While dodging thunderstorms complete with switching winds and dime-sized hail, I managed to snag a few calmer hours to test the Volquartsen properly. I shot a stack of targets with my Lapua ammo, and still no luck. The inch-sized group is still the winner for the smallest group I can get out of the current Volquartsen at 50 yards. Every other grouping was larger (around an inch and half, sometimes more). As I tested . . .
I stayed painstakingly consistent, but I actually started to doubt my own ability (stems from deep-seated training to always blame myself first, not the rifle). For comparison, I shot a few half-inch groups with my Anschutz, but knew even those should have been better.
But when I went to clean my Anschutz, I discovered the bedding screws were loose. And not just a little loose, but barrel-wobble loose. (Yes, even pros make mistakes.) If I’d been shooting with those loose bedding screws off-hand, the shots would have been everywhere! But the sandbags provided some stability to allow “decent” groups. Many turns on the bedding screws later, I tightened the rig up and gave it another go.
With about a 5 mph wind, my Anschutz shot five shots in the same exact hole at 50 yards. The wind picked up slightly, and it put five more in a one-hole group hanging off the previous cluster in a perfect diagonal wind pattern (see photo). It was good news for my mental game, bad news for the Volquartsen.
Prior to this session, I noticed quite a bit of gunk, lead, and lubricant near the chamber opening and bolt face of the Volquartsen. It seemed excessive to me, so I cleaned it out with Q-tips, and ran a dry patch through the barrel with a pull-through. I was hopeful that the group sizes would magically tighten. They didn’t.
Now before we move on, let me add a few things. My iron-sighted Anschutz is shooting an ammo lot that has been exactly matched to it. (“Lot” is the batch of ammo made at one continuous time without interruption so it’s all consistent in its components and recipe, similar to a run-on-sentence without any period stop until *deep breath* the batch is complete.) Different lots vary in their group sizes depending on many factors including the barrel itself.
While lot testing can be picky, quality competition ammunition should never be the cause of groups more than an inch at 50yards. I would like to shoot other brands through the Volquartsen (Lapua hasnʼt obligated me to use only their ammo), but finding 22lr ammo on the shelf right now is like finding hens teeth.
Another factor to consider? The Volquartsen is a semi-automatic rifle. Generally, shooters donʼt expect as much accuracy and consistency out of semi-autos, for various reasons. That said, I still expect at least consistent one-inch groups at 50yrds from the scope-mounted Volquartsen, which it’s failed to do so far.
Iʼm not the only one with expectations for the rifle. Volquartsen expects more out of their rifle too. Much more. Scott Volquartsen, in my email exchanges with him, is perplexed. When I called Scott and mentioned the results, he said Volquartsen is used to seeing a half-inch or smaller groups at 50 yards–even 75 yards–from their rifles. Scott and I brainstormed about the possible causes, eliminating them one by one. Everything seems tight on the rifle, the “gunk” has been cleaned and quality ammo is being shot.
I did notice a very light scrape of the bullet on its left side when ammunition is being loaded from the feed. I also mentioned when attempting to eject an unfired round, the cartridge doesn’t eject easily. This can happen with a gun with a chamber that needs to be cleaned (not the case here). Or, perhaps it’s the bullet size itself.
Scott seems to think that the type of Lapua ammo Iʼm using may have a larger bullet head size than what they normally test, which could cause the sporadic shots. This Volquartsen was tested with Wolf at the factory. Wolf is the brand I began with when I started competing. I never noticed this big a difference in performance between Lapua and Wolf, but bullet size can be a factor. Scott will be sending me the exact ammunition they use to test their rifles so I can eliminate this variable.
There is a chance, of course, that this rifle is just an unfortunate fluke. If that’s the case, Volquartsen will send me a return shipment slip, and weʼll get this baby back to the factory so their expert gunsmiths can take a look. With over 30 years of experience in rimfire testing and design, Iʼm sure Volquartsen will discover the issue quickly.
