Originally Posted by drover
Originally Posted by K22
Originally Posted by drover
The odd thing about it is that on the 452/455 models they used a nice finish that let the wood grain show, why they went to the mud finish on the 457 is beyond me. The only reason that I can come up with is that they are saving manhours by not filling pores ands hoping that the mud finish will make it less noticable.

I have looked at six 457 American models and they all exhibited the same finish as yours - it's too bad that they are cutting corners on the stock finish.

drover

If I find a Premium stock before start unmuddying this one, I won't even bother making this one look normal.

Today I braved the weather just to see how well this rifle would shoot. It was 22 degrees. shocked Not normal temp. for this area, oh and that was the high for today. I only took out two loads. RWS Subsonics, my favorite, and Sellier and Bellot subsonic. I use the Sellier's to get on paper normally when setting up a scope because I never have much luck with it shooting small groups. First thing I noticed is cold fingers don't work so well inserting the magazine and the mag. is not very forgiving like the Sako or Kimbers are. Then that trigger mad I will definitely have to work on it ........a lot. It was so spongy and 3.5 - 3.25lbs. is way to heavy for me.
Now for the main event, accuracy........Nada. Could have been the weather, the trigger, or me, but my oh my this one has a long way to go. Feeding and ejecting were flawless so that is a plus.
I was shooting at 50yds. and only snapped a photo of the groups, so no writing on the paper. The left group was the Sellier and Bellot and the 2 groups right of it was the RWS. I shot 5 shot groups.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Those groups are disappointing for sure. I had shot a couple of 457 American in 22 LR before, both were unmodified except for trigger work, and the groups from them was what piqued my interest in getting one. In both cases the groups were more like the groups that M.D. posted, not benchrest great but certainly good groups for a sporter/hunting rifle.

I already have Tikka T1x 22 LR that groups better than any thing in this price range should, and I still have a 452 American 22 LR that has a decent piece of wood with a good finish and it groups almost as well as the Tikka.

Unless I run across one with exceptional wood I doubt that I will be buying one - between the poor stock finsh and your poor results with this one I am pretty well turned off. The idea of a project rifle is less appealing to me.

I had noticed but forgotten about the magazine having to be pretty much perfectly centered so that it fits into the rather narrow floorplate - not a biggie but something that could have been improved on for sure.

I know that you will have warmer temps in NC long before I do here in Idaho but here is a little hint from a cold weather 22 shooter -
keep your ammo box in an inside pocket when shooting in cold temps, even keeping them in a pants pocket is helpful. I have never been able to get as good groups from cold ammo as I have from warm ammo.

drover

I went out today again since it was a balmy 39 and used a new metal magazine to make sure it fed ok which it did. It seemed to insert much easier than the plastic one. I'm posting todays results below which were much better.