Walter Sobchak and Tinman204 have some fun!!

[Tinman204]

My brother and I decided to do some shooting today as it's been too long!

Here's what we were playing with today. From bottom to top: sportered P14, 1940 91/30 mosin, 1909 fin mosin, 1943 ag Parker longbranch target rifle, 1915 Ross mkIII, m91 carcano (borrowed from Smellie), '89 schmit Ruben. All groups were shot at 200 yards.

I was excited to try out Smellie's m91 carcano again as he lent it to us to try out after the Virden shoot. I really love the gun, and it's light recoil is a pleasure to shoot all day. But that being said my eyes are having trouble with the rear sight. (and yes our shooting rest is a firepit with a piece of plywood on top!! I know it's SUPER hillbilly!! )

I managed this "group" with it today but I know the gun is capable of doing better. I think I'll have to buy one oneday so I can keep practicing.

After shooting the carcano I pulled out my trusty Ross, and managed to shoot this nice group with jacketed hand loads. I love that gun and she seems to hold minute to sub minute accuracy.

Followed that up with some cast rounds. I've done extensive testing with cast bullets and thanks to Smellie and Buffdog I get the same or better accuracy with my Harris cast loads.

Next I followed it up with some cast rounds out of my longbranch target rifle, today wasn't it's day and the Ross handed it it's butt! Worst part is I shot the longbranch with a scope and the Ross has iron sights!

Next is my m91 fin captured mosin. I tried a different load today and results were decent at 200 yards.

I must say that the more I shoot these old guns the more I respect the accuracy of them. Next time that we have a full day to shoot we'll haul out all of our toys and do a full range thread and comparison between all of the common milsurps.

Steve

 

[smellie]

Okay, how many in the cast-bullet group?

I can see that there are only 4 HOLES, but that top one could be 2 or 3 clumped.

Check action screws on the old Carcano; it was doing better than that when you shot it here.

Really helps if you can scream things such as "Viva il Re!". Don't holler "Viva Duce!", whatever you do; it doesn't like jumped-up newspapermen who think they are novellists. I still haven't told it that I was in the same business as Benny!!! Poor old thing thinks I'm NICE!

Looks like good fun, good shootin'...... and that's what it is all about.

 

[buffdog]

.
Steve and Lauren are a couple of people who are always a pleasure to see when they visit our area. When we told Steve about using cast bullets for shooting targets out to 200 yards or more, he went home and tried it, and it altered his thinking a bit about target shooting. The "Harris Load" that he refers to is a cast bullet load of 13 grains of Red Dot powder with a cast bullet of approximately the same weight as the Military loading for a particular rifle. It was developed by C.E. Harris, a staff writer for the NRA's "American Rifleman" magazine. Harris did extensive work with cast bullets, and came up with this load expressly for Military rifles.

While it is not a fast load, it does tend to be accurate in MOST rifles, but you have to experiment a bit with cast bullets. Alloy, lubricant, and other things can make a big difference and sometimes you have to adjust the powder charge a slight amount, more or less. Usually, this load will give about the same accuracy out to 200 yards as .303 Mark VII Ball ammunition, and is a lot easier on your shoulder and wallet to fire. Like any load, you have to adjust your sights accordingly, and I have used it up to 600 yards with the sights set around the 1000 yard notch. Steve has shot sub-minute of angle groups at 200 yards with it.

I believe that Steve bought his Ross at the Brandon Gun Show a couple of years ago. He had not gone more than 50 feet and was told about 4 times the perils and disasters that awaited him if he even THOUGHT of firing it. I guess he figured that if SMELLIE and myself had been shooting the Ross for 50 years or so, and we were still standing upright, we must know a bit about them, so he made a trip to visit. He has never been the same since.

Steve has one tremendous asset - that is Lauren. She loves to shoot. At our get together and shoot at Virden in June, there was an opportunity to try out different rifles. A lot of the people who showed up got to fire one round from a Russian PTRS anti-tank rifle (ammunition costs for 14.5mm ammo is expensive). Lauren liked it so much, she charmed Craig out of a second round so she could shoot another one at the 300 yard gong. I think she also fired everything she could get her hands on!
.