In the meantime, Scott and I discussed our thoughts on a suitable trick shooting style rifle, a gun simple and fast to shoot offhand even in street clothing. He quickly settled on one of their lighter set ups and is enthusiastic to have me shoot it. Comparing both rifles should be interesting and valuable, once the lighter rifle arrives. In the meantime, I’ll wait for the ammunition. The Volquartsen rifle is practically a piece of artwork in its beauty, so I canʼt help but hope we can get it shooting like a masterpiece it is. Thanks for your patience and Iʼll keep you posted.
Does the volquartsen include a factory test target, like match grade rifles include? Perhaps shooting a 5 shot group through the rifle would help prevent this from occurring in the future… When you’re dealing with a $1,000+ .22 rifle, adding an additional $50 to the customer cost to provide factory testing of each rifle to ensure this doesn’t happen may be a worthwhile consideration.
I have a carbon fiber Volquartsen barrel in my 10/22, installed it myself about 10 years ago. It’s been awhile since I’ve shot from a rest to test accuracy, but when I first installed it I was easily getting .5 inch groups at 50 yards from an unsupported position (elbows on bench). I’ve used it in a 40-80 yard off-hand silhouette competition a few times, just for fun (was told I’d be disqualified for using a semi-auto if I won), and also shot a Anschutz sporter in the same comp to compare, and the heavier barrel definitely helps with stability. I think my laminated skeletonized stock and the carbon fiber barrel might be too light. Have been considering installing some threads for attaching some sort of weight at the front as a solution until I can afford an Anschutz. That whole thing about semi-auto causing inaccuracy vs single shot is true. I just can’t convince myself to slow down when I know I’ve got another several in the mag ready to go.
I think a comparison test between 10/22s fitted with the aluminum and carbon fiber tensioned bull barrels vs the full bull, fluted, and snake fluted barrels made by Volquartsen would be interesting.
Edited to add: Volquartsen has provided me one of the best customer service experiences of my life. Top notch, on par with Brownell’s. Felt like I was talking to family!
crap, my girlfriend, a total newbie to shooting is able to inconsistently do that with my factory 10/22. Something I’m not able to, I might add. She’s just a damn better shot than me.
She’s not quite putting them all in the same hole, but a year from now I’ll probably be telling a different story.
Eley club is available at Midwayusa still. You might buy a brick of that and try that through the snake barreled gun. I can’t get ahold of Wolf Target at the moment but Eley yes and will be testing that against my Wolf target this week in a CZ452 Varmint.
Maybe the gun would perform better with a tuner?
Beat me to it. Eley shoots great out of my Volquartzen. Mine was home built with their bbl, stock, and trigger. Got the trigger tuned even better. Great on grey diggers out in farm country out to 200 yards.
Thanks for the continued write up Ms. Weiss.
I did have some left over Eley, and I tried to shoot the rifle with that. For whatever reason, it didn’t shoot well and started jamming frequently. Only with the Eley. (Lapua didn’t pay me to say that, lol). Volquartsen just sent me some wolf. I’ll test that, used to enjoy practicing with Wolf.
yeah, ammo can be a funny thing. I remember shooting at 40yards with my 10/22 carbine, all stock, and switching ammo tightened up the groups from 2 inch down to less than 1 inch. It was a real eye opener for me.
Bullet weight can be a real killer in these. 22 don’t weigh very much and a little one way or another can make the difference. Not seen any mention on the twist rate for this barrel, which could have a factor.
Hold on. You mean you can just call someone and they can send you a rifle? No one needs more than one rifle. What about public safety? What about a 30 day cooling-off period? What about universal background checks? But, but, but …
/sarcasm
you forgot the children…
Yes. Don’t forget background checks on them too.
My new dream – one of those barrels is .25-06 and slap it on a Mauser action?
Say, how do you know if the scope is working properly? Can you remove the scope and shoot iron sights?
If the rifle does not have iron sights, you could make temporary sights just for testing purposes. Note that you can make temporary sights out of any convenient material that is sufficiently rigid. For example all you need are two small blocks of wood, three short picture frame nails (one for the front and two for the rear) and two stainless hose clamps to clamp the blocks of wood to the barrel. I know that sounds awfully crude but it would enable you to promptly eliminate the scope as a source of error.
