SYNOPSIS
This past spring and summer of 1993 offered me the opportunity to once again own a rifle or two and pursue my long favorite recreation of trying to put five bullets into a single bullet hole.
It had been 27 years since I had competed in my last benchrest match. I'd never seen a 6MMPPC let alone fired one. Aggregates now seemed smaller than my smallest ever single group and there was seemingly a great problem with the availability of brass for this super accurate cartridge.
I also read with interest about this game by Larry Brown of San Diego called BR50 that one could shoot with a .22 rimfire rifle. The more I considered the matter, the more rimfire accuracy and BR50 intrigued me.
No recoil, no reloading, no noise(at my age and past rifle range experience there is no noise) and no particular advantage for any special cartridge, got me really interested.
I called an old acquaintance, Art Freund, as I had seen Art's name in BR50 match reports and asked what he thought of the game.
Art laughed and said,"It'll drive you crazy." But further conversation proved he was really enjoying this relatively new type of precision shooting. I also asked Art what constituted a good score and Art replied the 4000 was a good score. Boy did I learn that Art was really right.
I happened into a local pawn shop and noticed an Anshutz
54 model 1807 with a Leupold 36X scope. After several trips to
haggle with the proprietor, I purchased the rifle.
Out to the Springfleid Rifle Club Range I went with about half
the different ammunition shown on a recent cover of this magazine.
The best groups were about 1/2" but most were considerably larger.
I'd never had any more experience with .22 rimfire except as a squirrel rifle and nobody ever seemed to clean theirs so I never cleaned mine either.
For some reason I decided to work this Anshutz barrel over with a good cleaning. I found much to my surprise that this was no easy chore, and I finally resorted to the JB Bore Cleaner. Even then it took several hundred strokes and several different applications of JB to clean this bore. The results made the effort all worthwhile. Back at the range it was no trouble to shoot groups well under 1/2" with many under 1/4" as well with several different brands of ammo.
I practiced several times a week and learned that 4000 was indeed a good score on the BR50 target. I found my scores gradually creeping ever upward from around 2500 at the start.
I had observed most shooters cleaning their rimfire rifles right after the match, just like center fire bench guns. I was surprised but most of the shooters I questioned assured me you had to clean these match rifles regularly.
It was about this time that the article appeared in Precision Shooting regarding rimfire cleaning. I read it all with great interest. I found that with the Anshutz, it required 50 to 100 rounds after a good cleaning to really start to shoot well again. So I began to experiment.
After reading the article in this magazine about the new Anshutz 2007 rifle, I had to have one. So after a barreled action was acquired from Roger Richardson at Rimfire Specialties, I made the stock in a thumbhole style with a 3" wide flat bottomed forend from a pretty piece of myrtlewood. Finished weight 2 pounds.
The rifle shot good, a little bit better than the 54 Anshutz. I first fired this rifle on a Friday evening and cleaned it after firing. I followed the same procedure on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I again practiced on Wednesday and after cleaning the rifle with Hoppe's and drying the bore out, I shot ten more rounds as I knew I would not have time to fire the rifle before our match to be held the next evening.
Thursday evening I arrived at the range and began the numerous duties of a BR50 Match Director. When the match started (we hold a five minute warmup before the official match), I found my 2007 was not grouping as it had been the previous sessions. I found that the exceptional accuracy had somehow disappeared. I checked screws all over for tightness and found nothing loose. Needless to say, I did poorly in the match. Match Director duties occupied my time after the match so I did not clean the rifle until Friday afternoon.
This is where I got a real surprise. No amount of cleaning would clean this barrel. There were deposits of something from about 2" in front of the chamber to about 6" down the barrel which was as far as I could see clearly with the dandy bore scope made by Wally Siebert.
I tried every product in the gun cleaning line. Not even JB would touch this stuff, I worked for four hours and gave up. I had even tried carburetor cleaner. The next day was Saturday and I was up early and headed to a double BR50 Match at the Jefferson City Club.
