Since I did not get to go on my three week deer hunting trip this year to east NC because Mathew flooded out my hunting land I spent my vacation time doing some work around the house and doing some load work up and shooting of some of my rifles.
I did a lot of work with the 8x57JS and a couple of my rifles that have not really shot all that well with some of the limited time and load development I had done with them in the past. The rifles are a FN made 1938 Mauser and a M48A Yugoicon Mauser. Upon close examination both needed work on the crown of the muzzle. I chucked a round head brass bolt in my drill and used some valve grinding compound and quickly fixed the bad crowns. Since I had a bunch of IMR 4895 powder I decided to work with it with Sierra 175 gr bullets because I learned previously these rifles seem to like heavy bullets best. I started with 46 grs and went up to 47.5 grs with .5 gr increase loading five rounds each in Remington cases with CCI200 primers. I had to settle with an COAL of 3.040. The FN has a short throat. With doing the split neck case with a bullet just started in the neck and running in the chamber and closing the bolt the COAL was 3.050 with the 175 Sierra so I seated the bullet ten thousands off the lands. The M48A has a much longer throat but I decided to just load one length for both to see what happens. Best load was 47.5 grs IMR 4895 and both rifles shot great. 100 yards open sights and my 59 year old eyes both shot between 1 1/2 to 1 3/4" five shot groups. Next day I went to the range again and confirmed the accuracy of this load.
I also did another load test and found that 47 grs WW748 Rem case CCI 200 and 195 gr Hornady COAL 2.970 shoots about 1/4" better groups than the 175 Sierra load did. I had added taller front sights to both rifles and now I have to go to the range and shoot and file on the sights to get my POA to where the POI is. Both rifles shoot low with the tall sight.
Next up was my cousins rifle. It is a Spanish 43 Mauser that his father gave him 45 years ago as his first deer rifle. It had been sported by really thinning down the original stock and cutting the forearm back. He decided that he wanted to start deer hunting after a number of years not hunting and had some so called "gunsmith" drill and tap for scope mounts and put on a Timney trigger and scope compatible safety leaver. Thank-goodness he used a Leupold base because he drilled a little off square but with the rear ring screws I could get things lined up OK. My cousin called and said that he could not get the rifle zeroed and asked for my help went and got the rifle brought it home and went to work. First off the bore looked pretty bad. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and let it sit with Kroil oil in it over night and ended up with pretty strong rifling but frosty grooves. I had doubts that I would be able to hit a barn door with it. I re-crowned the muzzle. Found that the scope base was loose and had not been lock-tighted. I put blue lock-tight on the screws and got it tight. Remounted the scope. It was a Bushnell Trophy his son bought for him. I free floated the barrel in the stock. I loaded up some of the above 175 Sierra load only changing the COAL to 3.100 because this rifle has a long throat. I went to the range and found that the scope would not move right to left. Came home took the scope off and put a old Tasco Euro Class 30mm tube 3-12x56 scope that I knew was good on it. Loaded up the cases that I had shot and went back to the range. Rifle sighted right in and blew me a way at the accuracy. It shot 5 shots into 1 1/4" at 100 yards. God enough for him to hunt with in the mountains of TN where a long shot will be 50 yards. I loaded up 40 rounds of ammo and took the rifle to my cousin and gave it to him saying "Happy Birthday" which is next week. He was blown away. That scope just looked at home on that rifle. Reminded me of the way the Germanicon sniper's rifle looked in Enemy at the Gates.
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