trickg

Ok, my knowledge here is somewhat limited. I wish my father were still alive, he could really give you the lowdown on all of these questions because he probably forgot more stuff about gunsmithing, reloading, ballistics, shooting, etc, than I'll ever know. Here's my best shot:

Simmons scopes. From what I know, they aren't going to be quite as nice as a Leupold, which I consider the beginning point of the high end scopes (you have brands like Swarovski and Unertl toward the top of that list with prices at $1000+) but it is certainly going to give you great quality for your dollar. The optics probably arent going to be as good, but unless you are looking for serious long range accuracy, you will probably be fine with a Simmons and you will save yourself a buck or two. Plus the 44 mm objective lens on the Simmons .44 Magnum will offer similar light gather properties than say a 40 mm objective lens on a scope with more expensive optics. If you are going to be using your .243 for deer or woodchucking, this will probably be fine. I only suggested the Leupold Rifleman because of the new combination of Leupold accuracy and quality with a lower price.

Target/protection pistols. If you are looking for a fun, inexpensive to shoot pistol, it's hard to go wrong with a Ruger Mark II in .22 caliber. Cheap to shoot, easy to clean, accurate, however, for protection, while it is a handgun, it's not going to have the kind of stopping power that a larger caliber will. If stopping power is what you want, go with a 1911 clone (Colt 1911A1) in .45 caliber. Dad was a police officer for 31 years and really didn't have much use for the 9 mm pistols. He said that in the field, the FBI had some pretty negative experiences with the 9 mm in that it just didn't stop assailants and some agents ended up being killed as a direct result of that lack of stopping power. (He had gone through the FBI academy's peace officer program, a four month course at Quantico, the end result was that the program extended the FBI's network nationwide) He was a HUGE fan of the .45, although he had nothing against carrying a .357, .41 or .44 magnums. If you are going to go with a .45, Kimber probably makes the best of the 1911 clones, although Para Ordinance used to offer one in double action with either a 7 or 14 round magazine, depending on how wide you wanted the grip to be. I'm not sure if they still make that one though. Personally, I like Smith and Wesson revolvers because of their ease of operation and ease of maintenance, but I have looked at the Sig and Walther pistols. I know a couple of people that own Sigs and they really like them.

.40 Caliber. As for the .40 caliber, it's a compromise of size to stopping power, and although I really can't tell you much about that, from everything I've heard, it's a formidable round.

Composite Handguns. On the subject of guns using polymers and composite materials, I think that it comes down to a weight issue more than anything else. If you have to carry a sidearm all day, like most people who are issued Glocks do, it simply makes your sidearm a little easier to bear, and to hold steady. I have never cared for the Glock personally, but I know a lot of guys that have had them and really liked them. Talk about a gun that has withstood all the nasty testing thrown at it and come out smiling, the Glock is that handgun. There is one thing to keep in mind though. If you are shooting a lightweight handgun in a heavy caliber, recoil is going to be a bigger issue because of the light weight. It's boils down to physics really. As the round fires forward, it's also expending a lot of energy back toward the shooter in the form of recoil and physics tells you that an object that is heavier with more mass is not going to recoil quite as much. An extreme example of this would be tapping a balloon with a pencil, and then tapping a 1-kilogram weight with a pencil. The balloon is going to move, the kilo weight probably won't.

I don't know much about the Glock's safety mechanisms, but it would really depend on the design of the handgun whether or not I would trust it personally. I have always liked the 1911 design with the thumb safety, and then the grip safety.

That's the extent of what I know, or at least what I think I know. My Dad could have written you a book extolling the virtues of which caliber for what, and the good and bad aspects of various design features of the many different handguns on the market, but sadly, he left us quite unexpectedly one day in 1997 when he had a massive heart attack.

I know that this post is quite long, but I wanted to share with you a story about when my brother-in-law came to me wanting advice about purchasing a gun for home protection. He knew that I had grown up shooting and reloading, and wanted to know what I thought he should get. Since at the time he never mentioned wanting to go target practice, only wanting something for home defense, I suggested to him a base-model Remington 870 12 gauge in either modified or improved cylinder choke. My reasoning that with the plug removed, it will hold 5 or 6 rounds, is easy to use, has a stellar reputation for functionality, is a time tested and honored design, and for protection gives you point and shoot accuracy with plenty of power, plus, you could actually use it as a club in close situations. I mean, heck, thousands of police cars in the USA have 870s sitting in the front seat shotgun holder. It seemed the obvious choice to me for someone that had never done any real shooting and didn't know much about guns. I mean, have you ever seen someone shoot that has never fired a pistol? It isn't nearly as easy as Hollywood makes it look and so many people jerk the trigger so hard, they literally put the round in the dirt between themselves and the target, and let's not even talk about the flinch factor.

He ended up getting a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver that he can barely shoot. I guess that shows you what my advice is worth! ;)

trickg

TG, I have a question: What rifle is this scope going to be placed on? (brand, model) And, what are you going to be doing with the rifle once the scope is in place?

PM me if you don't want to post it in the open forum.

TopGun

Ruger M77 .243

I will just be hunting deer.

At this point I am leaning towards the Leupold with the 40 mil. front lense.

Thanks,
TopGun

trickg

That's a nice rifle. Not exactly cheap either. Let me know how it turns out.

My "dream rifle"?

Remington 700 - .223 or 30-06, (.223 for varmiting, 30-06 for Whitetail and Mule deer) with a composite stock
3x9x40 Leupold Vari-X II or Vari-X III mil-dot, or wide duplex.

Of course, I'd also take a Winchester Model 70, or the Ruger Model 77, and there are even some decent shooting rifles put out by Savage.

