Exceeded Expectations?

Exceeded? Hmm, that's a tough one because I usually obsessively research guns know what to expect before I buy them.

But, my wife won a .17 HMR Marlin in a raffle (model 917?) with a bull barrel, decent wood stock and bluing.

Thing impressed me, absolute laser beam out to 100. Popped many the beaver and ptarmigan brain with that thing on the tundra and the river. Too bad it's been neglected (well, just not shot much) for years.

Runner up is my wife's Ruger Vaquero in .357. She wanted a "pretty" gun and she picked that in stainless. Darned thing is so fun she bought me one so I'd stop hogging hers.

Some years back, a former shooting buddy and I went to buy 1911s. He picked out a lightly used Colt National Match. I was looking mostly for a donor frame and slide to learn the basics of 1911 gunsmithing. I found a PT1911 that was functional, but had lost most of its bluing and was rough in some other areas as well - at about 1/3 the cost of his Colt. He gave me a hard time about my choice of a paperweight vs his elegantly crafted piece of precision art.

We tried them out shortly thereafter and found that both were reliable, but the Taurus would shoot a ragged hole at 10 yards while the Colt was lucky to hold 4". Swapping ammo, mags and shooters around confirmed it - for our (statistically insignificant) sample, the Taurus was just flat out better. The other guy was NOT happy.

I eventually went ahead and replaced all the internals - Wilson Combat action parts, Wolff springs, EGW oversized firing pin stop, Nighthawk trigger. I did some reshaping & fitting of the grip safety, general deburring, and lightly rounded any sharp edges. It didn't shoot any better (or worse) when I was done, but it rattled a bit less.

I had threatened to give it a really tacky paint job, but I was pleased enough with the results that I backed off to mildly non-traditional Cerakote with water buffalo horn grips.

Stevie-Ray said:

My Mossberg 151M. Shopping for a 352 and not finding one worth buying, I came across this. Looked beautiful, and since I was thinking of paying 200 bucks for the only well-worn 352 in the place, I offered the same to the guy that had this. He accepted and I love it. Shot it today in fact-below are today's targets.View attachment 982323

Click to expand...

Is that the one with the fore stock that folds down? My buddy had one of those when we were in college. It was do much fun to shoot I went out and bought my 10/22 so we could blast away.

I have two exceeds expectations guns.

The rifle is a plain-Jane Remington 581 .22. I got it as payment for a debt from another buddy in college. I put a crummy 4x32 scope on it and it’s been a pinky fingernail-sized group shooting, bunny-thwacking machine ever since.

My second is an AIM Surplus S&W Model 64 .38 Spl. Despite its scratched up and abused exterior it is tight, has great trigger pulls and shoots great groups almost exactly at my point of aim.



Stay safe.

When our state adopted straight wall rifle rounds for deer hunting I built a 450 Bushmaster using a Alex Pro upper. Was startled when all the rounds went through the same bullet hole. Being accustomed to shotgun slug groups this was just short of a miracle. So impressed with the Shaw barrel accuracy that eventually bought four more uppers and outfitted the entire family with 450's.

Mine's also a Savage Mark 2.
Old picture, and wish I could find more of that ammunition.

I found the Stoegar Cougar in 40 S&W I owned to be very accurate, despite the low cost. think I paid $399 on sale plus tax. sold it though as I wanted something more.

My SA XDs in 45 is surprisingly accurate too for just a little plastic carry gun.

Demi-human said:

My son’s Rascal.

For such a tiny little rifle it sure does give big smiles!
It has a great trigger. Not just a great trigger “for a kid’s gun”, but a seriously nice trigger.

The aperture sights make anyone a crack shot. They came dead on and I left them there. Anything Little Bear can see is toast! Golf balls beware!
Supremely packable even if it doesn’t come apart.
It’s bite-sized fun!

Like this guy. A MiniMe!

Click to expand...

I’ve been looking at those. My oldest is ready to learn, but the golden boy his uncle bought him is way too big and I hate to cut it down.

Found an old police trade in 5906 for around $200 at a LGS. Looked like it had been dragged behind a pickup for 100 miles down the interstate. Despite that after a quick cleaning it shot a ragged hole at 15 YDS. Still the most accurate handgun I own. Liked it so well I went I went back and purchased 2 more from the pile of them that they had out back. Sadly neither one shot nearly as accurately compared to the first one although they looked much better. It will be the last one I get rid of as well.

