Gun-a-Day 4: Remington/Baikal IZH94, blue/wood .22LR/.410 over-under

There were a few fairly lemony moments of the day, though many blessings were in evidence, too. While I can’t claim to have made any meringue pie, I did manage to end up with some lemonade.

A major tech-glitch with my iPhone kept me at the office until after dark, so some creativity was necessary for getting my shooting in today. I found a way to throw some lead without any neighbor-stressing, after-dark, gunpowdered thunder by taking out the Remington-imported rifle-shotgun combo gun I bought a couple of years ago from a dealer on gunsamerica.com. The digital device had me stressed and distracted, but my analog shooter had me smilin’ and focused again pretty quickly.

I really enjoy/respect Baikal’s fit, finish, design, heft, feel, and function of this inexpensive, utilitarian piece of hardware. It’s my only break-open rifle (at this point, anyway), and I have to be careful of my fingers around the breech release, but it’s a great rifle to carry and shoot. At least that’s how I feel about the rimfire barrel. I haven’t yet had occasion to try out the shotgun barrel (tomorrow?).

The ammo was the key factor in noise-limitation, though. The primer-only Aguila Super Colibri .22LR (what I refer to in my tags as “.22SC”) rounds make less noise– when fired through a long-barreled rifle– than some air-powered pellet guns. No kidding. CeeBee’s are not as quiet, but they do hit a bit harder and run out a bit further.

I’ve had some occasional trouble with barrel jamming with some Super Colibri rounds (had to tap out a few bullet heads from the Savage a time or two), but they are typically reliable, and I’m routinely amazed at their accuracy potential.

The slugs are small, and the primers don’t pack enough punch to cycle a semi-auto, but I’ve taken several squirrels with them. One was a single hit drop from at least 75 feet– down a hill! And I was leaning out a porch window. Silly, really, but I loved making that shot.

The Aguila’s are very useful for near-silent, short-range practice and pest control.

For tonight’s session, I put a center-ring target on a Sportsman’s Guide box. 40-50 feet is a good range, but I went back to my 25-yard range anyway, set up a spotlight, and broke open the single-shot receiver.

After dinging the first round off a spinner set I leave out there, I used the very simple, flat slot and round post iron sights to send 9 more rounds down the line.

The design fits well with my (admittedly limited) understanding of the pragmatism and admirable, modest simplicity of the Russian working-class: make me a tool that does its job reliably and for a long time. Make it cheap and solid and very effective with little or no pretense of fancy luxury or gaudy refinement. Come to think of it, what working-class person doesn’t feel that way about his or her tools of the trade and daily-life appliances?

So, these are the shots o’the day: on the box if not on the rings. What’s so special? I think it’s cool (and very useful when hunting multiple squirrels at once) that the pop of the little slugs hitting cardboard is louder than the rimfire strike and ignition. These rounds are nearly self-silenced.

Tomorrow? I’m planning on making use of some daylight to get a bit of .410 action.

I’ll start off with grape juice and try to avoid citrus altogether.

Gun-a-Day 2: Marlin Papoose 70P blue/wood .22LR

About 3 years back, I pawn-shop-traded a Llama .380 + 5 mags for this (complete with its red Marlin take-down carry bag and original tool kit). It was not a great deal book-value-wise for me at all, but, then again, trading for this rifle made it possible for me to start shooting regularly again by using the almost-silent (from a rifle-length barrel, at least) Aguila Super Colibri rounds.

The Micro-Max had been stowed away, unfired, in the range bag for many months. It was a great fit for my hand, and there was some sentimental attachment. I’d done some personal fitting work, and I liked the look of it quite a bit, but it also had stove-piping issues, so it wasn’t a reliable option for home defense or concealed carry.

Our house at the time was infested with a huge family of squirrels, and a .380 was no help for that problem (especially inside city limits!). I took my first squirrel (first several squirrels) with it, and the chatter-boxing, bushy-tailed tree rats learned to fear and flee when I had this Marlin in hand, and that’s a fact. It served me well for pest control and rekindled the target shooting bug I’ve always had and rarely taken time to indulge.

It also opened my world up to the Marlin rifle experience, and every Marlin rimfire I’ve ever come across makes the sweetest crack when a round goes downrange.  I’m a fan.

This model 70P is the reason I have the model 70PSS. After “ending up with” this one, I decided I really wanted the updated, fiber sighted, weather-tough version, so I traded it for an extra .223 Beta C-Mag gathered during an ill-advised spending spree in the days before a certain change of national governmental administration.

Overly expensive that way (since when have I ever come out well on a trade or hedge investment?), but pleasure and productivity are valuable right along with price, so it’s all okay.

Wasn’t sure this one was safe to fire when I found a very loose receiver mount screw while cleaning it up after the trade. Yes, it’s true: I often find out what I should have checked more carefully after I’ve put my money down.

Oh, well. Sad but true. Trying to do better this year. Really.

Anyway, a bit of hardware tightening and careful cleaning (and a cautious double-check with my local gunsmith of choice– three cheers for Dan!) made me confident it was safe. My 70P is just a cheap, simple, little plinker, but it’s blooded, so there is a place of pride in the gun cabinet for what has become a genuine family treasure (though it’s still just a non-precision, utility-tool rimfire– a very temperamental one, at that– in need of some maybe-more-than-gentle “micro-adjustment” the next time it comes out of the cabinet).
Shot o’the Day is really the shot that never happened at all. It’s a jammed and bent round that was mashed up on a spent case that didn’t eject. Oh, the things that might have been …

I don’t know if that was a rare quirk or if the extractor is becoming unreliable. That’s an issue which must be resolved … and that’s a good reason to get it out again this year from some more tinkering and plinkering.