Gun-a-Day 28: TO3-78, .22LR, 4×32 Simmons scope, prone position at 50 yards

Lay-flat shooting is new for me, and it gave the perfect excuse for another session spent with this little Russian beauty. I’m not sure exactly why I haven’t done much of it (other than the need to think through what I might use for a ground mat and how to avoid getting myself and my gear all grungy, but I was happy to realize that this rifle and this breezy-cool, sunny-sky-warm day was the perfect combination for a Gun-a-Day exercise. At first, I found some unexpected challenges with “shouldering” the rifle from flat out on my stomach. I must have very pronounced collarbones or something, because I couldn’t find a spot for the wooden butt-plate to stabilize without it bothering me. I probably didn’t have a quality hold on the gun, but that is another good reason for continued practice. Maybe an elbows-to-knees seated position would be a good mission for tomorrow. Just about any excuse will do to keep me operating this piece of equipment.

That relatively small discomfort in no way minimized my enjoyment of another opportunity to test this gun and to be tested by it. I was getting tired and a bit stiff by the end. My admiration is deep and wide for battlefield soldiers who have had to ignore such aches and pains while fighting for their lives and my/our freedom. Respect.

My fascination and infatuation with this rifle continue to deepen with every multi-magazine target session. The time-lapse video shows that my first three shots were a nice little group, and the rest of the shots were spread a bit, but the overall results were very encouraging for a first-time, ground-pounding lead-toss. Today’s session was also about learning more about doing time-lapse photography. I positioned my iPhone closer than ever on the Owle Bubo rig, and the results are much more satisfying than the previous attempts. So far, there has been no problem of any kind with debris or bullet deflection. I don’t yet have the confidence to put it this close with anything but .22-caliber rounds in play.

I need to take a moment in the middle of all this to express my gratitude to God for His blessing in my life and on my family. We are so, so grateful for the privilege of owning this property. We’ve worked very hard, and some people have much more to show after 25+ years, but we love our little wedge of acreage, and we feel God’s mercy, favor, and kindness every day we are here.

Like no other place we’ve ever been, our home and woods and meadow and pond and gardens provide such a sense of peace and satisfaction that we have an almost unlimited source of inspiration each day for living out the wisdom of Psalm 92:2, which advocates the practicality and propriety of “declaring His love in the morning and His faithfulness at night.” What a humbling, exciting, fulfilling thing it is to be the undeserving recipients of God’s overflowing generosity.

Shot o’the day is, once again, the one that got away. Down below the 5 o’clock spot, a single, small hole is left from the shot which went downrange just as my throat caught in mid-swallow and caused me to shift my position to head off a cough. I’d let a bit too much creep into the trigger, and I said, “Oh, that’s not good,” as soon as the firing pin did its duty. It’s disappointing to not reach my goal of three straight “50 out of 50” days, but I should just be glad it’s on the board at all. All of this has me in a bit of a dilemma– caught between two ideas which both make good sense to me. The first is that I should never do anything to mess this system up by messing with the optics or anything else. If it is this accurate, I should leave well enough alone. The second idea is very compelling, though. I’m really wondering what 3-9×40 glass would make possible on this rifle. I’m beginning to think that similar accuracy at 100 yards is very possible, and my eyes just aren’t clear enough to see the center ring from that distance on just 4x magnification. I’m not going to rush into anything, but there’s a chance that a few days of Gun-a-Day work, later in the year, may be spent sighting in a different scope. It already sounds like great gun-fun.

On another note: if there is a person out in the big wide world who is more of a cheapskate shooter than I am, I would definitely like to meet him or her, because I’d like to learn a few tricks from them that I could put to use. Until then, though, there is no one in my circle of life who even comes close to operating on the shoe-string budget and scrap-management target-design “plan” that I follow, and I’d be glad to know if there are ways to cut the budget even more to the bone. I don’t even have the decency to be embarrassed by my fun-with-stickers target for the day.

