Finally got a .22. I ordered a Buckmark Standard, and it's just swell.
I took it out of the box, wiped some of the oil off the breechface, and started shooting. 50 rounds of Blazer, then about 500 rounds mixed of Remington Golden Pack and Winchester Xpert22 (Walmart specials). The first magfull of Blazer had a stove pipe and some ejection failures. After that I had two feed failures in the 500 rounds, and a couple ammo-related misfires. I didn't bother to investigate the cause of the feed failures. I figure 2 out of 500 isn't too bad for a break in period.
The Remington ammo seemed especially inconsistent. A noticeable number of rounds that were under powered (too quiet, low recoil). But the action cycled OK with these, enough to eject the empty and feed the next round, anyway.
Accuracy: When I shoot to the gun's potential, I'll let you know. Having worked almost exclusively with centerfire carry guns, I shoot kind of fast, for "torso groups", so my bullseye shooting is sadly lacking. I shoot better off hand than I do from the bench. The BM makes the known deficiencies in my technique more obvious: not isolating the trigger finger (especially one-handed), and jerking on over-concentrated shots. Did you know rimfires are great training aids?
My vision is not what it used to be, either, apparently. . I frequently saw two rear sights when focusing on the front. This may be related to the long sight radius of the BM (8 inches or so) as compared to my short-barreled "fighting guns", plus the unusually long session of concentrating on a steady sight picture, instead of the "flash sight picture/bang!" that I usually do. At any rate, it's going to be a problem, I think.
There were no light strikes, as I'd read about, and the sight assembly didn't come loose, either. The action just got smoother.
Rimfires rock!
I took it out of the box, wiped some of the oil off the breechface, and started shooting. 50 rounds of Blazer, then about 500 rounds mixed of Remington Golden Pack and Winchester Xpert22 (Walmart specials). The first magfull of Blazer had a stove pipe and some ejection failures. After that I had two feed failures in the 500 rounds, and a couple ammo-related misfires. I didn't bother to investigate the cause of the feed failures. I figure 2 out of 500 isn't too bad for a break in period.
The Remington ammo seemed especially inconsistent. A noticeable number of rounds that were under powered (too quiet, low recoil). But the action cycled OK with these, enough to eject the empty and feed the next round, anyway.
Accuracy: When I shoot to the gun's potential, I'll let you know. Having worked almost exclusively with centerfire carry guns, I shoot kind of fast, for "torso groups", so my bullseye shooting is sadly lacking. I shoot better off hand than I do from the bench. The BM makes the known deficiencies in my technique more obvious: not isolating the trigger finger (especially one-handed), and jerking on over-concentrated shots. Did you know rimfires are great training aids?
My vision is not what it used to be, either, apparently. . I frequently saw two rear sights when focusing on the front. This may be related to the long sight radius of the BM (8 inches or so) as compared to my short-barreled "fighting guns", plus the unusually long session of concentrating on a steady sight picture, instead of the "flash sight picture/bang!" that I usually do. At any rate, it's going to be a problem, I think.
There were no light strikes, as I'd read about, and the sight assembly didn't come loose, either. The action just got smoother.
Rimfires rock!