Sunday afternoon range

PawPaw went out to the range this afternoon to do a little recreational shooting. When a reloader is working up loads, there is always some ammo that isn't shot. Differing loads and bullets and they tend to clutter up the ammo boxes. At some point, it's convenient to shoot those odd loads, empty the brass, and make room for trusted, tested loads that work.

Today, I decided to shoot the Savage 10, in .243 Winchester. It's a nice little rifle with very mild recoil. It's fun to work up loads for the little rifle and I had half-a-dozen cartridges each of half-a-dozen loads in that caliber.

So, I went out and posted a target and started banging away, when I noticed that my shots weren't hitting the target. Worse, they were hitting the berm in unlikely places. A quick inspection of the rifle showed me that the rear scope ring had turned loose and the rear of the scope was flopping around as much as 3/8ths of an inch. Not good. Not good at all.

I've heard of scope rings breaking, mostly when mounted to fast-recoil rifles. The .243 Winchester does definitely not qualify as a hard kicking gun. This is the first time this has ever happened to me, and I am considerably dismayed at the result. When I mounted the scope, I used Weaver Top-mount rings and the little lip turned loose. Just damn!

So, I took out the Savage 93R17 and started trying various brands of .17 HMR ammo. I settled on the CCI Hollowpoint 17 grain ammo based on this target.



That little rifle is a shooter. That is a 1" target dot and the inside ring is 1/2 inch. The more I shoot that little rifle the more I like it.

So, next week, PawPaw will order new rings and bases for the .243. It's time to start getting ready for the next hunting season.