It's not the gun, it's you

Sounds like a fun day at the range.

It's not the gun, it's you.

Been wondering about that of late. Funny how the once clear and sharp sights on my 1911 and other guns including revolvers have become sort of fuzzy? How do sights do that anyway? Likewise my once sub 0.5 MOA rifle groups using the same loads in the same rifles are now over 1.0 MOA? Maybe the guns are just getting old? No way could it be me. Absolutely no way! On the bright side while things are not what they once were my love of shooting has not diminished.

Ron

d31tc said:

Interesting note on my new to me 1945 Remington Rand M1911A1.

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I have a Remington Rand 1911A1 1942 GI pistol also and picking up the sight picture and sight alignment with the low profile GI sights is a major project anymore for me. The same is true for any of my GI copies. I can do much better with any of my Colt Governet Series 70 guns, especially the Gold Cup versions verse the GI guns. I am due for new corrective lenses. I enjoyed great vision till around 50 but today at 72 the vision is a challenge. When I was young, real young, I never understood the need for a scope on a rifle, today scopes are my new best friends. Hopefully new glasses will help.

Ron

I'd do a competition like that, just to try different guns

There is a clip from heart break ridge, the Clint eastwood movie where he does just that. I can't link it as it has naughty words in it.

I like the trophy with the barn. Nice touch...

funny, i said that [it's never the gun] to my grandson last month when i gave him my mkI ruger pistol. i said that same thing to my brother when he got my mkIII a few years back. no sense in wasting time on baseless excuses.

it's not the gun,

murf

I was talking about this on another forum, and I would say it fits in here with this.

If every other gun is fine, and you can shoot every other gun well, but one is just going to defy all reason, it could be the gun.

Story time.

I have bought two new 10-22 in my life. I don't currently own those, but one other I got on trade thinking I would move it down the road.

The one in question would not hit paper. Could not for the life of me figure it out. To make a long story short a buddy that was playing with it said the barrel has to be bent.....the hell you say, how often have you seen that. Well never, but it has to be, I know I can shoot better then this. We are shooting at a full sized silhouette, on a white background. Flip it over and it is a big white nothing on it paper sheet. You could take a pen with the barrel flat on the paper and draw a line with the pen next to the paper....kinda trace the barrel, run it along the edge of the barrel. I hope I explained that well. You could look at the drawing and go....that is bent. Can't be, it must be the table we drew it....it is an 8' wood pick nick table. We took said gun back to the shop with a nice long bench and did it again, sure enough bent. Then if you looked down the length of it you could see it, and you could not unsee it. How could we have missed this....it was just that in your face. Back to ruger it went with a photo of said drawing, and a pic of the me holding the rifle shot from the business end. You could see the ) in the barrel.

Ruger replaced the barrel no questions asked naturally, again that fantastic customer service we hear so much about, and I traded the rifle away vowing that with two brand new out of the box I was off the 1022 for life. First one had a visible crack in the receiver, back to wally world you go, This is what I get for assuming something new from the factory would have a visible crack in the reciever, thank god he never shot it, but what a upset little boy. Imagine that on your birthday, you finally get your very own rifle yours from brand new, and that is what it is out of the box. Yea never again.

So I guess after that long story unless it is a ruger its not the gun its you

d31tc said:

Maybe SFC Wilson borrowed that line via a midnight requisition since it looks like Heartbreak Ridge was released in 1986. Our ranges would have been in the 1990 to 1993 timeframe - definitely post dates the movie. Would have been cool if the movie got it from SFC Wilson, but we were Army tankers, not gung ho marines. And we definitely weren't Hollywood material (well, I wasn't) .

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I think it more likely, the movie borrowed from real life. Dad shared a similar story from when he and several other newly minted lieutenants (in probably 1967/8) were shooting very poorly with their 1911's. They all couldn't be that bad, had to be the gun. Lots of disparigment of John Browning's creation. Until the Sgt picked up one of their handguns, and proceeded to quickly produce a very tight group. The Sgt never spoke, and the officers quit their complaining.

Pudge said:

I think it more likely, the movie borrowed from real life. Dad shared a similar story from when he and several other newly minted lieutenants (in probably 1967/8) were shooting very poorly with their 1911's. They all couldn't be that bad, had to be the gun. Lots of disparigment of John Browning's creation. Until the Sgt picked up one of their handguns, and proceeded to quickly produce a very tight group. The Sgt never spoke, and the officers quit their complaining.

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(I saw Joe Benner do that one tIme many many years ago.)

Remington1911 said:

I was talking about this on another forum, and I would say it fits in here with this.

If every other gun is fine, and you can shoot every other gun well, but one is just going to defy all reason, it could be the gun.

