Thread: accurate rifles

unusual for a marlin if its accurate it might be worth fixing

Yes, thats why I've hung on to it, well actually it's because I don't know what to do with it and I suppose I'm hoping some sort of magical solution will present itself.
Its a 925m. I've hunted about for a fix and it appears my problems are not unique to my rifle
Extraction possibly can be fixed by carefully polishing the chamber and the occasional non firing could be an ammo or firing pin/ striker spring problem.

Originally Posted by jakewire

Yes, thats why I've hung on to it, well actually it's because I don't know what to do with it and I suppose I'm hoping some sort of magical solution will present itself.
Its a 925m. I've hunted about for a fix and it appears my problems are not unique to my rifle
Extraction possibly can be fixed by carefully polishing the chamber and the occasional non firing could be an ammo or firing pin/ striker spring problem.

Probably an ammunition problem. My Dad had an anshutz 22mag that occasionally wouldn't fire Winchester ammo. Extracting the round give a turn when putting it back in the magazine it would fire next time around.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Biff it in a dam and forget you ever owned it.

uh no. hand it into your AO for destruction.

Originally Posted by jakewire

Yes, thats why I've hung on to it, well actually it's because I don't know what to do with it and I suppose I'm hoping some sort of magical solution will present itself.
Its a 925m. I've hunted about for a fix and it appears my problems are not unique to my rifle
Extraction possibly can be fixed by carefully polishing the chamber and the occasional non firing could be an ammo or firing pin/ striker spring problem.

@mudgripz

[QUOTE=mudgripz;321236]"accuracy - the funniest one was a guy with a 1022 that shot a 2 inch group at 40 yards and thought it was really good"

That's pretty normal for a ruger ......[/QUOTE

My ruger when standard did 1" at 50m. I bought a 16" kidd barrel for it and it now does 1/2" at 50m all day long using cci. Fancy bolts, springs, firing pins, general wankery dont really add much value to a ruger. Rip off that shitty barrel and you're good

Both my 10/22 and my Norinco Jw15a bulge eyes out if possums heads no problem so I like them both. I do use the jw more often though as it's much quieter as it has the over barrel suppressor.
I'm a ruger fan, love my ruger hmr so much I just bought it's big brother in 223 all weather. I've never had or used an inaccurate ruger so can't complain about them.

Sent from my workbench

Got to bench test alot of 22 makes/models in recent years and some are consistently accurate and some quite poor. What I've often found is that often people call a rifle accurate when it made maybe one particular shot at distance, or fired a tight group once last April. But the ocasional group or shot never tells the rifle story. It is group averages that give an accurate picture. So rifles get found out off the bench at 50 and 100m. I don't take much notice of the occasional good group if I can't consistently repeat it - unless ammo testing.

Some basic sporter 22s can be extremely accurate e.g. a Norinco EM332 that averaged 0.6" over four consecutive groups at 100m. Others like the CZ, Brno, JW15, Marlin 795/925/980/60 have no trouble dropping under 0.5" at 50m - and importantly - averaging close to that. Always the averages that tell a rifle's real story.

It is in this regard that 10/22s fail. They might nail the occasional good group but cannot hold consistency. We've owned 6-7 and tested more and none were good shooters - very poor. Group averages from 1-2" at 50m. Best of them averaged 1.04" at 50m for set of 5 shot groups. By comparison two marlin 60 semiautos surprised the hell out of me - both touching the magic 1/4" for 5 shots at 50m, one rifle averaging 0.295" for 4 groups, and the other 0.39". That's serious accuracy. For a cheaper rifle marlin makes dam good rimfire barrels. Some ruger 10/22s do shoot well but they are rare - depends where they were sourcing barrels at the time. Odd Shillen barrels around. Have found older rugers tended to be better made, slightly better shooters.

