August 2007 - Posts

• Remington X-Mark Pro

  Remington has announced their new trigger the X-Mark Pro. Finding a trigger that releases clean and crisp on a factory hunting rifle is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Most factory triggers are around the 6 pound plus side. The main reason is Liability. After getting sued numerous times the factory’s are nervous and do not want the average Joe playing with their trigger and for good reason. I have seen triggers come in here that had been adjusted by the customer that were totally unsafe to use. They would either slam fire or bounce fire because of not enough engagement of the sear. I have made it known to my customers if the gun is a Remington and the trigger has been tweaked it will be set back to factory standards and re-sealed when it goes out and all other brands will be safe also. In fact most factory triggers especially the Remington was not designed to go lower than 3 pound pull. Once you get lower than that the sear may not return to battery and when the bolt is closed…. wham. So, when I see the introduction of a new factory trigger it gets my attention. What I don’t want to see is the throw away trigger. What I mean by that is there is NO adjustment and you get what the factory sets up as the standard and it has NO external adjustment. Remington says that this trigger has a adjustable pull weight and has a nice clean crisp release and no creep. If all of this is true it will be a welcome addition to the Remington line. Posted Aug 30 2007, 09:07 PM by Stan Ware with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Triggers

• Savage F Class Rifles

  Savage is a leader in the industry in rolling out the new models with innovative features. Some of the key new models that are driving sales for 2007 are featured here. Savage has introduced two competition rifles for 2007……. the 12F class and the 12F/TR class models. Both guns are designed for competing in events out to 1,000 yards. The F Class rifle is chambered in 6.5×284 and the F/TR rifle is chambered in .308 Both models utilize Savage’s new target action with the smaller port and have the new 6 oz. adjustable Target Accu-Trigger. These rifles both feature a 30 inch extra-heavy barrel for additional velocity. Savage is the only manufacturer currently to offer F Class target rifles.   Laminated flat bottomed stock with extra-wide ventilated forend Target AccuTrigger adjustable from 6 oz. to 2 ½ lbs Right bolt, right port short action receiver Smaller ejection port for extra rigidity 30″ Extra-heavy stainless barrel Chambered in 6.5 X 284 NORMA MSRP $1211 In my humble opinion these new offerings from Savage are going to set the standard for the rest of the manufacturers. As I have not seen any of the guns in my shop as of yet it would be interesting to hear from readers how they shoot and the quality of the product. If anyone has a F Class or a new rifle such as model 10, Model 12 Long Range Precision or any rifle that has been introduced in 2007 let us know how the bedding is (if any) and other features that catch your eye. Posted Aug 26 2007, 01:08 PM by Stan Ware with 2 comment(s) Filed under: New Rifles for 2007

• Savage Target Actions

  Savage is offering Actions for the first time. Their Target actions with the smaller port and the 6 Oz. adjustable Accu-Trigger are available either a right bolt/left port or right bolt/ right port configuration. Gunsmiths can now build custom rifles with the inherently accurate Savage Action. I am not sure what took the manufacturers so long with this offering but I say….. its about time. Savage in the last 5 years or so has made tremendous improvements in their rifle dept. One must say that the Accu-Trigger is a Godsend in the world of factory triggers where 6 pound pull is the norm and for every third employee that they hire they hire a Lawyer. The floating bolt head in my opinion does wonders for lug engagement. All this combined with a decent barrel and I am not sure if they are using button rifling or hammer forged barrels. I have been trying to find out to no avail but will keep trying. Maybe some of you out there know and can reply. They are also improving the stock dept. and offer some in laminates and carbon fiber. One thing for sure, they are making Remington, Browning and Ruger stand up and take notice. For many years if you owned a Savage people looked down their nose at you…… that is all changing and I believe for the better. All these improvements are the reason why Savage is a shooter right out of the box. I see lots of potential in Custom Dept. and without a doubt I will bet there are a few shooting bench rest with one.     rel="attachment wp-att-63"> Posted Aug 24 2007, 07:46 PM by Stan Ware with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Actions

• Dumb Crook

  A man wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote, “This is a stickkup. Put all you muny in this bag,” on a deposit slip. While standing in line waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells Fargo Bank. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed the note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it, and surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn’t the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stick-up note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to the Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, “OK,” and left the Wells Fargo Bank. The teller then called the police who arrested the man a few minutes later. He was waiting in line back at the Bank of America. Posted Aug 23 2007, 10:01 AM by Stan Ware with no comments

• Lead Free Ammo ?

