Doble Troble

Very nice explaination, plumbum. I don't want to be a snob, because that might make someone want to cut a radius where I wouldn't want it.

Did any of you read the stuff by Bill Calfee in Precision Shooting magazine over the last year? He's been writing about what makes rimfire rifles really accurate. When he gets a new barrel blank he doesn't just cut it at a particular length. He carefully laps it until he finds the narrowest part of the bore and he cuts the muzzle right there - regardless of length. He's convinced that a barrel that is constricted right at the muzzle is the most accurate barrel. This is why washed-out Garand muzzles (that are only cleaned at the muzzle) are such a problem. I recently cut one back all the way to the gas cylinder lock and it still didn't clean up the muzzle. Counter boring it finally got it shooting well again. Counter boring a barrel may leave a burr right at the new muzzle. This burr will create a constriction that might improve accuracy. With enough shooting you'd expect this burr to wear. Is it possible that your counter bore improved accuracy by creating a temporary muzzle constriction? Using tight patches it's sometimes possible to tell where the narrow part of a bore is. If its narrow just short of he muzzle you might consider counterboring a bit further. I wonder if it would be possible to create a die with a very gradual taper that could be used to constrict muzzles slightly? The other possibility is that you're shooting smaller diameter bullets somehow. Do you have any of the bullets that shot accurately left? If so mike them and compare to the barn door bullets. My 1917 barely hits the berm with 308s, but is reasonably accurate with 312s.

I have yet to taste it too - which is why I'm so excited about this hunt! We rented a beach house on Ocracoke island for a couple of days this week. We saw THREE bears on the road driving out. The fishing wasn't very good though. The last one hid in the brush just of the road (HWY 264 near the Naval artillary site) when he saw us coming. We could still see him hiding there so I stopped the car and we checked him out for a few seconds. He was about 50 feet away and we had all of the windows down. It didn't take long for him to either smell us or figure-out he was being spied on and he crashed into the heavy brush. It was damn big, and fast. I've had some skunky deer that I've gotten from others. I agree that its critical to get it bled and cooled quick. If you guys aren't butchering yourselves it isn't hard - go for the joints and tendons and it falls apart. Cavemen were successful without even sharp knives. If you cut it up yourself you can avoid the fat and connective tissue that decrease meat quality. Hopefully Yogi's going to taste good. The quickest way for me to find-out is to kill him, and so I'll try as hard as I can. If any of our families were really hungry, I suspect that every non-human animal within walking distance would be at risk - pitchfork or not. I feel really sorry for the members of American families where this may not be the case. For recreational purposes, I'm drawing the line at the 8 x 57 loaded up and with an overloaded colt 45 on my hip. I wonder how hard it would be to build a 458 Win on a Turk action?

I'm not going to be able to run faster than the 20-something local I'll be hunting with. Dammit, tinker now I'm going to have to also pack my 45LC blackhawk loaded with 300 gr FP at about 1300 fps. The bears here are running in the mid-300s like up there in PA. But the 500+ pound animal is not uncommon.

I suppose I could carry extra batteries, but why? I wonder if Yogi would agree to take a break while I install them? Thanks for suggestions everyone, and the excellent pix Bob58. I thought about the dirty thirty, it and a 45 colt are the only lever repeaters i've got - the 38-55 would be a perfect cartridge, but the rifle I have is single-shot with a long, heavy 30" bbl. I know that black bear isn't a grizzly, but everytime I've gotten close to one I seem to forget. I would feel naked with a 30-30. I'm going to feel exposed with the Mauser. karl, that's a 5" paper plate. I figure this is a 3" load with my eyes and issue Mauser sights. I almost feel sorry for Yogi (but then I start wondering about how he's going to taste). The trigger is probably 6', but it breaks clean - what's not to like? The only thing I really need is a sling - can anyone recommend a source?

