New Rifle

Last year, I bought a Traditions DeerHunter .50 cal flintlock rifle. It's a nice rifle, but has its flaws. I'll post a review of it later, this post is not about this rifle.

Anyway... I decided I want to go on a moose hunt this fall and I want to use the flintlock to take the animal. This is no small chore, considering the rifle's flaws. It is especially no small chore considering my basic marksmaship skills are highly atrophied. A few brief forays to the range pretty well showed me that I really need to improve these before I even consider shooting at a living animal. Also, it was decided that using the flintlock as my shooting platform for redeveloping the skill is pretty inefficient both in terms of financial cost and time input. A .22 is a much better option.

Well, I knew Dad had a .22 somewhere in the house, so I called him and found out he has two: one actually belongs to his brother, who wants it back, and the other is old and has had the sear pin filed down because it was suffering from an issue with gas blow-back -- into the shooter's face! That issue could probably be solved with a $100 trip to the gunsmith, but I chose to just go and buy a .22.

What I wound up with is probably the best-selling .22LR rifle on the market: the Sturm/Ruger 10/22 Carbine. Again, it has its flaws. The stock has a clear separation of almost 1/16" from the receiver all around, the sights are horrible and it looks and feels like a toy. Frankly, if it weren't for the brand name, I would have passed it up. Ruger has a very long tradition of producing high quality rifles that I sprang for it despite all the clear and obvious limitations. Besides... it's just a plinking/target gun. It likely will never see use on anything other than paper or soda cans while I own it. I didn't need anything fancy.

It's readily and easily "upgradeable" any time in the future if I want to. A pretty quick internet search turned up huge numbers of mods for it, including conversion kits for other calibers. Wow, it would be SO easy to spend $1,000 or more on this gun. Still, the only things I'm ever likely to do to it are a fix of the magazine ejection system, a better bolt-lock mechanism and new sights. I can do it all for under $200. There is some small possibility that I'll replace the stock for something will a more snug fit around the receiver and maybe even a bedding system, but that's pretty unlikely.

While I have yet to fire this particular example, I have fired this model before. When I worked in Umiat, years ago, this was the rifle we used to shoot bunnies to ensure a strong fox population. The action on that particular example was smooth and it fired straight at the ranges we were using it. It operated flawlessly in all temperatures and required little maintenance.

So... clearly, I chose the right tool for the job of retraining my marksmaship skills. Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase. See you at the range!