As an example, I’m glad I finally realized that I don’t have to just throw away the target borders from the Shoot-n-C sheets. Not only can the unused pasters become target pieces on their own, it’s nice when they’re  surrounded by the yellow sheet-edge on a target sheet. I’m out of the 6-inch targets now, but I think these leftovers will do just fine for a while. After that, I might just start pulling out those plastic Pepsi bottles I’ve been saving up. The logo make a great little center ring …

There’s no risk of my work being mistaken for a professional endeavor, though, that’s for sure, but I am just as surely enjoying it all as great educational fun …

Gun-a-Day 26: TOZ-78 Bolt Action .22LR, Simmons scope and iron sights (25, 50, and 100 yard settings)

I might never have expected to find out that I not only wanted to own a Russian-made rifle, but that I would also like it so much and find it so easy to use and accurate to shoot that it would become a go-to favorite. But after getting the Remington/Baikal and finding it such a solid, reliable rifle/shotgun combination and after reading a September 2008 American Rifleman article about the Winchester Wildcat version of this rifle coming to the U.S. market, I decided that I’d like to try one on for size.

Turns out it’s a great fit for me. All the better that a visit to my local gunshop revealed that not only had the owner heard of the model, he actually had one of them on the rack over his shoulder. Not only that, it was the actual TOZ version, not the adapted/imported version Winchester has licensed, so the original (better, in my opinion) bolt-shape, the hood/ring front sight, standard forearm shape and tri-flip sight were all in place (all of which I like much better than the Winchester-nuanced model).

Incredible. I took that as a sign that my plan/goal to find a decent Remington Nylon 12 at a decent price (good luck, right?) needed to change. A bit of haggling and negotiating for a Beta C-Mag swap later, and I was loading this unit into my truck for the short ride home to begin what I hope will be a life-long association with this handy little tool. A spare set of see-through scope rings were dug out of the gear bins, and spare Simmons scope was set in place. The sight-in process was quick and simple, and it was all set up in almost no time at all.

I have never had a moment’s regret about that change of plans.

Simply put, it’s fun to shoot this thing! I found a three-foot square of salvage formica and pressboard counter-top, slapped a Shoot-n-C in the middle of it, propped it up in the target pit, and returned to the 50-yard firing position. Using an improvised, y-yoked monopod (and the left front fender of my truck), I took an easy, still stance and starting sending bullets downrange. With aim held throughout at center-red, the cluster-pattern was very consistent– up and right. On the target between the center and two o’clock.

Wow! I think I achieved one of my main Gun-a-Day goals today. Unless there was a stray shot off by more than about two feet in any direction, I managed to put all 50 shots on the target today with my inexpensive, bare basics, post-Soviet-era, Russian-made bolt action rifle. There’s no let-down of any kind, though. It’s not like that goal is met and now I’m off to something else. No, the opposite is the case. I am eager to see if I can match, meet, or exceed this impromptu result day after day after day after day.

I looked the counter-top scrap over very carefully when I got done, and I could not find any off-target holes. Afraid I was missing something obvious, I looked the whole thing over very carefully from both sides. There are no other holes than those made on and through the target.

And these results don’t surprise me in the least. This is a sweet, simple, solid, straight-shooting gun, and it’s a personal favorite for all those reasons and more. Even the scope is a no-nonsense, nothing-fancy, little loss-leader of a bargain basement optic, but it lined up easily and has kept pretty close to zero in spite of a major move and multiple gun-storage relocations.

The reverse-side photo is shot o’the day. I love seeing all of the chunks out of that one area and no holes– nothing— anywhere else.

This is exactly my idea of Gun-Fun!

Though I did not use them today (soon!), I know from past experience that the iron sights flip-adjust distance graduations are accurate (dead on) and intuitive, too. And I may be putting them to work tomorrow or soon thereafter. I’ll also be re-zeroing it with one or more sessions before it goes back into the cabinet. Every session with this will be enjoyable, and the confidence I feel in the platform seems to translate directly to my expectations for effectiveness and accuracy in my results.

There’s no fine craftsmanship or mil-spec tolerances or custom detail to this rifle. No, it’s a proletariat peasant of a gun, but it’s a workhorse that knows its work and gets it done with a minimum of complaint and hesitation.

