I have had so much luck and fun with the two Browning Buck Mark pistols I have acquired in the last two years that when I came across a minty, used and beautifully stocked Browning Buck Mark Target "Rifle" I could not help myself.
It came home with me.
I had never shot one of these Buck Mark Target (Varmint?) Rifles before and was a bit concerned about "accuracy" as I mulled over buying it, initially.
After I took the plunge I began saving/looking for a good quality used scope to put on it.
I thought about a red dot type sight but came across a used Leupold 2x7 variable in matte finish that matched nearly perfectly the Brownings finish.
The Browning comes with a "Weaver" type inherent to the frame scope base and I chose Warne 4 screw matte finish rings to mount the scope in.
Again the Warne rings finish closely matched both the Browning and the Leupold.
The Leupold is a centerfire, fixed parallax type scope so again I had a bit of trepidation - ahead I went anyway.
Got it all put together yesterday morning and grabbed my container of 18 or so different boxes of 22 L.R ammunition and headed to my range for testing.
For those not familiar with the Buck Mark Target Rifle it is simply a Buck Mark pistol with a Rifle type butt stock attached to the grip and it comes with a heavy 18" straight taper barrel.
I ended up trying 7 different types/brands of ammo in the Buck Mark and it handled them all perfectly (I did have one fail to ignite with, of all types of ammo, was the 37 grain Winchester hollow-points!).
I can not blame that miss-fire on the Browning as all the other rounds of Winchester ammo I fired went off without a hitch.
The trigger on the Buck Mark was light, pretty crisp and consistent with only an extremely small amount of creep.
The wind started up just as I was placing my targets so I decided to test only at 25 yards (instead of my normal 50 yards) as the wind was now blowing at 10 to 15 MPH left to right.
I almost packed up and went home when the danged wind started but I went ahead anyway as I wanted to check my bore sighting job if nothing else.
There at 25 yards my first shot cut the 1/2" orange stick on circle I placed in the middle of my targets - the bore sighting by the way was done with the Leupold magnetic bore sighter.
I still have NO idea how these Leupold bore sighters work (as well as they do???).
When I got around to the Winchester 37 grain hollow-points I again was about to give up due to the wind.
My first 5 shot group with the Winchester 37 grain ammo there at 25 yards measured 7/16's of an inch and believe me in that wind I was VERY pleased with that result.
I fired another group with the same exact results - and both groups had twice as much horizontal dispersion as vertical - so indeed the wind was affecting my shots.
I set my scope to a 1" high point of impact there at 25 yards and then proceeded to shoot shotgun hulls out to 60 yards or so - I was hitting about 50% of them first shot at varying ranges.
I just had a blast with this tiny, delicate and beautiful little Rifle.
The Browning catalog lists this Rifle at 5 pounds 6 ounces so compared to many of my bolt action heavy barrel 22's it is indeed a "light weight".
This morning I was able to harvest a flying Varmint with the new (to me) Buck Mark Rifle, using the Winchester ammo - believe me there was a big poof of feathers upon impact!
I have no idea how the values of these Buck Mark Rifles hold but as of now I don't have any plans on selling it.
Anyone else have experiences observations about this model?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy