A Little Range Time

Like most American gun owners, we own a couple of Ruger 10/22s.  I own a late '90s carbine while Mrs. Graybeard owns a Take Down.  One gripe I've always had is that I fumble around with the bolt release for far too long.  I'll be the first it might just be my klutz factor, or the arthritis that's made my thumbs way too weak, but I have a stupid hard time with it.  The stock bolt release method sucks; it just doesn't behave like everything else. 

A few weeks ago, I looked around to see if there were any fixes for this and found it was an easy mod that a bunch of people sold a part for.  Check out the options at Amazon.

The stock bolt release is on the left and you can see it has a V shape to the top cutout that the modified one eliminates.  This is the reason for the up/down fiddly tricks you have to play to get the bolt to slam forward.  With the one on the right, you can lock the bolt back manually with the bolt lock at the bottom, as always, then let the bolt close by pulling the bolt handle slightly back and releasing it.  It slaps forward just like most semiautomatics.  

It's really easy to replace this. Seriously, once you see what you have to do, and have the trigger group assembly in your hand, I doubt it takes a minute.  If you're interested, there are many videos on the modification on YouTube.  I modified both rifles a couple of weeks ago and we went to our club range to try them out today.  It works great.  Ruger should make 10/22s work this way as the standard. 

Today was probably about average for this time of year.  This is usually our dry season, no mention of rain in today's forecast. It was in the mid-70s when we hit the range in the afternoon.  Winds NE at 15 to 20, not a true crosswind, but a large crosswind component.  

Last year, I mentioned a problem with the scopes we have on our .22s, a pair of matching Tasco Pronghorn scopes.  That day, we found the zero on the scopes had mysteriously moved a long way, impact was around 2 feet from the aimed point, while sitting in storage.  Today, her scope was several inches off (at 25 yards) from the last time we used it.  Since I'd worked on her rifle several times to re-do the bolt, I re-centered the scope, but it wouldn't stay centered.  Something quite broken in that scope.  So while I was trying to hit 100 yard targets, she suddenly couldn't even hit 25 yards. 

I think it's time for a new scope.  Or two.  We always want to be able to grab each other's guns and just start hitting targets when we need to, so we keep them pretty similar.