  One thing that has been on my mind for some time is the lead free bullets. Back in the 1980’s the USFWS determined that the lead was killing the California Condor and not too long afterward introduced a ban on Lead shot . What is Lead free ammo….. well checking out a few sites most would agree that bullets are made of lead but they are totally enclosed with a copper jacket which prevents the high temperature from vaporizing the exposed lead at the back of the bullet. A little deceiving if I say so myself. Actually non-lead bullets of as good or better than lead are available now. “Without a doubt, the lead free bullets I use when hunting have performed better ballistically than the lead bullets I use to use, ” says hunter Anthony Prieto , a founder of Project Gutpile, a volunteer organization the educates hunters about the impact of lead ammo. Actually, lead free ammo is now available now. If I am not mistaken Black Hills of South Dakota is making “Green Ammo” now. Also the US military is exploring a conversion to lead-free bullets, which promises to spur development of alternative ammo and lower the price. Will we see Lead Free ammo in the Bench-Rest world ? Hard to say……. When I was a kid people looked down at their nose at re-loads and the hand loaded ammo was nowhere as good as Store bought. Well, things have changed since then. My belief is that because of hand made bullets and bench-rest reloaders the manufacturers are improving their ammo because sales are down and in the last 4 to 5 years finally realized the hand loaders and bullet makers knew what they were doing. Consequently you are seeing improved loads by all the larger manufacturers which are more “tuned” than the older ammo. I would imagine if the “Tree Huggers” have they’re way we will be using lead free bullets soon. This will trigger many other things depending on what material is used. One industry that will be affected will be the barrel makers . Also, primers will have to be lead free. I believe they are close to that now. One thing for sure…… change is on the horizon. Stan Posted Aug 22 2007, 08:58 PM by Stan Ware with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Ammo/Bullets

• Custom Rifle Stock Painting

  Susan Ware writes: I have extended my artistic offerings and am introducing a new service. I am now doing custom airbrush and hand painting on a variety of items. I am doing gunstocks, motorcycle, snowmobile, and baseball helmets, and similar items. I will do scenery, or animals, your company logo, or whatever you would like painted on your item. We apply automotive clear coat over the project to provide durable protection for it. Price estimates are available and depend on item size and degree of difficulty of design and time involved. Shown below are some of the custom rifle stocks that I have completed. Thanks very much, Susan Ware Here is a sampling of some of my works. View 1.  Close up of a soldier carrying his wounded buddy into a river to  be picked up by a helicopter. There are Viet Cong across the river who were firing on the soldiers, and the helicopter has just taken them out.  I tried to contrast the tropical beauty of the place, and compassion and selflessness of a buddy, with the ugliness and violence of the situation in this segment. View 2.  Close up of the Vietnam Memorial Wall with the U.S. Flag and Eagle above it. There is an older man visiting the wall and he is overcome with the memories of having served in this war and lost so many friends. In the reflection in the wall, we see his “younger self”, who is seeing the anguish of the older man and reaching out to him also. Behind him flies the POW- MIA flag to remind us to never forget all of those in all wars who never were accounted for and whose fate we never really knew. View 3.  This full view of the soldier scene side of the gun, shows the helicopter rescue scene, and a village across the way in the hills, some mountains, and the words Viet Nam, 1965 - 1966, which are the years the owner served in Viet Nam. You will also notice the barrel and action of the gun are painted  and the barrel has barbed wire painted in a spiral pattern the length of it, to represent a substance that was used in many ways, with miles and miles of it being strung in that country, for all purposes, good and bad. View 4.  A full view of the Vietnam Memorial Wall side of the gun. This side shows the U.S. Flag, an Eagle, An older man visiting the wall, and his younger reflection in the wall, the POW Flag, and the quote, “War is a tragedy, it takes man’s best, to do man’s worst”.  This saying has a story behind it. Before leaving Viet Nam, the owner went down to the village to buy souviners to bring home. One of the things he bought was a metal Zippo cigarette lighter. The old Vietnamese man selling it, asked him what he wanted engraved on it.  He told the old merchant to write whatever he thought would be appropriate. And this is what he engraved on it. It is a statement so simple and so very true, then and now. For more of Susan's work or to contact her, stop by her site.  Posted Aug 22 2007, 05:48 PM by Stan Ware Filed under: Custom Stock Painting

