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New PRS game with Rimfire


BrianK

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It's been awhile since I've been here. I have no idea what happened, maybe I got caught in a wormhole or something. But I'm back now. 

Rebuilt my Charger Takedown SBR and it's one heck of a tackdriver now. Due to ATFs unConstitutional arm brace FUBAR I put a removed one on the SBR and that made it 8 ounces lighter and 4# 8ozs. It works even better for Steel Challenge. What does this have to do with PRS? Be patient Grasshopper.  

So I have been kicking around the idea of Rimfire PRS since spectating a match awhile back. I don't want to buy a new rifle so what do I have in the safe that will work? There is that rebuilt Charger; It's certainly accurate enough and the 9" barrel will allow some supersonic ammo to be subsonic opening more choices for ammo selection. Too, the FFP PRS scope will fit onto the rail easily. Then there is the pre-'74 T-Bolt that I bought 50 years ago. It's accurate enough but has a 3/8" dovetail and not a rail for a modern FFP PRS scope. But I found adapters and ordered 3 to choose from. 

I'm going to try to shorten this story. Wish me luck. I lived it and it was anything but short.

If I was going to use the T-Bolt I was going to need more 10 round mags so I ordered a few. I compared them to the OEM mag and they had a tab built in that was not there on the 50 year old mags I had in hand. I filed that away on the grey matter. 

I did my researchj into PRS scopes and was about to drop the hammer on an Arkon SH5 5-25. My budget was near $500 but I could stretch a bit. Before I bought the Arkon I got an email from Brownells and they had their $1k scope on sale, with another 10% off ('cause I'm either a really deserving gent, or I had a promo code) Ot came in close enough to my budget. It had the features I wanted so I bought one. Nice scope BTW. 

I tried it with an Arkon one piece mount on the T-Bolt first but got lots of ejection malfunctions with the 3/8" dovetail to rail adapter in place. That's just not going to work, so I tried it on the Charger SBR. OK, it looked really strange, but it worked fine. I was deciding on using it for PRS. Then I realized that I really like Steel Challenge and PRS is a lark that no one even runs matches for locally. Putting my SC sight on the SBR wasn't going to be an issue 'cause it returns to zero close enough, but to put the PRS scope back on and zero was going to require a trip to the range. That definitely could be a problem in finding the time. OK, the SBR was out as the PRS rifle. That left the T-Bolt. I tried a bunch of things to get ejection right finally deciding to modify the adapter and use rings instead of the one piece mount and unaltered adapter. That was better but still not right. So I dropped back and thought some more. The tab on the mags came back to me. I had looked at it when the ejection issue first showed itself but it didn't appear to be the problem. I looked at it again and thought the same thing... couldn't be the mags. But that tab worked to eject the brass 1/4" ahead of the ejector built into the rifle. I figured I had not much to lose to remove the tab from the mag and try that. Ejection sure appears to be flawless once that was done. Before the ejection was haphazard with some going up into the scope. Now they stay in a horizontal plane out to the right. I modified all of the magazines that had the "improved" tab. 

Now I need to sight it in, decide on ammo, figure out my come ups, and get involved. My once lithe and nice handling T-Bolt is now a much more massive rifle, the Charger is still my Steel Challenge rifle but it also assumed a new role of being the new Verminator with a lever type QD mount system for the scope. The scope returns to zero close enough for verminator status and the red dot I use for SC always had a QD lever mount and always returned to zero close enough for SC. 

It's been 4 decades since I did any shooting out to 300 yards and that with a .308 Win. Now I'll be doing it with rimfire. It'll be a challenge and if it was easy it wouldn't be fun. I expect it to be fun to learn to read wind and dial in come ups. 

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Here's the SBR looking sorta "normal" by adding a can to the barrel. Adding the sunshade and the can also helped give it some muzzle weight. 

[url=https://postimages.org/][img]https://i.postimg.cc/gk5JZRC5/Charger-PRS-small.jpg[/img][/url]

And the 50 year old T-Bolt. The 50 year old scope that came off of it is above the new one. It's also seen here in the one piece mount.

[url=https://postimages.org/][img]https://i.postimg.cc/t4C5NJFt/Browning-T-Bolt-w-MPO-small.jpg[/img][/url]

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  • 11 months later...

Pix... For what they're worth. The T-Bolt has been sold 'cause I couldn't get it to eject without an unacceptable # of malfunctions. 

The SBR is still in the safe because it's my steel challenge rifle. But here they are as they were tested for PRS.

Charger-PRS-small.jpg

Browning-T-Bolt-w-MPO-small.jpg

They are no longer being considered for PRS. Instead I bought a new rifle that's more suited to the game. 

At this link: 

 

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  • 3 months later...

So where am I with this rimfire PRS?

I'll start by stating that aging sux. There was a time when I was superman (or so I thought) and indestructible. That was over half a century ago. Things have changed. The first to go was the eyes. I've worn glasses since the 3rd grade, but at 40ish I realized that I required optics on my firearms for any meaningful accuracy work. But what about PRS? I was shooting the KIDD at 50 yards and that target butt is shaded. No issues. But the 100 yard target  is in direct sunlight. My scope is bright and something was going on with my vision. I noticed it at first with shooting steel challenge. My left eye wanted to take over for the right eye, and that doesn't work. So I closed it, the right eye did it's thing and that did work. But until I figured that out I had issues. But back to PRS at 100 yards. Really funky stuff going on with the right eye behind the scope. I went to my eye Dr and she told me that I have cataracts in both eyes. Yeah, lucky me. But she also told me that it wasn't bad enough to require surgery just then. But in the meantime I'm deadlined as far as shooting PRS if it's sunny. Next time I see the Dr I'm going to push to correct the cataracts. 

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15 hours ago, shooterrex said:

One of the best things I've done is have my cataracts fixed.

I hear that unanimously from everyone who had it done. 

Armed Eye Doc, I think I can convince her to allow it if I tell her that it's interfering with my life. Which it is. It also softens the vision and I have a hard time with road signs and such. I'm also an amateur astronomer and live where I do because of the dark skies. But unless it's a very bright object I can't see it naked eye. 

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