Project Appleseed

[xl_target]

Haji, Dev, Baljit, rraju,

Thanks for commenting. It was a lot of fun.

Baljit,
It's great to see that this organization encourages whole families to attend. There were a few young kids there.


Here the three youngest members received a special patch for attending.

[prashantsingh]

Lovely report xl.
Looks like you guys had a lovely time.

[xl_target]

I just wanted to update the status of this thread.

Today I got a call from my FFL dealer and he said he had received a package in for me. So I went out there and here is what I found:




On opening the box, I found:


A bright shiny brand new receiver, straight off the factory floor.

Not many companies provide this kind of service to their customers, anymore.

[Mark]

Thanks for the update, it is quite nice when a US company cares about the customers!

[xl_target]

Thanks for the update, it is quite nice when a US company cares about the customers!

You and I would be more than happy with service like that. I was on the Ruger forums and some guy sent a 50 year old Ruger 10/22 in to Ruger and asked them to restore it. They did it for free; re-bluing the barrel and replacing the stock, the trigger assembly and the barrel band with brand new parts. They even paid the shipping both ways!!!
Guess what? He's whining that they didn't re-anodize his old parts and send them back to him. Foreget that they haven't used anodizing on their 10/22 parts for over 30 years. I swear some people here have become so entitlement minded that they will whine and cry even when someone does something nice for them, for free.

Here is the thread.:
http://rugerforum.net/ruger-10-22-rimfi ... cting.html

[xl_target]

Well, Last weekend (Sept 15 & 16), I went back to another Appleseed meet at the same place.
It was another windy weekend. It's hard to find a day on the prairie when it's not windy but at least it was not raining.
On Sunday afternoon, everything fell into place and my AQT's started qualifying for Rifleman. Four people earned the rifleman patch during the weekend; three guys and a young lady.




Here I am with my Rifleman patch and one of my qualifying AQT's.


Some of the younger shooters with the instructor. The young lady on the right also won her Rifleman patch

Today, I feel like I have been in a brawl and come out on the losing end but there is a warm glow accompanying it. Though I could never consider my self in the same category as a traditional military rifleman of days gone by, having the appelation of "rifleman" bestowed upon me makes me guilty of one of the seven deadly sins; pride. So, even though I am sore all over, I'm ecstatic to have earned the patch, especially since it was a lot of work.

I'm already planning to go to a winter meet so I can earn the icicle patch.



http://www.appleseedinfo.org/winterseed.html

[feedramp]

xl_target,
Is that the same 10/22 that gave good groups after all these years in out of box condition? You posted about it in rimfirecentral.

[xl_target]

xl_target,
Is that the same 10/22 that gave good groups after all these years in out of box condition? You posted about it in rimfirecentral.

I had that rifle along with me but there was a lady who needed a rifle so I let her use it. I used my replacement rifle for this shoot, even though it doesn't group as well as the older one. The difference between the two is marginal.

[xl_target]

Additional photos of the meet are posted HERE

[timmy]

XL: Let me get this straight: your old 10/22 shoots better than your new 10/22 (marginally, I guess?). So, they shipped you a new receiver, you installed the barrel into it, buttoned it all up, and then it still shot better than your new one?

If that is the case, it seems to reflect what I've read and heard: the accuracy of the 10/22 and 22 rifles in general depend on how the chamber is cut, and the accuracy of the rifle depends on the luck of the draw, regarding the condition of the chamber reamer on the assembly line.

I think that this also speaks very well of Ruger's system of retaining the barrel with V blocks. In many guns (the SKS, for instance), there are versions with the barrels shrink-fitted and pinned to the receiver and ones where the barrel is threaded. Most of us gun nuts prefer or even demand the threaded barrel, feeling that there is something inherently less capable with a press/pinned/clamped barrel to receiver system.

At least the way Ruger does it, this is apparently not the case at all!

Would that be how you interpret your experience?

Regarding:

Guess what? He's whining that they didn't re-anodize his old parts and send them back to him. Foreget that they haven't used anodizing on their 10/22 parts for over 30 years. I swear some people here have become so entitlement minded that they will whine and cry even when someone does something nice for them, for free.

Here is what I've learned from working in retail (an experience that I did not care for at all, but a paycheck is a paycheck regardless of the size and whether one likes the work or not):

Rich or poor, fat or thin, short or tall, man or woman, there are LOTS of people one encounters in retail that have this attitude. There is no way one can categorize them as certain kinds of people. On this point, my Wife's and my experiences agree (she is still working in retail because she likes keeping busy).

