Kentucky Armory Club

I picked up a Savage TR in .17hmr this fall, been wanting to improve my plinking skills. I put a Vortex Diamondback 6-24 on it, not sold on this optic yet but getting used to it. Haven't used it much beyond just getting the scope sort of set up, but it seems ok. Never really had time to see what kind of groups I can produce yet, too much work and not enough time for fun.



Heavy little rifle, probably won't be doing much offhand shooting with it. I popped this squirrel at about 150 yds but I was using the side of the house as a rest.



I've also always had a hankering for an M40A1, so I'm working on putting together a clone-ish rifle. Won't be true down to the last detail, but I don't have that kind of money.

Starting with a Rem Varmint in .308, and found possibly the only USO MST-100 that was for sale in Canada. I've got it on a Leupold base for now, not sure if I like the windage adjustable version, might look for a fixed one later.

Waiting to hear back from McMillan about a forest camo HTG stock, and if the gun shoots well I'll leave it at that. Haven't taken it out yet, working on learning the ins and out of this optic then go see what I can do with it at the range.





Just thought I'd share, hoping to get out and play with both of these over the holidays if I'm home for more than 2 days.

Nice. You will be glad to get that packing material off and a stock installed

Very cool. Glad you stopped in

Welcome back!

Well things have been busy and I haven't had a lot of free time, too much on the go to spend much time here or anywhere for that matter.

Winter is my sit in the shop with the laptop and a bottle of whiskey time.

Got the Remington out to the range on Saturday. I'd never shot a 700 before, I like the platform. Little things maybe, but I really like the safety. Very simple. I'm used to rotating wing and tang safeties. This thing is sweet. The action is rough, and the trigger is awful. I'm shopping for a replacement trigger, and I may actually pay someone to true up the receiver.

I put about 90 rds through it (most of them trying to zero the mst-100). If you've gone through this procedure you know what I'm talking about. Two allan wrenches and ideally a rifle vice or a helper with clamps on his hands to hold the rifle steady. I had the wrenches.

When I finally got it roughly zeroed (-5 C and a crisp wind so it wasn't spot on) I was shooting sort of consistent but not good enough.

My goal that day was to zero it and see if the scope worked with the dope chart I got from another m40 dude. I know that data is generic to the platform and needs to be tailored to the specific rifle but I wanted to know if the old USMC
Info could be used as a baseline for my own shooting.

Pretty happy so far. I've never focused too much on precision, if I could hit a pop can I was happy. I'm a noise maker. Putting all my shots into touching holes is new to me. Now I need tp try repeating that at longer ranges...

These were my groups once I got the USO zeroed. I'm open to suggestions/criticism. At 100 yds, all 3 shot groups (the random holes are actually separate shots from me banging away at the target while trying to get it zeroed): all my posted groups are 3 shot, because they are the easiest!





I'll admit my shoulder felt like a vagina by this time. 80 rds through the rifle:



And at 250 yds before I shut it down for the day. Crisp wind and below freezing, these were Hail Mary shots.





I am sure I can do better, and the rifle can too. Next time out. I have a pussy shoulder. I haven't fired anything other than a rimfire in a while, even .17 makes me cry like that guy that likes drinking cider.

I was just looking up this same gun earlier.

I think this may be my B-day present!

This is it now: found a guy selling his new custom ordered A5 stock, but its specifically for a Surgeon. A little bit of clearancing and cleanup, and will definitely have to bed the receiver and the bottom metal. Why bed bottom metal you ask? Cause I ain't paying 500+for a detachable mag.





So I bought this stock to improve the basic rifle while I wait for my new M40 stock to come. I'm looking at 6+ months before it comes so wanted something in the meantime.

The scope/ring setup is way too low/forward for an A5, so now I need to find a stop-gap optic to even keep shooting this thing.

Its a snowball effect.

Looks good MK.

I like it. A good stock makes a world of difference on that rifle

So I bedded the action yesterday and picked up a new mount for the scope. Wifey told me hell no you aren't buying a new scope this year, she looked over my shoulder when I was on the internet looking at a Schmidt & Bender and slapped me on the back of the head. So I got this 20 moa base to get the USO a little closer to my eye. Eye relief was terrible and I had to really lean into it to get a clear picture, so I swapped the rail in and took a few spacers out of the stock so now its almost good.





This was before the mount swap/spacer removal. Not a huge difference visibly but it is worlds apart in the eyepiece.



Never bedded a rifle before, I made a mess of it but its damn solid in the stock now. I've got resin everywhere, it was a real bitch separating it afterwards, and I have a day of cleanup to do. I hope it makes a difference.





It's been horrible cold here for the last few weeks, I'd really like to get out to the range and re-zero this rig and burn some powder. -1,000,000 Celsius is too cold though.

Tomorrow is cleanup day, scrub the resin and putty off and then re-assemble it.

Nice!! Now you're talking my language.

after that watch purchase, she is worried about a scope?

After that watch purchase, I get in trouble if I spend money on a pack of gum!

I'm not getting good results with this rifle. Best I can do is is about .9" @ 100 yds with 5 shot groups on bags. It transfers out about the same at 200 and 300. I'm not a precision shooter by any stretch, but I'm working on it. I have a new trigger to install tomorrow, the factory one is consistently between 4.5-7.5 lb haha. Hopefully the new one yields an improvement, but I don't like to jump on blaming the equipment. It could very well be that I'm the weak link here.

I've tried a bipod, bags, a Caldwell rest (that was disappointing, I did better with one bag under the fore-end). I'd also like to add that the end goal is to have a hunting rifle, all my messing around on a bench is just to establish a baseline of what the rifle is capable of.

I can’t imagine.9” groups would be a big problem with a hunting rifle unless you are trying to shoot the eyeballs out of Fox squirrels. Lol. Good looking setup.

Have you tried different weight and? Maybe the gun likes a different ammo?

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it is probably good enough for hunting, but I want more!

Until today I'd only tried Federal 168 gr smk and Hornady 168 match. I got a shipment of 175 smk that I tried today, similar results just had to adjust my zero. I've gotten a few decent 5 and 10 shot groups, but my average seems to be hovering slightly higher than 1 moa. I'm coming up on close to 1k rounds fired through it and I'm not seeing any appreciable improvement even after the trigger swap. The trigger is definitely nicer, but it didn't translate to tighter shooting.

At 300 yds I am obscuring my bull with the reticle, maybe a fixed 10x isn't ideal for what I'm trying to do. I know my eyes were better 10 years ago..... But if that were the issue, my 100 shooting should be better. Gotta work on my consistency some more. Was debating swapping my 6-24x on to see if that helps me see my targets better which might translate to holding more accurately for the shot.

Thoughts?

Different barrels like different ammo. You could get waaay into the weeds building a particular load for a particular rifle if you wanted to. Different bullets, different powders, different amounts of powder,different primers, brass.... People go nuts finding a bullet their rifle likes, a powder their rifle likes, and then adjust powder weights by .1gr I wouldn't be displeased with sub-MOA out of a "stock" Remington 700 action and varmint barrel.

The USO MST-100 seems like a bit of an odd duck. Perfect for cloners, but if you like your 6-24x better, give it a shot and see if your results improve.

I know, I haven't done any load development. I've only fired factory ammo so far.

The MST is a really good scope, but it was never intended for prs matches. For quickly adjusting to the range and putting a bullet in a reasonable sized target, its great.