Of course such sights would not be adjustable and probably would not align with the point of impact. Nevertheless, they would enable you point the rifle at the exact same spot to establish how tight a group the rifle can shoot — even if the group is centered 7 inches to the left and 9 inches high.
Edit: you might actually need four stainless hose clamps … two for each block of wood. You may also want to put two pieces of paper between the barrel and the clamps to guarantee that the clamps do not scratch the barrel.
The rigidity of the scope may be an issue, or the scope itself.
Also, not every gun likes every type of ammunition, even the premium stuff. Lapua has a great reputation for accuracy, but I’d run 10 different brands through that gun and see if it just has a thing for CCI or Federal. That’s my $.02.
Also, I’m very impressed with shooting rounds through the same hole with iron sights at 50 yards.
I’m reasonably sure that the “iron sights” on her Anschuetz rifle Ms. Weiss is referring to are actually globe & aperture sights. They’re not “buckhorn” sights used on sporting rifles.
My Annie has globe/aperture sights and when I’m shooting at round black targets and I have the proper sight insert in the front globe sight to leave a very thin band of “white” surrounding the black target, it is easier to shoot tight groups with the globe & aperture sights than with a scope.
Yes, I said “easier” to shoot a tight group than with a scope. Many people don’t believe me until they see what globe & aperture sights actually look like on round black targets. Your eye naturally wants to collimate the three round objects.
My sights are circles you line up with the target. Which makes trick shooting very difficult, as the tiny little targets are hard to line up (or even see) within the aperture, especially off hand. My training allows me to do it though, just have to shoot subconsciously. Pretty happy with it. Do you have suggestions, though, for a better aperture sight for targets with varying shape? I’m not having a problem with these, other than the targets practically disappear in the large circle, as they are tiny little objects down range.
Also, I think accuracy is in the eye of the beholder when choosing sights. I’ve shot open, scope, and irons. They all have their pluses and minuses. I’ve never shot a competition with scope, even on “any sight” days (like Camp Perry). However, those who shoot scope instead of the irons we shoot, have told me that scope is almost too easy in comparison. A few have switched back to Irons just for the challenge. Scope is nice for aging eyes though.
Scopes can be faulty from the factory (by design or lack of care in construction), or the mounting of scopes can screw them up.
One of the ways to test the internal mechanics of a scope is called “the box test.” You set up at a distance where you know you can get pretty repeatable points of impact from your rifle. You zero the scope.
Now run the scope 1″ to the left. Shoot. Run it up 1″. Shoot. Run it to the right 1″. Shoot. Run it down 1″. Shoot. Run it 1″ to the left. Shoot. Look at where your first shot and last shot printed. Then do the same test, but run to the right initially and mirror the boxes.
There are other ways – you could test just the vertical adjustment first, then the horizontal adjustment. The important thing is to adjust the repeatability of the internal adjustment mechanism – that you can move the point of aim up/down/left/right, then move it back and bring your POI back to where you started.
One of the issues in scope mounting is making sure that when you have the rings mounted on the rifle (whether on the action or barrel), there is no strain placed on the scope tube as you tighten the rings onto the scope. There are various ways of testing this. You can machine up a couple of 1″ (or 30mm) “centers” with 60 degree points on them, mount them in the rings and see if the tips are co-linear. Or, you could put some spotting blue on the scope rings, and put a polished/ground 1″ or 30mm shaft into the bottom half of the rings and see if you get uniform contact before you try to put on the other half of the rings, then put on the other half of the rings and see what you get.
There’s a variety of ways a gunsmith or machinist could check these things, none of them are rocket science. What is true, however, is that if the scope bases or rings are mis-installed so that the rings aren’t going to tighten down on the scope tube in the same line, you can seriously tweek a scope’s guts when you tighten everything down on a set of rings that aren’t aligned properly.
I’ve seen some horrible scope mounting jobs. Holes mis-aligned, bases mis-fit to the action. Then when the “smith” or owner has torqued down the rings, the scope gets literally bent into place. But because the owner spent money on the scopes (and rings), who/what gets blamed when the owner can’t put shots on the point of aim, as represented by the mis-installed scope?