When I arrived, I inquired of the shooters assembled if anyone had an idea of how to clean this rifle. Gene Atkins was there and Gene has somewhat of a reputation for this expert ability to clean dirty rifle bores as well as shoot these rim fires about as well as any competitor anywhere.
Gene, in his usual few words manner, said he'd get the damn thing clean right after the first match.
The rifle shot poorly and I placed somewhere in the bottom
half of the pack. Gene, true to his promise, began to work on
my rifle. He must have put in a good half hour. He used some Gold
Medal (now Rem-clean) and did make a slight improvement in the
bore.
I managed to place third in the second match. I still felt the
rifle have not recovered the super accurate edge it had had during
my first four times out in practice.
Again, Gene worked on the bore for another hour after the match but nothing could remove all the fouling. Subsequent data gathered from BR50 shooters in various parts of the country disclosed there was a problem with the Fiocchi ammo in some rifle barrels. Not all mind you, just some. I myself was allowed by fellow club member Bob Mosley to clean his new Anshutz model 64. He had not cleaned this barrel for the two weeks he had owned it even though he had fired it nearly every day. Bob has his own rifle range, adjacent to his house, so he puts lots of rounds through his rifles.
I used only Hoppe's on a brush for a few strokes, followed with dry patches to obtain with no effort a clean spotless bore with no traces of fouling whatsoever. Later work with this barrel fouling problem proved old Hoppe's #9 to be far superior in cleaning the bores where this Fiocchi #315 and #320 ammo had been fired, I myself could get an almost clean bore in the 2007 and my Anshutz 54 but the 2007 never would come back to accuracy level it was originally.
Along in October of 1993, I began to experiment with a new line of products called "PAL". This stands for penetrating and lubricating. If you have ever tried to loosen anything, stuck tight, you have probably learned that the highly advertised and readily available penetrating products on the market today fall far short of doing an adequate job.
PAL has a product line that is just unbelievable until you try it. They are computer designed products, engineered by a marine engineer who knows what corrosion can be, having served on ships in the Pacific Northwest and Alaskan waters.
Marine PAL will penetrate any metal,even aluminum,and lubricate it as well. Company literature says clean your rifle bores with Marine PAL and so I did. Another product in the line called Sports PAL is formulated to float contaminants out of metal.
I used the Marine PAL to clean the bore using a brush covered with Marine PAL. Then a few dry patches followed by Sports PAL. I leave the Sports PAL in the rifle bore until I'm ready to shoot the rifle again. Then I dry it out with dry patches. The bores come clean, Totally clean. In my Anshutz 54, I no longer had to even use a brush after following the aforestated procedure perhaps a dozen times. This is the most amazing thing I've seen in cleaning those .22 rimfire bores. After trying everything on the market, a brand new line of products does the trick.
"Reel PAL" if used on a bolt will eliminate all resistance and make the bolt travel so smoothly it's just unbelievable.
The master machinist, Dr. John Bunch, said of a sample of the Marine PAL I sent him in gratitude for his reforming some .222 brass to .221 Mach IV .7 Cal. for me on his super set of dies he makes, "This is the best machine oil I have ever used."
Ron Engle at the Remington Custom Shop has had similar statements about the products.
I hope they will soon be available from all our major suppliers.
Until they are, feel free to contact me and I'll assist you.
I haven't tried these products in center fire bores, but for rimfire's,
the cleaning problem is solved.
Here's the kicker; The Anshutz now starts grouping after the first shot fired from the cold barrel. It no longer takes 50 to 100 rounds to get it grouping. I clean it after each firing as described above. From the second shot on, its accuracy can be trusted.
The 2007 ?. Even though I got it clean, It's accuracy never came back to suit me, so I guess I was a bit too rough on it in my attempts to clean it. It's being rebarreled by an American barrel maker this time. That may be the making of another article for these pages.
The 54 won me the 1993 Springfield Bench Rest Club's BY 50 season championship. Glad I didn't try so hard to clean it before I found the PAL products...
Don Hill
4126 E. Whitehall Dr.
Springfleid,MO 65089
