Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots My 2017 project...

I see it this way, Dick. You are in the arena and are competing. Another man might just be content to observe. You will see your skills return and your improvement will be consistent. Added to that, you have a beautiful rifle that anyone would want to own as well as a fan club on the campfire. I see nothing but positives here.

Good luck and good shooting.

Beautiful rifle that shoots very well. I think any local rancher would be happy to see you and that rifle clearing out a few varmints!

Congrats on your efforts, particularly on getting back into competition!

Regards, Guy

Thanks, guys. I really love competing, even just being able to go to a match. And I am really welcome at our matches... mostly because I stop and pick up a couple of boxes of donuts from Cops and Doughnuts, Clare's world famous business and the makers of wonderful products. Since I am a long-time diabetic, that place will eventually kill me.

What a beautiful rifle! You have every right to be proud of it. No downside to your situation (other than the diabetes sucks. I'm right there with you though)

In the interest of full disclosure I need to update this... I have found that the gun shoots very well out of a clean, cold barrel. However, once the barrel heats up, it starts throwing bullets all over the place. I've had shots go out into the black on the targets like the one shown above.

I went to a black powder silhouette match Sunday just to see Steve Durren who is a member of the ACGG. I've been told that Steve is probably the best Ruger No. 1 man in the country. I showed Steve the gun and he made several suggestions re: what I could do to improve the situation. It obviously wants to shoot well and it obviously shoots badly as soon as the barrel heats up. This points to a fore end bedding problem. In the next week I will do everything Steve told me to do and see how it works. If you look at the target above, my first few shots made a very small group. However, the succeeding targets got worse and worse.

My main purpose in building this rifle was to shoot it in matches. It looks like I have a lot more work to go.

This is the high wall Steve Durren was shooting in the match Sunday. I've been collecting custom rifles since I got out of college and this is simply the best custom high wall I've ever seen. It's hard to get the lines of a high wall just right and this one is perfect. It has wonderful wood and elegant engraving... truly a gun to lust for. From what I saw Sunday, it also shoots.

This is the only picture I have of this gun. If I had more brains, I would have taken my camera with me.

FWIW the firing order on this target was two in the sighter bull, then target 5, 4 and 1, 2 and three. The first shots would have made an excellent group, especially for a 8-1/4 lb. rifle with an 8X scope. I honestly think that, when I get the fore end inletted perfectly, iit will shoot much better than any No. 1 I've ever had.

Dick, that is certainly a beautiful high wall. If you were beginning all over again, would you stay with a #1 or would you investigate a Low Wall for your 222?

Beautiful rifle and good shooting.

I see you have a Kepplinger trigger; have you tried shooting the rifle with the trigger set, and unset? I find that sometimes, some of my rifles shoot just as well, if not better when unset. Hard to figure, but may relate to the increased lock time and "bump" of the trigger when set.

Also, did you put a lighter "speed hammer" in the rifle? This will almost certainly shrink groups a bit, and certainly won't hurt your group size.

I'll defer to Steve Durren on the fore-end inletting advice. I'm sure he mentioned that the amount of pressure/contact at the fore-end/receiver face can be critical. A few thousands space between the fore-end and lower receiver "extension" can often solve a lot of frustrating flyer issues.

Good luck. A rifle of that quality in 222 Rem. should be shooting X's on a regular basis. ;-)

I've tried stocking a couple of high and low walls with poor results. The angle at which the grip comes down from the reciever has always thrown me a curve. I've never been able to make it look just right. I literally sold both projects to some one else, unfinished, who was less fussy than I, and they finished them up. That's why I like Steve's gun so much... he made it come out perfectly.

The Kepplinger trigger is set at a nice, crispy 2 lbs. (unset) and works well. However, this gun's purpose in life is match shooting and the few oz. set trigger works better. This is my 41st year of benchrest competition, mostly spent using 1-1/2 oz. Jewell triggers all summer long. I've had real problems getting my deer rifle, another No. 1, to fire (muscle memory) when it had the factory trigger and, eventually, I replaced it with a Kepplinger.

Steve gave me a list of things to try when I saw him Sunday and I will follow it exactly. If I'm not happy when done I will give the gun to Steve this winter so he can work his magic doing things I'm not capable of doing... like lightening the hammer. I have no machinery at all and do everything by hand... that is, unless you count a Dremel and a stand grinder.

Generally, I'm very happy with the way this rifle turned out. I've shot some really small groups with it out of a cold barrel. But, when it heats up, it starts to throw shots all over the place. I need to be able to shoot eight or ten shots accurately and, half an hour later, shoot another ten with no lose of accuracy. We do this five times in our matches and, so far, each succeeding group gets bigger.