Dan here at UltiMAK put a new trigger on his Mosin, and since the snow has been out of the hills long enough to let the ground firm up, we had to get out to a favorite spot and try it.
Dan hit an aerial clay with the Mosin on his fifth shot, so I had a go at the clays with an M1 30 Carbine. I did poorly – only three hits in about 40 rounds, whereas at time I’ve made 20% or better, which would have been 8 hits On the 500ish yard targets, using a Rem 700 .308, I did a bit better, after some confusion over yards and meters. My cold clean bore first shot was a near miss on a gallon jug. Second shot was a hit, and by the third shot I felt it was not a matter of whether, but where I could hit the target. The jugs don’t explode from the .308 fire at 500 yards like they do closer in, so I got to hit the same one twice.
Lessons learned were; 1. My Remington 700 trigger sucked as delivered, compared to Dan’s new Timney. 2. As a shooter/spotter team we suck at communication. This happened at Boomershoot too– spotter on one target, shooter on another, and after many words thrown this way and that. Very frustrating, and a waste of time and ammo. We made a pact to fix that. 3. My rangefinder is not adequate beyond 400 or 500 yards, depending on conditions, and that is not acceptable. I guess I know where my next 500 or so bucks are going. 4. See, I’m doing it right here– talking in yards, when I was in fact ranging in meters, because my scopes are BDC graduated in meters. That’s been a source of confusion in the past, as I was accustomed to ranging in yards. This time, I was ranging in meters, but still doing the corrections from yards to meters out of habit. That of course wasted more time and ammo. I seem to recall NASA (or was it JPL?) having a similar problem with a Mars probe that made an expensive crater instead of a soft landing. OK. Got it now. Reading in meters, BDCing in meters. No conversions. 5. I don’t know how you can dope the wind when you’re shooting across a very deep ravine. Surface clues aren’t necessarily applicable. Come to think of it, I’m a lousy wind doper anyway. Must fix that too.
I found out only recently that Timney uses the Remington trigger design, which means I could have adjusted my 700’s trigger a long time ago. I knew the Timneys were adjustable for weight, engagement, and overtravel. I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t taken apart my Remington strictly for the purpose of understanding every aspect of its design, as I’ve done with my other guns. That means that only as of yesterday do I have a decent trigger after using this rifle, on occasion, for several years. Much better now. JEP (Joe’s Evil Plan) marches on. We have to get right back out there very soon.
