a4 sporter?

[ssgross]

Goal for today was to lap lugs and cams. Turns out Bubba did a fine job, 100% of my layout fluid was rubbed off the lugs without any lapping! All I had to do was clean the dried grease out of the bolt and it moves buttery smooth. Bubba even lapped the extractor ring, and the extractor rotates freely with just gravity. It's the smoothest turning 1903 bolt I have ever felt. So, I spent the day instead swapping out the aftermarket buehler safety lever for a real one, which needed polished and blued to match the collar. So I did that. Then, I reamed the chamber. I'm always surprised at how little it takes to get the bolt to close once it starts. Once the bolt starts to turn, it only takes about 3-5 turns (6-10 half turns with a t-handle) to get it to close all the way.

Can't see the original "before" pics anymore, but it came with a straight cocking rod - no knob. I'm reading that these were put on national match rifles? Does anyone have one for comparison? Mine could just have had the knob cut off. I dunno. I had a spare a3 rod in my parts bin to replace it with.

So I think that's it! I should be ready to assemble everything and shoot! I have some cosmetic work to do still, like polish and blue the bolt, but I won't let that stop me from putting some rounds down range.

[ssgross]

Well, we did it again! What a great shooter this turned out to be!

I laser sighted in my shop with one of those Wheeler things that has a a large magnet. A week later at the range, this wasn't even on paper at 25 yards. I dunno what happened. So, after 10 fouling rounds of speculation, I pulled the bolt out, double checked mechanical zero on the knobs, and looked down the bore to see how far off the crosshairs were. Easy peasy, got on paper.

Then my boy and I each shot a 5 round groups at 25 and 50 yards. None of these were impressive. The best 25yd group was 2inches, and the worst was a randomly peppered 5 inches. My heart sank as the target came back to the bench. Had I built a dud? The 50 yd groups were much the same.

I wholly expected only half or less of our rounds to hit paper at 100yds. The 12yr old went first putting 5 shots in a 3 inch group at the top half of the aiming black. I grinned at him...his 100 yd group was better than one of mine at 25yds. I gave it a few clicks down, and shot the above group. The target camera wasn't working. On the third shot I gave a "s&^* d&**^" as soon as the rifle discharged - and called my shot left. Sure enough. I couldn't believe it when the target came back. The target is an SR2, scaled down for 100yds. The grid is 1/4 inch squares. The grey bull is easier to see shots on, and the white X ring helps to see the crosshairs in the low-light of the indoor range.

My barrel was NOS, in the wrapped with bore full of cosmoline. I know a barrel is bound to produce sub-par results when brand knew and not broken in, but this was the worst I've experienced, ever. I took a pic before cleaning after the range. I expected to find pitting filled up with copper, given it's initial performance. I found just a little copper, smooth grooves, and uniform tool marks down the lands.

My guess is it took those first 30 rounds at 25 and 50 yds to smooth over all the tiny burrs from the tooling. Whatever it was...it's perfect now.

[Riter]

Almost bought one once but then Saving Private Ryan came out and then the price shot up.