Henry Rifle Forums

I have so much fun shooting at home I seldom go to the club range unless shooting louder rifles than my 22's. I also wanted to try 50 yds. with my CZ Trainer that will be my fall squirrel season rifle. First thing I found out was I forgot most of my ammo that I set on bench out side and walked right past it. The first one out of the truck happened to be my CZ FS 17 HMR. Fitted with a 2-7x33 Leupold. I haven't shot this thing in several years. Come to think of it I don't even like the HMR. I shot five rounds at 50 yds. with no fouling shots to see if it would be OK with the cold bore shot. Top center target. It clustered the first four good and the last slightly lower. Group measured 5/16" on centers. Next up was my CZ Trainer 22 LR. It is fitted with a really nice squirrel scope. Straight 4X Nikon. It could use a little more scope for paper but I just had to concentrate a little more before pulling the trigger. I shot the top left target first with it. Aguila Hi-velocity hpt. First time this rifle has ever fired a copper washed bullet. I don't know how it will do farther our but the first group was 5 in 3/16". Then the same rifle down to the center bottom target. Again 5 of the same Aguila that went 1/4". This is about 10-12 year old ammo. Then I looked through the Sav. Varmint 223 barrel to see if it might hit the paper. It actually looked like it might so I shot and it went high right on the center target. This is the first I had shot the Sav. since buying it. It has the Canjar set trigger but I shot it unset which is around 1 1/2 lb. Set is 2-3 oz. So I got lucky moving it down and shot two at the center lines in the target and it was close. Moved the target out to the 100 yd. back stop and fired four shots that the first three were a single hole and the fourth was all but touching on the low right of the other hole. 5/16" on centers. Good for first time out. Only shot 4 so I had a round left for on the way home in case of a coyote.
Then brought the target back to 50 yds. after finding two boxes of ammo I just bought to try. I had put them in the side pouch on the gun case. The top right was RWS Semi-auto which was fired first. The first shot hit the center bull at about 11 0'clock. Then the next 14 shots went above the first and those 14 were a 1/2 " not counting the first lower one through the barrel with the previous fouling from the other brand. Right lower was again the Trainer with RWS Hi-Vel HPT. 5 shots in slightly over 5/16". It was nice to go to the some what primitive range that has decent tables to shoot from but are not high enough in the front. So I shot all these groups standing up and shot from a shelf that is off to the side of the benches that is barely is wide enough to get front and rear bags on with the rifle not falling off. So that was my shooting for today.

Sounds like a very useful trip as far as seeing what those rifles and you can do. I would advise all the squirrels in your part of the state to get out and find a new home come hunting season.

Yeah, it's awfully hard to beat a CZ Trainer, with or without a scope, as a squirrel rifle or a target rifle. Here's our 452 Trainer 22 LR, currently wearing a Williams peep.

Something happened to my picture. Let me try this again. This happens to me once in a while. Who knows why.

Very nice looking Trainer there NCG. I love the 452 Trainers and they make a very nice carrying squirrel rifle.
I need to load some ammo up for the big heavy Savage and shoot it some more with different loads. Usually hard to beat good old H4895 and a 50 gr. Sierra bullet. Some of these Savages for some reason shoot 40's the best. 1-9" twist should like the heavier weights but not always a given. I had some copper in it from yesterday but we also had very high humidity and temps in the low 90's here to contend with a barrel heat taken longer to go back down to normal after three or four shots even allowing two minutes or more between shots. This rifle is a single shot solid bottom action so this morning I removed the ejector and spring and the locking pin as there is no need to kick the empty round out on the ground. Easier to just reach up and pull it from the extractor and put it back in my ammo box. Had to use a reloading die decapping pin to get the pin out as my punch just wasn't quite small enough. The ejector pin and ejector also had some hard build up on them and had WD-40 wrote all over them. I will be in town today and try to find a punch small enough to use for the next time. Here is the parts I removed along with the decapping pin that will now be in a container in my Savage and Remington spare parts box.

Gotch ya on the ejector mod. One thing I like about my TCs and, especially, my classic falling block 1885 Low Wall in 223. Both just lift the round out of the chamber for you to manually extract. Makes it so easy to save brass. (Are you listening, RR?)

I'm fighting some rough weather here, too. Been unusually windy, hot and rainy for June. Seeing your post reminds me that I need to give the revolvers a rest and get out and shoot some rifle.