If only I were that industrious and focused and hard-working and quiet about my challenges and frustrations …

Gun-a-Day 25: Bond Arms Ranger II + PDX1 .410 ammunition

I drove home in the rain, in the dark, and in a state of semi-exhaustion, but I had a job in mind for the Ranger. A couple of days ago, I thought I’d be able to let it go, thought I’d be able to just fire the “normal” shells as the break-in rounds, thought I’d be able to save the super-shells for the “real thing.”

But by the middle of this afternoon, I knew it was absolutely necessary to get home asap and get some Winchester PDX1 shells run through this mini-cannon. I wasn’t sure I had a target that would do them justice (something squishy or puffy or thick and brittle), but something would be figured out, and these attack-ending loads would have their chance to match up with this Texas-proud, hand-held, mini-tank gun.

Or, at least almost absolutely necessary.

If I were a rich man, maybe I would have taken time to let a couple gallons of milk in jugs sit in the sun and curdle up nice and smelly. They’d make a nice mess in response to shotgun fire, and it would look great on the slow-mo playback. If I were a richer man, I’d probably have dedicated vats filled with Mythbusters-grade ballistic gelatin just jigglin’ in anticipation of being struck by flying metal. If I were a rich, rich man, I’d probably have my butler doin’ all the shooting for me, and what a bummer that would be, so I’m just going to be happy to be under-funded and overly-cheap and that I found this novelty-sized, jumbo-button, truck-stop-bargain-sale calculator that no longer works laying around in the garage stacks.

I didn’t know for sure how it would turn out, but it figured to be good enough for at least a slight bit of friction effect on the Certs-shaped slugs and buckshot BB’s that comprise the wad-contents of the PDX1 shot-shell. I don’t have any idea of how to visualize or comprehend the combined forces of kinetic energy bound up inside them. Even if I understood all the gunpowder and force+mass mathematics, I still don’t think I’d understand it in any kind of personal way. These shells are very intimidating just sitting quietly on a shelf all to themselves. They start to look even more mean and jumpy when they slide into their chambers.

Trigger control and aim-accuracy both improved, mostly because practice enhances familiarity, and familiarity does not have to equate to distraction or disinterest. I drew the pistol, set the hammer, two-handed the grip, sighted the front blade, confirmed the target, touched the trigger, released the safety, breathed out into the cold, wet, night air, and fired. Several holes appeared on the target in concert with a strong kick and a loud report (even with quality ear protection). I repeated the steps and fired again. I think the first round circled low, and the second round arced high.

The kick was still strong, but I’m very glad for the practice, because I’m getting more comfortable with it rather than more tentative and flinchy from it. Maybe it also had to do with the PDX1’s, too. Regardless, I’m totally and completely sold. These are my rounds of choice for the Ranger. Maybe one Hornady ballistic-tipped .45LC and one PDX1 shell. Great day in the mornin’, what a potent combination that is.

Shots o’the Day are found all over the plastic husk of a cheap electronic device where it appears that all of the slugs ended up on target. One slug was sitting out loose on the timbers behind the target, still looking like a little tab of candy (slightly deformed) with hefty weight to it.

The back of the calculator (which is like eight or nine inches wide by 14 or 15 inches high– once again, approximately center-mass, torso sized) shows the impact holes a bit more clearly. Best I can tell, all slugs hit, and some of the pellets must have, too, ’cause I can’t account for all of the holes without ’em.

My guess is that while the 000-Buck shells may be packed to “lead” above and away from center-aim (not intended for stationary targets, are they?) and the smaller buckshot is spun out and around a bit by the slight rifling of the barrels, these Winchester personal defense rounds are designed to go straight out and straight into (and through) whatever is directly in front of the barrel(s).

I’m going to just accept the idea as highly probable that the calculator warranty has been well and truly voided. Oh, well … In fact, I feel it’s safe to say that just about anything this ammo hits will no longer be functional and will have its warranty unmistakably and permanently voided. And that’s all I have to say about that.

This will also close the Gun-a-Day book on the Ranger II for the time being. If the rain is gone tomorrow, I’ve got an old, favorite friend in mind for some 50-yard targeting, and I’m so eager for some bolt-action action that I may not let the weather have any say in the matter at all.