The rifle. “That rifle can’t shoot worth crap.”
In a couple cases, I explained to the owners what would be needed to correct the problem: a new scope (or theirs sent to the factory for repair, or replacement), the holes in his receiver where the scope mounts were drilled would need to be filled and welded up, smoothed off and new holes properly located and drilled, etc. This would necessitate a new blue job, of course. In both of these cases, I learned that the owner had cowboy’ed in the screw holes for the bases with a drill press and a vise. In both cases, they refused to do it. They didn’t want to admit they screwed up both their rifle and the scope.
thanks, Dys- was just going to ask about this but didn’t want to seem like a total noob- having a problem with a rifle shooting poorly, and getting no where- and an older gent at the range suggested checking torque on scope mount.
Any more details/tips for your basic newb to try, short of taking it the gunsmith if I don’t have the tube and what not that you suggest?
I’ve only ever mounted two scopes in my life. I had Bass Pro mount the scope on my 10/22 when I first got it, but when I picked up that Remington 700 on Black Friday last year, I was determined to learn how to do it myself.
I quickly learned that it’s not exactly as simple as it seems. I ended up picking up one of the scope mounting kits from Wheeler. I know $100 seems like a lot of money for something that was only going to seem very limited use, due to the (lack of) current size of my rifle collection, but my dad taught me two specific things about tools, years ago: using the right tool makes the job much easier, and if you buy tools right the first time, you’ll never have to buy them again. This kit turned out to be money well spent, on both of those points.
To the second point, that $100 from Amazon for the combo kit (1″ and 30 mm) is what Bass Pro was charging for the 1″ only kit, so I figured when I got a bigger, better scope down the line, I was already prepared to deal with it.
I was suitably impressed by how out of alignment my initial scope ring installation was, on the order of a quarter inch at the tips of the alignment bars. I flipped the rings and rotated them a few times, and on the fourth or fifth iteration, I found a configuration where the tips were dead even vertically, and only out by a tiny fraction horizontally. A dozen or so strokes with the lapping bar and they were as perfect as my eye could see. As I said, $100 might seem like a lot for the use I’ll get out of it, but to me it was worth it for real, tangible results that I could see immediately and clearly. Furthermore, those real, tangible results were fixing a problem I never would have been aware of otherwise.
I ended up pulling the scope off my 10/22 (that Bass Pro had mounted) and those rings were a bit off, too, though not nearly as much as the ones on my Remington had been. Swapping the rings front to back took care of 99% of the issue in one step.
Would doing the click test verify only the function of the scopes sighting mechanism, or the actual function of the scope itself? I’m just shooting groups, so not clicking that much (other than to get on target initially). If there is a scope issue, it is perhaps with the mounting or the scope itself, like you mentioned. But not “dead” clicks.
Its possible its a scope issue. The Volquartsen doesn’t have open sights, or rails for aperture. Thank you for this method, I could potentially try it, but I’d be worried about clamping something to the barrel. Normally when you touch the barrel at all (say resting the barrel on a tree limb or shooting bag, etc) you effect the harmonics. (Tuners do this on purpose). It would be hard to know what was affecting the accuracy then. I wonder if there’s a different way to do this?
My cheap Savage bolt gun is very ammo sensitive. It does not shoot at all well with “match grade” lead ammo, or pretty much any unjacketed rounds, much preferring–and quite accurate with–jacketed bullets. I am quite surprised that the Volquartsen shoots so poorly.
While we are at it, I know the old saw that semis don’t shoot as accurately as bolt guns. Does anyone know why? I am guessing it has something to do with muzzle velocity…
Its the lack of rigidity and lock time of a semi that keeps them less accurate. The more moving parts you have the more room for problems. A bolt action locks up tight and does not move before, during or after ignition. A reciever of a bolt action is more rigid as it does not have to have as many cutouts for moving parts like a semi. The semi also has to strip a round from a magazine which in itself can mar a bullet which I think Ms Weiss is eluding to.