• CT Senate Passes Bill Penalizing Gun Owners

  In a ostensible effort to reduce the volume of stolen firearms used in crimes, senate members in the constitution State voted 24-11 to adopt a law the make it a crime for lawful gun owners in the state to fail to report the loss or theft of a gun within 72 hours of the event. A first time offender would be subject to a fine of $90.00 , but a repeat offender could spend as much time as 10 years in prison. Now that makes lot of sense doesn’t it ? Here you are a victim of a robbery and suddenly you could become the criminal for not reporting it. A Majority leader Martin Looney who is a big proponent of bill introduced it this year…… I personally think the bill should be named after the Senator……. LOONEY. Not to be outdone I see New Jersey is thinking of doing the same. Where do they find these guys ? My daddy always said ” Politicians are like bananas. They come in bunches…… first they are green…… then they turn yellow and the next thing you know they are rotten.” He didn’t miss it too far. Stan Posted Aug 21 2007, 09:07 PM by Stan Ware with no comments Filed under: News of Interest

• Case Annealing

  I chose annealing because I believe it is important for many reasons and in asking around lately at shoots and I was surprised how many people who do not or do it incorrectly. Annealing is a process which changes the internal structure so the metal becomes softer. Sounds easy enough. As a smith I have made some flat springs and hardened them and then tempered them. This is a completely different process and not to be confused with annealing brass. Dipping hot steel in a salt quench hardens it in general and when applied to brass it softens it. Of course one needs to know at what temp and how often. Lets start with a couple of methods I am sure you have heard of or tried. One being a pan of water that just covers about 1/3 of the bottom of the case . You heat the neck with the heat source until the brass starts to turn or glow and then you tip the case over and quench it in the water. The other being a lead pot with lead at the desirable temp and then dip the case mouth into the pot. I have tried this method and found that the lead likes to “weld” to the brass sometimes and holding the case is almost impossible with your fingers. Another method is a special circular tip that is added to you bernzomatic torch and lowered over the neck of the case until the desired temp is attained and then tipped over in the water much like the first plan I explained. Looking at what the manufactures do in making brass is interesting. It basically starts out as a flat piece of copper and ends up a cartridge. It goes thru many steps before becoming a case. One thing is for sure it is annealed about seven times during the process and to keep the brass soft and workable. If it were not annealed it could not be formed in the radical shoulders and tapers without cracking. First lets see what dictates why we anneal. First thing the brass flows some as it is fired and with some hot loads becomes hard and by hard I mean the brass work hardens from squeezing it down and and then firing it again and the end result is split necks. One thing that does help is turned necks that are concentric and bushing dies that do not squeeze the brass and does not work it as hard. (ie) if its expanded less and squeezed less you are better off. Each time the brass is squeeze back it adds to the work hardness and the only cure that I know is annealing. At what temp ? Well, with brass nothing happens until around the 500 degrees area. Brass is completely annealed at around 600 degrees for one hour. Remember the lead pot ? lead melts at 625 approx. and one can see why the lead pot trick is a shot in the dark. At 662 degrees the brass structure has completely changed. I use the Ken Light annealer which heats them to about 750 to 800 degrees for a shorter time and will do the same thing as the longer time at around 600 degrees. One thing to remember here we are NOT trying to make the brass so soft that when it is slightly squeezed that it stays in that condition but we want it to spring back to where it starts out as. One can preform this act on the neck and it should come back to being round again or its too soft. Take a look at new LAPUA brass and the bluish and dulled color that it is. That is what you want to try to copy. Yours may or may not be as pronounced but will get more color with time. When to anneal depends on a few things. How hot your loads are, How many times you shoot them and the size of your chamber…. loose chamber means more working of the brass. Obviously if your shooting hot loads you will have to anneal more often and also the number of times you have to re-load them is also a factor. One thing you will notice is after annealing when using a hand die and seating bullets how uniform it is. Alot of shooters run into groups that enlarge and blame it on to many things. One thing…. when the brass releases the same all the way around I believe you have more consistency and that leads to better groups. Remember that accuracy is not one thing but a marriage of good bedding, good barrel, tight tolerances, good trigger, follow thru, etc… etc. I believe annealing is also in that category. Don’t forget when making new brass and fireforming that when you have completed the job that annealing them before starting to fire them is a good idea because you have set up alot of stress. Especially if your making and pushing brass around like a 30X47 out of 308 Winchester brass. You will be amazed how brittle and hard it has become from your pushing back and expanding and shrinking it. We do welcome other opinions and comments. Feel free to post replys here. We are also looking for comments on anything you would like to see. So, those of you on the chat board save some of your opinions for the reply to the blogs. Posted Aug 19 2007, 03:41 PM by Stan Ware with no comments Filed under: Accuracy