The 5X continues to elude me...
Well... I headed back out today for a good day of shooting - but still no 5X.
I tried out some different ammo this time - Federal Gold Match, Armscor Precision, Aguila/Eley, and drum roll please... Blazer. The results surprised me.
I also took the advice of one of my rimfire mentors, and went to a different range at the club - one that is a dedicated rimfire range. He explained that it's a consistent temperature, and the wind, if there is any, would be at my back. Man was he ever right...
I got the targets to print the correct size this time, and shot at 50 yards, as opposed to 50 meters.
The rifle is my daughters Savage Mk.II TR, with a 3-9x40 Savage cheapo scope, fired from a bi-pod, on the bench.
The weather was a fabulous 87F degrees - humidity somewhere around 22%, partly cloudy, mild breeze. I used one of my centerfire targets, to get things calibrated:
The Fed. GM is at the top of the target - it (or I, ) didn't do as well as I'd hoped.
The Armscor is in the middle - not quite what I wanted, so I shot another set, lower right... now things are picking up...except for that 4th round flier...
So directly below it, I shot the Blazer - Bingo! two rounds, nearly through the same hole... which leads us to:
What I think is a 122-3X... (I'm not exactly sure how the score is calculated here, when it comes to the X's - are these correct?)
and:
What I think is a 124-2X... the best I've ever shot anything in my life.
I think I've found the 'magic bullet' for this particular rifle - plain old $2 a box Blazer...