Several years back I picked up a Tula 91/30 for under $200 just because I wanted to have a Russian mate for my M44. I didn't have any expectations for this rifle other then I wanted to be able to reliably hit a paper silhouette target fairly regularly. Later that year I joined a local Winter Warrior competition. Rules were to submit a target with your best 10 round string out of any WWI or WWII rifle with iron sights at 100 yards. Stipulation is that it had to be below freezing with snow on the ground for you to shoot. You could attempt to shoot as many targets with as many rifles as you wanted, but you could only submit one target for the competition. So one very cold morning I hit the range with a Garand, M1 Carbine, 03A3, Enfield, K98 and the Tula. After an awesome day of shooting I was completely shocked to see that the Tula had outperformed all of them. Using heavy ball I shot a 98-5x with that Tula. To make it even sweeter I won the competition with that score. Out of all the expensive rifles competing I won using a crappy, under $200 Mosin Nagant. She was definitely a sleeper.

I can think of a couple that I bought that were priced a few hundred dollars under the going price and that I expected to have to work on.

1. A 600 Remington in 222. It was a few hundred dollars under what the 222's normally fetch and I expected to find something wrong with it. And there was, the extractor didn't extract the fired case. It cost me $40 to get it fixed.

2. Another was a S&W Model 629 that was MagnaPorted and was priced several hundred dollars under where it should have been. The action was so smooth and the trigger was so light that I expected to have to buy new springs for it. Not a big deal as I know how to get into S&W's. Surprise surprise, it shot and functioned great!

There were also a few disappointments along the way. Guns that didn't meet expectations or needed repairs that I didn't notice.

Howland937 said:

Tell us about your diamond in the rough, beater or cheapie that turned out to be surprisingly accurate, reliable (or both!) that you had to shoot again...and again...just to be sure it wasn't a fluke.

Click to expand...

It wasn't a "diamond in the rough," and it's not a "beater," nor was it exactly "cheap," but to me, my little Glock 44 is surprisingly accurate and reliable, and I can't think of any gun I've ever had, or have, that is more fun to shoot.
My Glock 44 has replaced my old Model 63 Smith as my favorite plinker, fishing and just bumming around in the hills gun. And the fact that it's the same size as my favorite CCW, my Glock 19 Gen 5, is just a bonus.

Riomouse911 said:

Is that the one with the fore stock that folds down? My buddy had one of those when we were in college. It was do much fun to shoot I went out and bought my 10/22 so we could blast away.

Click to expand...

No, that's the aforementioned 352, with a box magazine, which I was originally searching for. Or the earlier 152, which had a wooden pull-down front grip. The later model 352 was changed to a black plastic pull-down. I would still love to have either of these, and am still looking. The 151M is a Mannlicher stock with a through the stock tube-fed magazine.

Howland937 said:

Tell us about your diamond in the rough, beater or cheapie that turned out to be surprisingly accurate, reliable (or both!) that you had to shoot again...and again...just to be sure it wasn't a fluke.
What's yours?

Click to expand...

Another that is firmly in the OP's parameters.

A pal had this, couldn't really get anyone to buy it but says he got it thinking of me.

He knew I was a sucker for pragmatically modified Service guns and lanyard-loops in particular.

It was a non-functioning paperweight and I paid as much for it. A bit of tweaking & tuning and it came right around. Then, shooting showed some fine accuracy. Ended up being my snake-shot gun for years. 2 rounds of shot and 4 rounds of HPs.

It still gets dragged along to shoot-a-paloozas in the desert and even the occasional hike. In particular if I'm in the hills and one of my dogs is in-heat.



Todd.

ApacheCoTodd said:

Another that is firmly in the OP's parameters.

A pal had this, couldn't really get anyone to buy it but says he got it thinking of me.

He knew I was a sucker for pragmatically modified Service guns and lanyard-loops in particular.

It was a non-functioning paperweight and I paid as much for it. A bit of tweaking & tuning and it came right around. Then, shooting showed some fine accuracy. Ended up being my snake-shot gun for years. 2 rounds of shot and 4 rounds of HPs.

It still gets dragged along to shoot-a-paloozas in the desert and even the occasional hike. In particular if I'm in the hills and one of my dogs is in-heat.

Todd.

Click to expand...

Except for the dinged trigger guard and the barrel cut about 1/2” shorter, that’s about a dead ringer for the bubbaed victory model “.38 Special M&P 2” I bought off GB years ago.

It could have been a handy 6-shot if the cylinder wasn’t a hogged out .38 S&W cylinder. Even after swapping cylinders to a genuine .38 Spl. one I didn’t trust it...so I sent it packing.

That looks like a great knock-a-rounder for just those types of excursions.

Stay safe.

I picked up this 586 for $350 just before the whole pandemic thing really kicked off.

It is a phenomenal shooter. action is smooooooooth, I have not trouble smacking steel at 65 yards.

I wish I could source some ammo for it!

Riomouse911 said:

Except for the dinged trigger guard and the barrel cut about 1/2” shorter, that’s about a dead ringer for the bubbaed victory model “.38 Special M&P 2” I bought off GB years ago.