Alright guys, I haven't come back from the dark side, so don't worry. I think we should do with our rifles what makes sense in-terms of the job that we need them to do. With that in mind, I have stumbled into an opportunity to hunt black bear this winter on a large peanut farm near the coast here in Eastern North Carolina. Yogi is a new challenge and of course the opportunity started the typical process of what gun should I use. I usually love this process because it leads to a new project. This case is no different: I've got a closet full of Masuers in something 30 cal and under. My 8 mm-Steyr seems like overkill. What would the perfect cartridge be? The answer is obvious: 8 x 57 mm. I've got a shop full of rifles chambered in 8 x 57 mm, but none of them are sporterized. It would be a shame to put a scope on this rifle intended for bear because Yogi lives in the brush out here. Shots over 100 yd are unheard of. A scope would just get in the way. So open sights are called for. Standard receiver sights might be a bit dark for the swamps I'll be in, so open sights are the way to go. Standard Mauser sights suck for target shooting, but they're reasonable open sights, so maybe I should just stick with them. I've got a pile of 185 gr Rem corelocks that I luckly stocked up on before prices skyrocketed, so I want to use them. The problem is that they were designed for 8 mm Rem Mag and may not expand at modest velocity. So I've got to load the 8 x 57 up. There isn't much data on these 185 CLs for the 8 mm and so I'm kind-of on my own to work up a load. The guy on RealGuns.com has some interesting info, and I've loaded to 47 gr AA2495 myself without pressure signs. Using my best non-sported Mauser, a Yugo K98 refurb, and seating the 185 CLs out to just barely off the lands to minimize pressure, I worked-up to 49 gr from there. Additional experiments showed that 49.3 gr was a slight accuracy improvement. I didn't chronograph these loads, but I suspect they're doing about 2750 fps. This should open these bullets up, and although recoil is flirting with dramatic, there aren't pressure signs. I've seen flatter primers out of factory 270 ammo. So now I have sights and a load. What about the rifle? It makes sense to keep using the Yugo refurb K98. Maybe I should cut a pound by restocking and getting rid of the military paraphenalia? But the damn thing shoots accurately with everything attached. The only problem is oozing cosmoline when it heats up from shooting. But this might actually be an advantage in the swamp. It might be nice to not carry so much weight, but without a scope it doesn't weigh much more than a standard hunting rifle, and is less bulky. Although I'm fortunate to actually kind-of enjoy recoil, I'm not interested in developing a flinch, especially when an agile, fast and well-clawed opponent is in play. So what is the ideal rifle for this bear hunt? Take a look and see: A box-stock K98K, loaded for bear. The issue sights are just a bit high at 100 yds set at 200 - PERFECT. I can't wait!

Right on! "Hillary?" "Pull my finger."

It's kind-of arrogant to think that man can significantly alter the climate.

From American Digest. Check it out.

Damn, you're right! Maybe we need more than an island? But I think that that the primary cause behind our current problem is that government has increasingly led the citizenry to belive that they have no responsibility. How can this be battled? Lack of personal responsibility MUST become socially unacceptable once again. There's no island big enough for the problem on our hands. Short of another civil war, we'll have to make re-establishment of our moral compass seem like the obviously correct thing to do. How can this be done?

How can there be so many murders when guns are banned? Those people who ignore the law and kill people with illegal guns are just making unconstitutional restrictions on freedom look bad. They should be ashamed! Check-out the quote from the police chief: "We have to try to take away the things that are facilitating the ability to commit crime". What a moron. What we have to try to do is raise our children to understand the difference between right and wrong - and to take away those who fail to appreciate the difference. What we need is a penal island to send these losers to so they can prey on themselves and leave good people alone.

Maybe the problem is that the media sees in Mr. Scott's address a very weak potential criticism based on first amendment seperation of church and state (if you stretch and spin it a certain way - as the liberal media has continually done since WWII - and as forms the basis of Scott's rebuke of Congress). In their minds, a tenuous first amendment argument trumps and negates a clear and straight-forward argument to support the second ammendment. Their real problem is that the freedom of the press is also a first amendment right (along with seperation of church and state and free speech). They don't realize that the demise of the second amendment will make the first amendment irrelevant. Talk about stupid.

When Cain killed Abel, the club wasn't to blame.

Excellent! It almost makes me wish I needed another car. Everybody needs another gun.