Yep, lot of fiddly bits fiddlin’ in a semi auto. And the reciever of my 10-22 is aluminum. That has to be more subject to movement than a steel reciever. The most accurate load in my winchester bolt gun, 60 grain sub sonics, won’t even cycle thru the action of my 10-22. The 10-22 is a great plinker and small game fun .22. But a precesion target instrument it ain’t. You’ve crossed into making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when you attempt that level of accuracy out of a 10-22.
Isn’t that what Volquartsen is doing with these fancy fluted barrels? Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?
MarkN. I think so. The basic 10-22 is a great fun gun. But some people spend thousands trying to make tack drivers out of them. Which is fine. If a person has the time, money and will, have at it.
This Volquartsen that Kirsten has is somewhere in the 4 grand range if what I read in the other post was accurate. I have a Winchester bolt gun with a cheap scope that cost less than 400, total. I’m willing to bet that if Kirsten was to shoot both rifles side by side she would at least equal the performance of her pricey, custom 10-22 with my off the rack bolt gun. In the hands of a top shooter like her she might even do better with the Winchester.
I love my 10-22. I just recognise what it is and what it’s not. The only mod I’ve made to my Ruger is to put williams peep sights and fiber optic front sights on it.
Some gun owners, and again I’m not being critical here, remind me of the guys I hung around in my youth. Buy a Pinto or a Vega and then strip it down and try to make a race car out of it.
Chambers aren’t as tight, actions aren’t as rigid, the bolt doesn’t close as tightly and as uniformly from shot to shot, etc.
To get all those parts to move, you need slop. When you have slop in the action/chamber, you have issues of repeatability.
Some of the most accurate bolt guns can be put out of action with a very small amount of dust or grit in their actions. They’re tight.
Grammar humor never gets old.
Wow, that’s too bad…Volquartsen makes good stuff, I hope it’s an ammunition problem…about 8yrs ago, I built/rebuilt a Ruger 10/22 Carbine into the sweetest shooting .17hm2 that ever existed…starting with a $200 rimfire rifle, I’m now into it for about $1200, but shooting 1/4″ groups at 50yds, it was well worth it…
I just picked up a slightly used Tactical Solutions AR22Lt upper off of gunbroker. Ive run several different brands of both HV and SV offerings through it. Ive found that loads featuring copper plated pills have less fliers than those with un-coated lead. I am suspecting that the un-coated softer bullets are perhaps being deformed by contact with the feed ramp when cycled into the chamber. More testing is required though.
One Winchester load will do under .5″ at 50yds from my bench and bull bag consistently but I am having trouble finding it in stock, therefore in selfish mode, I will not name it hereon. Such a sad state of ammo affairs these days.
It puzzles me why anyone selling a .22 rifle sold as “accurate” would be testing their product with Wolf ammunition. The best-scoring ammunition companies are well known in the .22 accuracy world, and Wolf isn’t one of them.
Perhaps it’s a question of assumed customer-base availability?
Exactly. But if it will shoot junk accurately…
Wolf as a company is not known for it’s centerfire stuff but…. Their rimfire stuff is well known for consistent rim thickness, primer consistency, and smaller rates of FPS variation than a lot of other rimfire makers. I was a doubter too until I tried a brick.
Almost all of the people shooting at my silhouette matches are shooting wolf target ammo. It is top shelf stuff for the non-superstitious competitor.
Also….I have a factory 10/22 deluxe sporter that shoots better than Kristen’s gun. Something is wrong.
I dont know how Wolf fairs now, but when I first started competition, wolf was my go-to. Some of their lots were great! I enjoyed training with it. Even at 50 meters, it held its own for training. Can’t speak for lots now. Lapua has some great training lots too, in their SK line. (Isn’t wolf and sk somehow related? Thats what I heard on the streets at least…may not be true)
What does “lot matched to that exact rifle” mean? Does that mean test firing a sample of a bunch of different lots to find the most consistent one, and then only using that lot from there on? How long does it take to go through a specific lot, before you have to do the test all over again?
Hope you get your issues worked out. That’s a lot of money for a non-shooter.