It could have been a handy 6-shot if the cylinder wasn’t a hogged out .38 S&W cylinder. Even after swapping cylinders to a genuine .38 Spl. one I didn’t trust it...so I sent it packing.

That looks like a great knock-a-rounder for just those types of excursions.

Stay safe.

Click to expand...

Once tuned - it became a perfect beater.

Interestingly, the guard was cut and re-welded to that shape. Came with a bobbed hammer to round-out all the other nonsense... or, vice-versa.

Todd.

bannockburn:
Your Ruger 10/22 is rather like the “imported AKM” of semi-auto .22 rifles?

Deus Machina said:

Mine's also a Savage Mark 2.
Old picture, and wish I could find more of that ammunition.
View attachment 982414

Click to expand...

Forgot to mention, that's not at 25 yards. That's at 50.
Scoped on a heavy sandbag and I'm pretty sure that was my best ever, but... geez. No other rifle I've owned will do that (especially with me behind it) and fed anything else, even expensive 'match' ammo, that rifle is dang nice but not so incredible.

Really wish I could find more of that stuff.

I have a few.

First is my Savage MKII, . I figured it'd be a decent squirrel gun, but it's shoots 3/8-1/2" groups at 50 yards and I've had several 1" groups at 100 yards which is just crazy to me for a regular tapered barrel. Oh, and it does this with CCI Mini Mags and Aguila HV, for whatever reason it's closer to a 2-3 MOA gun with sub sonic and standard velocity target loads. I haven't had the extraction issues someone else mentioned, and I've been shooting this since 2009 now with thousands of rounds through it. Last year I played around with the trigger and got it from 5.5 lbs down to just over 3 lbs.



Second would be a Remington 710 in .270 I picked up almost 20 years ago. This was before all those cheap moa capable guns like the T/C Compass and Savage Axis, it'll reliably shoot .75 moa with good Hornady ammo. On the other hand the bolt sometimes pulls straight out the back when cycling it so it's not something I'd want to take hunting.



The last one would be my new LCP. I had one that I used from 2010 through 2019, and while it was reliable it wasn't worth much for accuracy past 5 yards. I mean, it was HORRIBLE. Finally it died and Ruger replaced it, and this new one is more accurate than I am. I was plinking 4" steel plates at my range at 15 yards the other day. I'm not going to pretend I was making 100% hits, but I was connecting with the steel 5-6 shots out of every 7 shots.



I lied, this is my last one. Hi Point's are so controversial that when I had the opportunity to pick one up for $100 I figured it'd be a cheap experiment to see how bad they really are. It hasn't skipped a beat and I trust it as my garage gun. And if you can manage the crappy trigger, it's pretty accurate as well!.

I picked up Remington 700, 30-06. Accurate, shoots great and never fails. Oh, I picked it up in 1975. 46 years without any failure and still going strong. Would you say "Exceeded Expectations"????

Ignition Override

bannockburn:
Your Ruger 10/22 is rather like the “imported AKM” of semi-auto .22 rifles?

Click to expand...

If you mean by that it is somewhat ubiquitous among all of the semi-auto .22s out there, then I definitely agree agree with your inquiry.

As for handguns, my first carry gun: a S&W 469. One of their second-gen autos.
Between it being worn out and beat up and the grip being thick as a brick, I could pretty reliably hit the broad side of a barn if I stood in one of the stalls.
But I just couldn't get it to not work. Maximum +P load? Worked fine. Powderpuff that would drop 6" over 10 yards? Handloads above maximum or below minimum OAL? Truncated cone, blunted roundnose, closest you can find to semi-wadcutters, flying ashtrays? Pick your weight. It ran like rattly but well-oiled clockwork. If it would exit the barrel, that gun would happily eat it and load up another.
Like someone here lost to time said "if you could fit rocks into the magazine, it would load them."

I have a Remington 541T-HB. Not a bargain rifle, but not a fancy one either. I started out with CCI ammunition and nearly sent the gun back. One inch groups at 25 yards at best. I had nothing else with me at the range but some old Winchester standard velocity stuff which shot into one hole at the same distance. It turned out that the thing would do that with any reasonable ammunition except CCI, and now is a trusted friend. On a windless day it is an MOA .22 that cost, if I recall correctly, $300 new.

I bought a new HiPoint c9 a few years ago. I no longer have it, but I had about 1,000 rounds through it and not one malfunction. I can’t say that about any of my other semiautos. The c9 was accurate and I liked the trigger. It didn’t have the creep and take up like many other mediocre striker fired handguns. So, it definitely exceeded my expectations.

I gotta say that my RIA M200 has been a pleasant surprise. Wasn't expecting all that much for a $200.00 gun in this day and age, but it goes bang every time and it's a good truck gun.