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[Tinman204]

Indeed it seems like the action screws ARE loose on the Carcano but that isn't the case Smellie. It's all me, that gun shoots VERY well for me at 100 yards but when I push it out to 200 that super wide v in the rear sight always seems to play tricks with my eyes! That's ok though, I love a challenge and it makes me want to shoot the old carcano even more!! Carcanos get a bum rep but with good handloads and the right bullet they really are a pleasure to shoot!

As for the cast Ross group I wish I could say that it's 6-8 rounds but I shoot 4 at a time as per Wayne's instructions. I like 4 shots as I get 5 groups per box of ammo. And that being said, I need to experiment with different targets because I know that Ross has the ability to stack them one on top of each other but once again my eyes are not as good as the gun! Those 5" circles are just so small at longer ranges!!

I knew my jacketed Ross group was good as my brother and I have a friendly competition going at times so he was spotting through a scope and after the third shot he said "you're going to get a flyer!" then I broke the last shot and he smiled and looked over at me and said "you bastard!".

The best part for me is he didn't bring his Ross yesterday so I didnt have to worry about him defeating me, I think I planned it that way!

 

[IronCanadian]

Nice rifles and fun shooting.

If you really want to make it interesting next time, keep the fire smoldering and smoking to mimic the "fog" of war.

 

[CanadianAR]

Dude, what's Walter got to do with this?

Lol

 

[Tinman204]

Dude, what's Walter got to do with this?

Lol

That's my brothers CGN handle

If you met him in person it would make sense, he's a giant man that always wears army shorts!

 

[samsplacci71]

Great shooting! Looks like good times. You and your Ross are definitely dialed in! Great group Sub MOA with Irons, now that is impressive! I am hoping my FTR Swede M96 can get close to this kind of accuracy.

 

[Tinman204]

Great shooting! Looks like good times. You and your Ross are definitely dialed in! Great group Sub MOA with Irons, now that is impressive! I am hoping my FTR Swede M96 can get close to this kind of accuracy.

Thanks for the kind words! The Ross is a fine rifle that I can say! But practice does make perfect and by practice I mean I've put probably 50 rounds down the pipe every week since I've owned it. I've also spent the better part of a year picking smellie and Buffdog's brains about .303 load development and Ross shooting techniques.

A Swed is WAY up there on my list! I really want one so I get my **** in gear and find the right one in the near future!

 

[samsplacci71]

Thanks for the kind words! The Ross is a fine rifle that I can say! But practice does make perfect and by practice I mean I've put probably 50 rounds down the pipe every week since I've owned it. I've also spent the better part of a year picking smellie and Buffdog's brains about .303 load development and Ross shooting techniques.

A Swed is WAY up there on my list! I really want one so I get my **** in gear and find the right one in the near future!

An American friend of mine suggested a Swede. I can't thank him enough for putting me onto one. I also do really enjoy my k98. If you like straight pull, I hate to tell you but k31's are awesome straight pulls...I'm currently working on load development of my Swedes and Swiss k31. I have focused on IMR 4350 and Hodgdon hybrid 100v for my Swede so far with good results. Though I have only just now reloaded my first batch of 40 rounds of 7.5x55mm, working my way up using Reloader 17.

If you know buffdog, then I don't need to say a word about Swedes. He probably has forgot more than I know on these fine rifles. My suggestion would be to get a m96. You can get a great rifle from Jean at P&S or Anthony at Trade Ex. I have picked up swedes from both. Cheers

 

[Winchester30-30]

and here steve is complaing to me that he never gets out to shoot haha looks like you had fun buddy! i wish i lived closer to you or to virden so i can get shooting more!! id love to see what my guns are shooting at 200, smellie and buffdog are a knowledge library all on there own! great guys and i have used there advice on many occasions, Thats it i think im going to make a trip to the range this weekend! after all i bought a membership, might as well use it right?