It's a good deal where I'm from. But you should have a plan to break them down to smelting size. If this isn't easy for you then the deal isn't so attractive. For thin ( ~ 1 " pieces) that I get, a reciprocating saw usually works without drama (wear a mask). For anything thicker you're looking at hammering a hatchet or similar semi-sharp object on all four sides until you can twist chunks off. This is work, but it does work. If you've got the Mother of all Smelters you're good to go.

I use it every once in a while too! If we closed this forum it might get hard to contact Mike for reamers. Maybe we could make his contact info a sticky on the Sporter forum? This might drum up interest in reamer sharing too.

I contoured barrels for my 38-55 and 6.5x55 AI between centers on my crudely extended mini-lathe. Because of the crude extention, the saddle wobbled a hair at the intersection of the original bed and the added-on extension. It wasn't much of a wobble, but it made a visual defect in the surface. Because of this I roughed out both of these barrels (the 38-55 was made from a cheap A&B 375 blank, the 6.5 x55 AI from a cheap but excellent 29" Swede surplus bbl) very crudely with fast cuts and finised with files and shoe-shine emery cloth. The rough cuts were made with very sharp tools - because I'm weird about sharpness (ask my wife). Don't test my pocket knife with your thumb or you're liable to lose it. I love hard, sharp steel (almost as much as the chick in the Mercury ads, yes I WILL add it to my list...). OK, I'm distracting myself... The point is that these two contoured barrels have become part of my two most accurate rifles. It might be a coincidence, but Z's post is making me think that by accidently following his turning advice that these turned-out particularly well.

Fantastic! You rock, Gothmog (for a Canadian, and much better than a Californian [and I can say that because I used to be one {but that was when Reagan was Governator}}).

I'm with Jason on the 4-place Lee turret press. It's about half as fast as a progressive press. I think progressive presses are about twice as fast as they should be to not risk squibs. If you keep it clean, take the burrs off of the primer seater and make sure not to ding it, the thing is very reliable. Every once in a while it needs an index adjustment that takes (really) five seconds and an adjustable wrench.

Whatever happened with the 6.8 SPC?

Very cool. Do you have any problems getting 30 rd mags up there? I'm stocking up on them for my AR down here. There's a 3-gun match at our club coming up this Sat. That would be a perfect carbine for it. Do you Canucks have matches that you can shoot your Tavor in? Shooting in matches has really helped my shooting. And its damn fun.

If its not bright after a bunch of elbow grease, its never going to be, unless you bore it out. A dark bore is not the end of the world (or maybe more appropriately, the end of the barrel). Dark bores can shoot just fine, but they usually require more maintenance (e.g. they foul more quickly). I've had some good luck shooting 303 bullets out of corroded 308 barrels that weren't accurate with 308 bullets. 303 bullets are 312" - 308" = 0.004" oversized. I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS TO ANYONE. To do something similar with a 6.5 mm using a commonly-available bullet you'd have to go to a 270: 277" - 264" = 0.013". Is this safe? I don't know. I would NOT try it. What I would try is getting a cheap and commonly-available 270 bullet mold and try sizing down cast bullets until reasonable accuracy is obtained. How would I do this safely? First, I'd slug the bore. I'd do this by driving a piece of 00 buck lead shot down the bore from the breach with a brass rod. Based on largest measurement of the slug, I'd add 0.002". Then I'd try to find a common sizing die that was that dimension. Chances are the measurement will be 0.268 and there are no sizing dies. If so, I'd get a Lee push-through at 0.243" and either ream it out myself or talk a guy going by Buckshot at http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ into reaming it out for me.

If only we could bid on the bullet that hit her (and her little dog Toto too).

I'd recommend specifying their 0.375" + sizes. Otherwise, they might not notice.

I agree, karl. If they can't understand that a book is just paper and has less value than the people that it serves, then they need to be quickly re-eduacated - or they need to keep their Koran out of the hands of those who might use it as target practice (you don't see much effort made in that regard, do you? They're looking for opportunities to become outraged, we should be helping them by pointing-out that their sacred Koran would be less-likely to come to violence if Al Cryda went away).