Hi,
I get so focused on building guns that I forget how much I love to shoot them. Today I got 2 of my favorite rifles out to shoot at longer ranges than my usual 50 yards. The guns are my Star of Bethlehem
and my rifled British officer's fusil.
Both rifles are 62 caliber. The Star has a D weight 41" Getz swamped barrel from the 1980s. It was a terrible barrel. The Getz's could make good barrels but this was not one of them. It had chatter and machine marks left in the bore and shredded patches no matter how thin or thick. At first, I could not shoot smaller than a 10" group at 50 yards with it. So I lapped it with steel wool and valve grinding compound, then the same with aluminum oxide powder and oil and then just steel wool and oil. It took more than 1000 strokes to salvage it. But I did. However, it is still very finicky with respect to patches. The barrel on the officer's fusil is a Colerain D weight Griffin profile octagon to round barrel cut down to 39". It has deep round bottomed rifling and has been a fine barrel from the start. I started off shooting from a bench at 75 yards, then moved the bench back to 100 yards, and finally shot both distances offhand. Unfortunately, it was very windy, blowing gusts from left to right, which affected all the shooting to some degree. I loaded both rifles with 85 grains of 2F Swiss powder, thick (0.030")patching lubed with ballistol and water, and 0.595" balls. Here is my target from the bench at 75 yards shooting the Star. Note the widely scattered shots way high. Those were the first and I used denim patches but I made the mistake of cutting them from old pants. The result is they varied greatly in thickness and the batch I used were too thin. The Getz barrel shreds and burns up patches that are too thin. I quickly changed to double patching with two 0.015" thick pillow ticking patches. That solved the problem and I started to group nicely. On the target, shot from a bench, you can see how I walked the shots into the black. I think the wind caused the right bias in hits so I did not tinker with the sights. I just adjusted my aim.
I shot two rounds at 2 o'clock in the 6 and 7 rings. I adjusted my aim and shot 3 rounds 12 o'clock in the 7 and 8 rings. I adjusted my aim and shot 5 rounds into the 9 and 10 rings with all shots touching. That was my best target for the morning although my 100 yard benched target with the Star was pretty good. Shooting offhand was a challenge due to the wind. Here is my best target offhand with the rifled officer's fusil at 100 yards. It is not great but
you can see how I was trying to walk my shots into the black. I first shot high and mostly to the right. Then lower to the right but gradually started walking the shots lower and to the left. The wind was a major player shooting off hand. Finally, I shot offhand at my 100 yard 9" gong and hit it every time with both rifles. It was a very fun morning.
dave