Story time.

I have bought two new 10-22 in my life. I don't currently own those, but one other I got on trade thinking I would move it down the road.

The one in question would not hit paper. Could not for the life of me figure it out. To make a long story short a buddy that was playing with it said the barrel has to be bent.....the hell you say, how often have you seen that. Well never, but it has to be, I know I can shoot better then this. We are shooting at a full sized silhouette, on a white background. Flip it over and it is a big white nothing on it paper sheet. You could take a pen with the barrel flat on the paper and draw a line with the pen next to the paper....kinda trace the barrel, run it along the edge of the barrel. I hope I explained that well. You could look at the drawing and go....that is bent. Can't be, it must be the table we drew it....it is an 8' wood pick nick table. We took said gun back to the shop with a nice long bench and did it again, sure enough bent. Then if you looked down the length of it you could see it, and you could not unsee it. How could we have missed this....it was just that in your face. Back to ruger it went with a photo of said drawing, and a pic of the me holding the rifle shot from the business end. You could see the ) in the barrel.

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The average Ruger 10/22 barrel is for the rock buster who never cleans their rifle. My factory barrel, you could rock the round in the chamber by pressing on the side of the rim . My Volquartsen barrel, on the same receiver, is a much more accurate tube. Still, the tube ought to be straight.

Even custom barrels have their problems, on gundrilled barrels, the hole between the ends wanders. If you notice, barrel makers only guarantee their barrels are concentric as measured at the ends. A bud of mine purchased a expensive custom barrel for F Class and during zeroing he found the point of impact was so much (left or right I don't remember) that he ran out of scope adjustment. He sent it back to the smith for another. The smith told me another customer was willing to use the barrel, at a bargain price, if the gunsmith would rotate the barrel such that, instead of shooting off axis laterally, the barrel could be orientated to shoot high. As the customer was another 1000 yard F class shooter, not having to use a lot of elevation adjustments at 1000 yards was just fine. The customer was happy with the barrel accuracy and consistency.

I do have a Swedish M1896 from the 1920's that looks absolutely new. Which is why I purchased it. There is a reason it looks hardly used, the point of impact moves within five rounds way the heck up. Like feet at 100 yards. As the barrel warms, it changes point of impact badly. Barrels were "straightened" at military arsenals, and I guess this is one with a lot of interior stresses.






I got to play with one of those barrel straightening fixtures at Springfield Armory Museum. It did not take much pressure to see the shadow move inside the barrel. If you notice, the straightener has the middle of the barrel aimed at a target that gives a dark shadow in the barrel. If the lines are crooked, the hole was not drilled straight.

Slamfire said:

The average Ruger 10/22 barrel is for the rock buster who never cleans their rifle. My factory barrel, you could rock the round in the chamber by pressing on the side of the rim . My Volquartsen barrel, on the same receiver, is a much more accurate tube. Still, the tube ought to be straight.

Even custom barrels have their problems, on gundrilled barrels, the hole between the ends wanders. If you notice, barrel makers only guarantee their barrels are concentric as measured at the ends. A bud of mine purchased a expensive custom barrel for F Class and during zeroing he found the point of impact was so much (left or right I don't remember) that he ran out of scope adjustment. He sent it back to the smith for another. The smith told me another customer was willing to use the barrel, at a bargain price, if the gunsmith would rotate the barrel such that, instead of shooting off axis laterally, the barrel could be orientated to shoot high. As the customer was another 1000 yard F class shooter, not having to use a lot of elevation adjustments at 1000 yards was just fine. The customer was happy with the barrel accuracy and consistency.

I do have a Swedish M1896 from the 1920's that looks absolutely new. Which is why I purchased it. There is a reason it looks hardly used, the point of impact moves within five rounds way the heck up. Like feet at 100 yards. As the barrel warms, it changes point of impact badly. Barrels were "straightened" at military arsenals, and I guess this is one with a lot of interior stresses.

View attachment 1095416


View attachment 1095417

I got to play with one of those barrel straightening fixtures at Springfield Armory Museum. It did not take much pressure to see the shadow move inside the barrel. If you notice, the straightener has the middle of the barrel aimed at a target that gives a dark shadow in the barrel. If the lines are crooked, the hole was not drilled straight.

Click to expand...

I love how he is doing it by eye.

My Army experience was that on a scale of 1-10 marksmanship training came in at about 70, in my 4 years of active duty 1967-1971 after BCT I went to the rifle range THREE times and only fired twice. Dean Grenell said he had a well worn M911 that had "minute of washtub" accuracy, a new barrel and bushing solved that problem. I did not learn to shoot a handgun until I practiced Bullseye-weekly-with my High Standard Victor.