reasonablenut

Ahhhhhhh,

Got out today and accomplished quite a bit. (If you are not into scopes, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Before I go into the grist, I have been grooming my Ruger MKII 70 for the upcoming Boomershoot. Unfortunately, I have a crappy Simmons scope on there. It's relatively accurate, but the field of view sucks beyond all belief. As this is a problem, I scored a Leupold Mark 4 M1 Tactical scope with a Mil-Dot reticle. Well the scope showed up Monday. I failed to note that the crappy Simmons is a 1" tube diameter but the Leupold is a 30mm (how wide that is, I don't know, but the creator of the Metric system should be flayed.) Therefore I need new rings. Well I bought the rings.

At this point, I am going to accentuate the fact that this is a Ruger rifle. They like to be different. They have their own mounting system. No other company uses it. It is solely their firearms that employ this system that appears to be a bastard child of Weaver mounts and Standard tapped and drilled mounts.

Well, the Simmons is what was on the rifle when I bought it used, as I would never mount that scope on anything but an airgun. As I have had limited experience mounting scopes, I am unsure whether I should attempt mounting this scope myself 0r give it to the local gunsmith and, thus, rob myself of valuable trigger time for the next 6 months.

I am going to attempt it, but may very well be a mistake. Now on to the Range Report.

The Ruger .30-06 performed wonderfully. I shot the best group I ever have, while sighting it in. The scope, while shitty, was adequate enough for me to score a 2" group at 200 yards. I sighted and shot all day long.

I plan on the Simmons being the back-up scope. As the mount seems to be the same, regardless of what rings and glass you are using, I figure I can yank the Simmons off, while in the rings, and it should be relatively good if I need to employ it during a midday glass crisis.

Past that, the old man scored his Thompson. He was stoked, and I will give him it looks to be a sweet shooter. Unfortunately, I am gun-crippled (left-handed.) I did one magazine and the thing belched gas and filth into my eye for all unmitigated 30 rounds. This will not be one of my normal shooters.

I did get to clock some time with his Garand, as I am considering taking this as a supplement/backup rifle. We had a couple of weird jams, but on the whole, it performed well. This rifle needs to be fine-tuned, but I'm sure is up to the event, as long as I am not drooling out of the side of my mouth.