You test the ammo in your rifle. Not a rifle of the same make and model, but your rifle.
There are distributors of .22LR match ammo who will let you buy a brick, you then shoot and test that brick, and if it suits you and your rifle, you can call them up and order a 5,000 round case of the same lot. This way, you know for the next 5,000 rounds that you have ammo that’s going to perform within a range of expectations.
Yes, thats exactly what it means. And yes. Thats a lot of money for a non-shooter. I’m always confounded by people who buy bullets when they don’t shoot. 🙂 jokes, i know what you mean.
Thing is, there’s ammo that will shoot a group thats good enough for shooters who are hobbyists. If their hobby is accuracy, though, they may want to seriously consider lot testing. And yes, it can be expensive. Before I was sponsored, I’d go through about 6-8 boxes of different lots. Might cost $100+ and I’d be lucky to find one or two that my barrel liked. However, there are affordable brands like SK and Wolf that sometimes have some very decent practice lots. Perfect for upcoming marksmen.
Now, just last year, Lapua built a state of the art testing facility. For $50 you can test ammo lots (including SK) and find one your gun likes. Its got electronic target tunnel at 50 m and 100m, and test simultaneously. Pretty nifty. You can show up personally, or you can send your gun to them, and they will test for you.
Its a Godsend in my opinion. Before they built this, the USA had no testing facility. You would have to show up in Europe to test like this. (talk about pricey).
They’re based in Mesa, Arizona. And to answer your other question, once you find a lot that works, you buy a few cases. (5,000 rounds each). And horde them like gold.
Oh, and the gunk on the breech of the chamber/barrel in a semi-auto?
Yea, that’s pretty much par for the course in .22 semi-autos. You’ll have to clean any semi-auto rifle far more than you clean your Annie. Not so much the barrel, but the breech area and then down into the action. Some .22 ammo’s fling all sorts of gunk into the breech/bolt/action area. The worst are the brands with pre-lubed bullets. There used to be some Remington ammo that was lubed with beeswax or something similar. Holy crap, what a cleaning job that was in Ruger MkII’s and 10/22’s. Congealed beeswax and unburnt powder everywhere. Silicon-lubed bullets are OK, copper-washed are OK, but that era of lubed ammo years ago… oh man, were actions of .22 semi-autos filthy.
Welcome to the world of production .22’s.
Here’s a tip if you have a .22 semi-auto filled with congealed lube and powder (both burned and unburnt):
Brake cleaner. Pull the semi-auto .22 out of it’s stock/grips/furniture. Apply brake cleaner. Wear safety glasses to prevent getting any in your eyes, and wear gloves if you have a manicure with nail polish, as the brake cleaner will remove your nail polish post haste. Hose down the action. Shake it out. The brake cleaner will dry rapidly.
Then you’ll have to spray some thin oil down into the action, because brake cleaner also strips oil very effectively.. This isn’t a pretty process, but it works for gun owners to maintain things until they have it detailed stripped and cleaned.
One of life’s more useful all-round solvents. A magical blend of methanol, toluene, heptane, and acetone.
Be careful with brake cleaner on 10/22 rifles. I have seen several folks eat away the finish that Ruger uses. The latest generation krinkle coating is a bit more resistant, but the prior models are prone to dissolving with brake cleaner.
Very true. It’s for cleaning filthy things after removal from the stock, not en situ.
Beyond being one of the primary components in gasoline, toluene is a powerful hot solvent paint thinner. As is acetone.
So what is being said is the test rifle shoots larger groups than my 35 year old 10-22 does with bulk ammo.
It sounds like this test rifle has been passed around to several gun guru ‘journalists’, rode hard and put away dirty on more than one occasion.
I would suggest a detailed strip-down (to include the barrel) cleaning and inspection. The barrel could have been damaged at the muzzle or other spots, the trigger parts swapped out with non-factory parts, the barrel bedding block could have been mis-torqued and of course the bedding screw was already loose.
Yup. Most $200 models straight from the wal-mart shelf will shoot that good….even with the 9# trigger. Something is wrong with her gun.