Dad once took a military Mauser, cut off the bolt and had a custom bolt welded on, cut down the magazine well to give it a slimmer profile, (only held 4 rounds) had a Dillon barrel put on it and rechamberd from 30-06 to 25-06, (Also known as the 25 Whelen, wild-catted by Col. Townsend Whelen by necking down the 30-06) put in a Timney trigger, a semi-custom stock that Dad finished from a stock rough out, and topped it with a Leupold Vari-X II. That was a SWEET shooting rifle. That rifle, along with a Sako Vixen in .223 is what we used to take out to terrorize the prairie dogs of southwest Nebraska.

Anonymous

He Patrick,

You mentioned the Ruger .22 as a nice piece. Who makes a nice .22 rifle at a fair price?

TM

trickg

Ruger! :)

The Ruger 10/22 is a pretty decent little 22. It has a box style magazine, 10 rounds, and is really a nice little semi-auto 22 rifle. When I was a kid, we had a little Browning semi-auto rifle I really liked, but a common problem with that rifle was that the tubular magazine in the stock would break, and ours was no exception. When it broke, I eventually ended up shooting a Marlin lever action, tube fed under the barrel. I think that it was a model 39. Anway, talk about one accurate little rifle!

You know, it's funny, I never really got too many new guns of my own. My father was an avid gun "accumulator" (he didn't collect for the sake of collecting, he'd buy a new toy, shoot it for a while, buy another new toy, etc.) and had over 100 different pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Everything from cap and ball revolvers, to well over a dozen little .22 rifles to well over a dozen 12 gauge shotguns. It wasn't like I had a lack of selection to choose from! In fact, there were days when dad and I would stand there in front of his pistol display board, scratching our head trying to figure out just which ones we were going to take out shooting. The last time we went shooting before he died, I think we took 9 different handguns out with us, nothing smaller than a .38.

Anyway, if I had to buy a .22 rifle, I'd probably get the Ruger 10/22. As for pricing, I've never really priced anything other than accessories because once Mom finally decides to let go of Dad's guns (if THAT ever happens!) I'll wind up with more than enough guns and reloading equipment to keep me occupied without ever having a desire for anything more.

TopGun

My "dream rifle"?

Remington 700

You are not the only one my friend. I don't know a great deal about them but I have read many Stephen Hunter books and that is a gun he writes about often. Ever read any Hunter?

TG

trickg

No, never read any Stephen Hunter. I've read "Marine Sniper" though, about the life and Vietnam experiences of Marine Gunner Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. Most of the time he used either a Winchester Model 70 or a Remington Model 700.

The Tactical Operations Tango 51 is built on a Model 700 action and is guranteed to .25 MOA accuracy. That's pretty amazing. The best that Remington will offer you for out of the box accuracy for a regular 700 is usually somewhere around 1 MOA. Here's that link:

http://www.snipercentral.com/tango51.htm

Here's the picture!


It's a pretty amazing rifle in my opinion. For the regular deer hunter, you would have no reason for that kind of accuracy. 1 MOA is more than accurate enough for a good kill shot at 100 - 200 yards. This thing is designed to reach out and touch someone between 300 - 1000 yards!

TopGun

Nice pic.

I am hoping to do a lot more shooting in the near future. Though I might get some trigger work done down the road. Anything else you can think of that will improve the performance of the M77?

TG

trickg

Well, you could have the trigger adjusted, or you could put in a whole new trigger, then have that adjusted.

other than that, if you really wanted to spend some $$$, which depending upon what you currently have and what you want to get out of it, you could put the whole thing in a new, composite stock, but good composite stocks are pretty expensive.

One thing that you could do to your rifle that is not too expensive is to glass bed the barrel with glass bedding kit. You can get a couple of different glass bedding kits from Brownells, the most popular one being Acraglas

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/sto...le=ACRAGLAS%7e

Dad glass bedded the stocks/barrels on some of his rifles and it helps maintain accuracy in different heat and moisture conditions that can cause your stock to "move" a little, thereby decreasing your accuracy. For less than $20, it's the single most effective thing you can do to accurize a wood stocked rifle.

Another thing that you can do that will really accurize your rifle, but is considerably more expensive, is to re-barrel it with a custom, accurized barrel. Since it's been a long time since I have done any reading on the subject, I think that you can buy both pre-threaded and non-threaded barrels. The pre-threaded just needs to be installed, but the non-threaded barrel with an experienced gunsmith winds up being more accurate because everything is checked and matched to YOUR action, so it insures a higher level of accuracy. This is kind of a neat, albeit potentially expensive option because it takes a stock rifle and really turns it into an accurized, custom rifle. Tom Turner probably knows much more about this than I do.

There are tons of little things that you can do to accurize a rifle from doing everything from putting high end optics, to adjusting or installing a new trigger, to re-barreling, to having a custom fitted stock, etc.

For me, I would be more than satisfied with an out of the box Remington 700 with the black composite stock, with a nice Leupold Vari-X II or III, or Maybe a Burris Fullfield II, either of which I would want in 3x9x40. Out of the box, with a little practice and depending on just how good the rifle is (I think that Remington only gurantees 1 MOA accuracy for an out of the box rifle, but from what I've read, they are usually better than that at about .5 MOA accuracy) I could be shooting 1 to 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards, which isn't too bad in my opinion. (I say this because I once did just that with a brand new 700 in .223 with the aforementioned Burris 3x9, shooting one 5 shot group at about 1 inch, and another at a little over a half inch at a measured 100 yards from a bench rest position.)

Thanks for the topic TG! I love talking about guns and shooting. I just wish that Maryland was a little more gun friendly. At the moment, the only shooting I do is when I get back home to Nebraska.