Frankly, I am not at all surprised, as I have run into so many of these people while working in a store that they became an un-noteworthy event. The "load" of dealing with this sort on a regular basis is something I found somewhat cumulative, and now I'm a lot less judgmental when I get a brusque salesperson in a store. I know they may well have gotten one of these types one minute before I came to the counter.

My solution to this is that, when I become King of the United States, I will get that electrician and his generator/trailer over here that was discussed in the rhinoceros thread recently, and these whiners will be given a prompt treatment. Depending on the degree of their whining, we shall start at 250 volts and go up from there.

[xl_target]

XL: Let me get this straight: your old 10/22 shoots better than your new 10/22 (marginally, I guess?). So, they shipped you a new receiver, you installed the barrel into it, buttoned it all up, and then it still shot better than your new one?

If that is the case, it seems to reflect what I've read and heard: the accuracy of the 10/22 and 22 rifles in general depend on how the chamber is cut, and the accuracy of the rifle depends on the luck of the draw, regarding the condition of the chamber reamer on the assembly line.

I think that this also speaks very well of Ruger's system of retaining the barrel with V blocks. In many guns (the SKS, for instance), there are versions with the barrels shrink-fitted and pinned to the receiver and ones where the barrel is threaded. Most of us gun nuts prefer or even demand the threaded barrel, feeling that there is something inherently less capable with a press/pinned/clamped barrel to receiver system.

At least the way Ruger does it, this is apparently not the case at all!

Would that be how you interpret your experience?

I guess it is the luck of the draw. For example, there were complaints about the receiver on recent 10/22's. Apparently as the molds wear down, the top of the receiver starts to get a hump. When this happens a gap is visible between the supplied scope mount rail and the top of the receiver. It really seems to be cosmetic but you know how picky gun owners are. The receiver they sent me was from a brand new number series (serial number) so when I installed the scope rail it fit perfectly with no visible gap. New mold? However, the shape of the receiver is not that important unless the barrel/receiver fit is loose. There is a lot of room in the receiver for the bolt to move around. If the recoil spring were not holding it in place, it would rattle around quite a bit.

At 25 yards, the difference between the old gun and the new gun is marginal. At hundred yards, the old gun with it's little 18 inch barrel blows away even my Polish Bolt action with its 25 inch barrel. At a hundred yards, I can consistently hit a golf ball sized object by utilizing the mil dots in the scope. With a .22 LR, subject to the vagaries of the wind and the flyers typical of the caliber, this is amazing. The old gun will group under an inch at 100 yards easily, even though there is about a seven inch drop from point of aim. None of my other .22 LR guns will do that.

When I got the new receiver, the old barrel to new receiver fit was really tight. I had to use a rubber hammer to get them to mate. Then I just threw on the v-block and tightened the screws till they were snug. Next I dropped in the bolt and recoil spring into the receiver. Two pins hold on the trigger assembly. The retention screw and the barrel band hold the stock to everything else. About five minutes to reassemble everything.

How a 10/22 shoots is dependent on many things apart from the receiver/barrel fit. The evenness and tightness of the V blocks, the squareness of the mating of the bolt and chamber face, how well the firing pin is staked in the bolt (the old one has no vertical movement at all), how carefully the chamber is cut and how long the leade is; all these matter. The perfection of the crown is also important as is the fit of the barrel in the stock. The tension of the retention screw or a burr on the inside of the barrel band can throw things off too. There is also tension on the barrel at the tip of the stock. If any of these are out of whack, the gun isn't going to shoot well. Considering all that, it is amazing how they can consistently produce guns that actually shoot well. The new 10/22 will do about two inches or two and a half inches at 100 yards. Not quite minute of squirrel head but it is getting better the more I shoot it.

So you are correct, a lot depends on how carefully the barrel is made. The hammer forged barrels, which start out as a cylinder, are honed to shape and crowned. If the tooling is worn down, in any of the operations, you might get a barrel that won't shoot as well as when the tooling was new. Still there is an amazing consistency in the finished product.

[dev]

Hi Xl,

I had noticed the rifleman's badge on your id and was wondering whether you had won it. Very well done, someday when we meet I shall learn how to shoot like that from you.

Congratulations, now teach us how to shoot that well.

Regards,

Dev

[xl_target]

Hi Xl,

I had noticed the rifleman's badge on your id and was wondering whether you had won it. Very well done, someday when we meet I shall learn how to shoot like that from you.

Dev, if we meet, that's a promise.

As I found out, there is nothing innate about it.
It is a learned skill and can be taught, if you're willing to listen and learn.