Have you tried removing, cleaning and re-installing the barrel? I posted why in the last volquartsen installment so I won’t bore(pun intended) everyone with the re-post here. It can cause accuracy issues having schmutz(sp) between the barrel and action.
Another thought, The scratches you saw could be coming from the magazine feed lips if there are any burrs that haven’t worn down. The problem may not be easy to recreate by hand if it happens under the speed of firing. I mention this because of an article on TTAG showing 1911 magazines that caused malfs.. After I read that I started looking closer at my own weapons(1911, CZ40p specifically) and ditched a couple old mags that actually were causing feed problems with certain ammo types. I also installed a single round follower in my target rifle(rem 700, 5.56) because the internals were scratching the side of the brass while feeding. I didn’t notice a difference in accuracy but the scratches are gone now.
Did I mention that I’m a bit anal retentive when it comes to my fire breathing children?
For a “trick shooting” .22… when I was a kid a friend of my dad’s gave me a stack of pre-68 GCA “American Rifleman” with the full-page ads of mail-order surplus Mausers and Nazi-proofed Browning .32s. Every issue had an ad showing some “world record” shooter sitting on a mountain of hand-tossed 4×4″ pine blocks with a .22 hole in the center of each one, as he had hit some insane 6-figure run of them without a miss with his Remington Nylon 66. Tube magazine in stock so it doesn’t hold many rounds and is slow to reload, but just a hoot of a fun gun if you run into one at an estate sale or going thru Granddad’s stuff after the funeral.
Tight groups and grammer jokes… you’ve got a future around here.
The Nylon 66 was down a bit at 14 rounds to it’s far more popular Marlin Glenfield 60 competition at 18 (back in the day, post 1980 are 14 rounds if memory serves), but that really wasn’t low compared to the competition as it was. You’re right, butt tubes (yeah, I know) can be a bit slow to load until you get the hang of it.
Nylon 66s are great fun, and at only about 4# fully loaded, you almost forget it’s back there. Standard equipment in our motorcycle scabbards as kids.
The guy in 1959 was named Tom Frye and the record was just north of 100K blocks in a row, with like 6 or 7 misses. The blocks were only 2.5″ square. The previous record was a gent named Topperwein who did about 75K blocks in the early 1900s.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look around. Seems those old-timers knew their .22s!
PS that’s a great picture Kirsten. Beautiful woman, beautiful rifle, nicely posed.
new poster test
Kristen take a trip over to the rimfire central forum. You will find your answer there. 2nd does this rifle have the voltquartsen floating scope mount. (mounts to the barrel not the receiver) If it does check the rear set screw to see if it is preloaded 1/4 to 1/2 turn into the receiver once it touches.
Also remove the brake and fire a couple groups. you may find your issue there. I had a similar issue with my Kidd barrel with a brake on it much like the volt brake. I bought a barrel nut and parked the brake. Shoots .320 at 50 and 1MOA at 100 all day on crappy federal 510, it hates CCI standard Velocity. don’t discount the wolf stuff, it seems to shoot quite good in a bentz chambered 22 bull barrel.
My experience:
We bought one of the first VQ rifles made. Back when they were custom only. It has a spiral flute and screw-in barrel, into their custom action. It took 9 months for them to make it. This was a different barrel than in this review.
We also bought a Ruger action and put on a Magnum Lite? carbon fiber barrel on that one.
With most ammo, both rifles shot under a 1/4″ at 50 yds.
I had flyers with Remington Target ammo. The old guru said, “Of course, that’s Remington”. A really tight group, then one flyer.
Both of my rifles have a Bentz Target chamber. When I shot some really hot ammo which have the “stinger” type case, the groups at 100 were so big I thought the rifle was broken. Over 12″ if I recall.
Since then, I’ve bought a 17HMR, for when I have a need for speed!
Prairie Dogs: 22lr 250yds. 17HMR 350yds. .223 550yds.
I figured out long ago that Volqartesen stuff, while good, has a lot of sizzle in place of some of the steak.
By far the best 10/22 patern rifle I’ve ever shot is the one made by Tony Kidd. Amazingly, its about the same price as the Volqartesen.
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