2-15-2017 Success! (Kinda Sorta)

[ditto1958]

I've been chronicling here my struggles to learn to shoot consistently accurately with my Marlin 336. As I've reported here in other recent threads, the rifle seems to be inherently very accurate. If I do my part, and get a good trigger release, my shots go where I aim them.

But... doing that every time is much easier said than done. The 336 is a light, handy carbine, with a trigger that's not as good as the triggers commonly found on today's bolt action rifles. Holding the 336 still can be frustrating.

Yesterday, however, I had a small victory, a three shot group with no flyers. Unfortunately, I didn't keep the target, but it was about a 1 1/4" group, with the first two shots about 1/2-3/4" apart.

I'm happy about that. While I'm still thinking I should spring for a Wild West trigger, I'm also thinking I should just keep practicing.

[Sir Henry]

Practice. Practice. Practice. What happened to the 10-shot groups?

[ditto1958]

Practice. Practice. Practice. What happened to the 10-shot groups?

They've been discontinued due to the rising costs of reloading components.

[ditto1958]

Oh, and another thing. I mention practice for a reason. About a year ago, or so, a member at the RFC forum did a thread on a really interesting project he did. He bought two brand new Ruger 10/22 rifles, and set about doing one modification at a time on them to see how each change affected accuracy.

He first shot a bunch of groups using several types of ammo with the bone stock rifles to establish a base. Next, he would do one thing to each rifle, such as installing upgraded triggers, bolts, barrels, etc., after which he would shoot the same groups with the modified rifles.

Two things that he found during his testing stood out. The first, perhaps not surprisingly, was that better triggers resulted in the most improvement in group size.

The second thing, which I thought was perhaps the most significant thing to come out of his project, was that the shooter's skill had more of an impact on accuracy than any of the other modifications/upgrades, save for the triggers.

What he found was that with all the shooting he was doing to perform his tests, he got noticeably better at shooting as the project went forward. I can't recall if he was shooting from a rest, or just using sandbags, but he was definitely shooting from a bench. Despite that, his skills were a big factor in his group sizes.

So I'm thinking that if I practice more, I will get better, even without spending money on a better trigger.

[Sir Henry]

Ditto you are just cheap.

[ditto1958]

Ditto you are just cheap.

Darn. Busted again.

[Sir Henry]

At least you have been shooting more than I have.

[ditto1958]

At least you have been shooting more than I have.

I actually have been shooting pretty regularly this winter, but mostly revolvers. Thankfully, spring seems to have sprung early here, and if it holds out, I'm hoping to get my .22 rifles back out soon.

Meanwhile, I think we need another Henry vs. CZ shoot-off from you soon.

[Sir Henry]

I was thinking the same thing.

[Les]

So I'm thinking that if I practice more, I will get better, even without spending money on a better trigger.

I can second that. I have several rifles, some with great triggers and some with not so great triggers, and initially I wasn't that good with any of them. As I shot them more, and got used to them, I was finding that the ones with good triggers always gave good results, but the results from the ones with just OK triggers were getting close to the same result.

So, my conclusion was that with enough practice, even inherently accurate rifles with bad triggers can give good results.

A lemon is a lemon, whatever trigger it has in it, but fortunately I haven't bought too many of them.

[ditto1958]

I practiced more today. Wasn't pretty.