aluminum, and you attach it to the receiver. It has an Allen screw on top, which the literature calls a “recoil stop.” I have no idea what that means. Anyway, I must have overtightened this screw, because a bulge formed under it, projecting down from the mount and against the receiver. This raised the front end of the mount slightly, which raised the scope. I believe this explains why I have had problems getting the rifle sighted in. Today I ground the bump off, and I was able to get the crosshairs more or less over to the point of impact.<\/p>\n
I may as well get a new stock for the Savage. I don’t like creepy laminate stocks, but it looks like that’s what’s available. I guess I’ll get a thumbhole model that isn’t so odd you can’t use it for hunting. I need the extra weight, and I need something I can feel in my hands.<\/p>\n
The .308 guy said my bipod was too tall, and he was right. My rest is too low for the Savage, and the bipod I bought is a little too high. Guess I better head back to Bass.<\/p>\n
I’m glad I got the Savage. In a month or two, I may actually be able to shoot well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Playing Hooky Today I did something I had absolutely no business doing. I went to the gun range for a SECOND time, in one week. I could not help myself. I’ve been so lax about shooting lately, I could not fill the need with a single Wednesday outing. I blame Jim from Smoke on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guns-hunting-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}