pm me your address and I will send you the hood I took off mine.
I didn't like the hood on with my scope.
Sure thing, thanks a ton!
I did manage to find some screws in my can o' screws that are a perfect fit for the scope rings and pulled the scope back just a tad when I replaced them. I think I have just enough clearance to install a rear sight now, so I'll be getting one of those ordered soon. They're star key screws. I keep a screw driver set in my range bags and it has a tip of the right size.
I'm having a mag issue. Very, very hard to seat the rounds to the rear of the mag. Ridiculously difficult. I can load three rounds on average, sometimes 4 if I'm lucky, managed to load 5 a few times. It does make a big difference between using the lacquer coated steel cased ammo and the brass cased stuff. The brass loads a bit easier, but I still had a lot of trouble loading 5. Ended up just sticking with 4 rounds in the mag.
But something that seems strange to me about it is, when cycling the bolt, the front of the rounds try to jump up when I pull the bolt rearward, which doesn't allow the bolt to catch the next round. I had to make a routine of pulling the bolt to the rear, then poke down on the front of the next round with my finger, then pushing the bolt forward. Also, the front of the follower tried to jump out numerous times when loading the first round.
Anyone have any advice on this? The magazine is assembled as shown in this diagram:
Overall, had a good range trip yesterday and have fallen in love with this little rifle!
Here's a 100 yard target, sandbag rest. One of the rare occasions I managed to get 5 steel cased rounds into the mag. Just so happened to be right as I'd gotten familiar with the rifle and the scope zeroed in as well as I felt I could get it at the moment.
I was going for a 5 shot group at the center bull, but threw that flyer to the right. I had the audacity to barely touch that set trigger before I'd lined up the shot, setting off a string of profanity. I felt I was doing pretty good at that distance with that ammo, so I switched to the brass cased Federal American Eagle I picked up on the way to the range and shot that group to the lower right.
I believe I can tighten it up more. I rarely practice real marksmanship with a rifle these days, mostly I stick to my handguns. Actually, I haven't really sat down and shot at 100 yards in a few years. I managed to get a few more 1" groups, but after a while my shoulder began to get tired and the barrel was getting warm and dirty, so I knocked off when they started to open back up. Fired a total of 75 rounds.
I'll try out some Federal Fusion, Winchester soft point, and Geco soft point on my next range trip, try to tighten those groups and move them a touch to the right, then see what happens at 200 yards. That's the max at my range and double the max distance I expect to actually shoot in the field around here.
Side note: my 19 year old stepson has NEVER attempted any sort of marksmanship shooting. Just casual plinking with my AK and the S&W 642 I gave him last year.
I explained the magazine issue to him and left him alone while I took my youngest over to the rimfire side with his 22. When I came back, I found he'd embarrassed the hell out of the gamer boys shooting "patterns" with their scoped ARs at 25 and 50 yards. Made one of them mad, accused him of being a professional and showing off, trying to make him look bad in front of his girlfriend.
His response? "You think my 4" groups make you look bad? You should have been here when my dad was shooting." That guy in particular was lucky to hit the range's pie targets at 50 yards. I'm highly disappointed in some young folks' idea of "accuracy" these days. I started the day next to an old man putting a 8" groups on paper at 200 yards with a beat up old M1 carbine, with irons.
TL:DR, good range trip, had some mag trouble.
