Last nite I cleaned everything sparkling clean (I thought) but didn't lap the barrel or polish the chamber. Even so, I couldn't resist the range today.
The scope had been bore sighted yesterday when I bought the rig, so I first shot a 5 shot group at 25 yards. All five touching about 2" high and some right. Adjusted left and sent five more, and got 4.5 holes all touching and about 2" high and centered.
Moved to 100 yard table and set up. Wind was blowing hard, hard mostly from behind (from the south) but with some hard gusts from the west also.
At 100 yards the holes were 5" left and about 6" high. The spread was about 2" at that time and it got no better as I adjusted down and nearer center. And that's all I got done today.
Having shot only MLs for the past 8 years I had forgotten how much fun (and how much easier) a centerfire can be.
The big surprise was when I sat down to clean the barrel tonight. I did not get all the gunk out of the bore (even though the patches were coming out clean) yesterday and didn't help matters any by shooting today. I have now used brake cleaner and solvent patches for the past hour and have been through 100 patches so far. Twice I have used some black-powder solvent on the patches and that produced a black tarlike gunk on the patch. The patches are now coming out clean. I am now going to coat the bore well with Kleen-Bore Formula 3 and let it soak overnight.
The outside of the barrel is still sluffing off that red/brown stuff so I am coating the outside as well. After it soaks overnight, I think it will come clean.
Absolutely no problems with the extractor (new style) and no problems with the action popping open when fired.
As I was leaving, a guy was setting up on the 25 yard line with a synthetic stocked Handi, but I didn't get to talk to him, since he was downrange putting up his target.