After testing dozens of makes of 22 however the 10/22 rates bottom for accuracy. And when we pulled them down three reasons showed up: loose chambers on some, loose barrel pinning on many, and poor rifling issues on others. For example - when barrels were removed and a 22 slug pushed down barrel it might start tight then almost fall down barrel before finding tight section of rifling again near end of tube. Impossible to get accuracy out of that poor rifling situation. The usual solution is rebarrelling, or if slug test shows barrel ok you can get gunsmith to chop off chamber end, mill new chamber and thread it into receiver rather than continue pin set up. Costs a bit but can solve problems. You can also thread barrel and chamber and fit a marlin microgroove barrel to it. We had only one 10/22 that shot well - and it was no longer a ruger. Had mostly VQ parts, green mountain heavy barrel etc and the only ruger bit left was the trigger blade - $1100 spent on it by someone. The Marlin 60DL would match it on the range and was untouched, straight out of the box.

Hard to know why your 925M is shooting/cycling poorly Jake - I'd also suspect ammo type, but would be worth getting a gunsmith to cast an eye over it. They are usually v good shooters. Could be an extractor or spring or two could solve problem - shouldn't be a hard fix as they're fairly simple rifles.

Thanks for the write up, very interesting

Sent from my workbench

Originally Posted by mudgripz

Got to bench test alot of 22 makes/models in recent years and some are consistently accurate and some quite poor. What I've often found is that often people call a rifle accurate when it made maybe one particular shot at distance, or fired a tight group once last April. But the ocasional group or shot never tells the rifle story. It is group averages that give an accurate picture. So rifles get found out off the bench at 50 and 100m. I don't take much notice of the occasional good group if I can't consistently repeat it - unless ammo testing.

Some basic sporter 22s can be extremely accurate e.g. a Norinco EM332 that averaged 0.6" over four consecutive groups at 100m. Others like the CZ, Brno, JW15, Marlin 795/925/980/60 have no trouble dropping under 0.5" at 50m - and importantly - averaging close to that. Always the averages that tell a rifle's real story.

It is in this regard that 10/22s fail. They might nail the occasional good group but cannot hold consistency. We've owned 6-7 and tested more and none were good shooters - very poor. Group averages from 1-2" at 50m. Best of them averaged 1.04" at 50m for set of 5 shot groups. By comparison two marlin 60 semiautos surprised the hell out of me - both touching the magic 1/4" for 5 shots at 50m, one rifle averaging 0.295" for 4 groups, and the other 0.39". That's serious accuracy. For a cheaper rifle marlin makes dam good rimfire barrels. Some ruger 10/22s do shoot well but they are rare - depends where they were sourcing barrels at the time. Odd Shillen barrels around. Have found older rugers tended to be better made, slightly better shooters.

After testing dozens of makes of 22 however the 10/22 rates bottom for accuracy. And when we pulled them down three reasons showed up: loose chambers on some, loose barrel pinning on many, and poor rifling issues on others. For example - when barrels were removed and a 22 slug pushed down barrel it might start tight then almost fall down barrel before finding tight section of rifling again near end of tube. Impossible to get accuracy out of that poor rifling situation. The usual solution is rebarrelling, or if slug test shows barrel ok you can get gunsmith to chop off chamber end, mill new chamber and thread it into receiver rather than continue pin set up. Costs a bit but can solve problems. You can also thread barrel and chamber and fit a marlin microgroove barrel to it. We had only one 10/22 that shot well - and it was no longer a ruger. Had mostly VQ parts, green mountain heavy barrel etc and the only ruger bit left was the trigger blade - $1100 spent on it by someone. The Marlin 60DL would match it on the range and was untouched, straight out of the box.

Hard to know why your 925M is shooting/cycling poorly Jake - I'd also suspect ammo type, but would be worth getting a gunsmith to cast an eye over it. They are usually v good shooters. Could be an extractor or spring or two could solve problem - shouldn't be a hard fix as they're fairly simple rifles.

Good summing up mg.
I have found the same thing as i sold my ruger and replaced with the marlin mod 60.
As a matter of interest what ammo was the most accurate in the mod 60?
The new lithgoww 22 that i bought is shooting as good as the marlin as i had my cz 455 mod 60 and lithgow out checking zeros for the kids swazi shoot and really pleased with all three.
I have dialing scopes on the cz and lithgow and let the kids loose at upto 200 yards with good results banging claybirds
Accurate rifles rule!

Marlin 60s tend to like all things CCI. Most like CCI subs and standard velocity solids for range accuracy - and one of mine is also super accurate with
winchester powerpoint. CCI minimag a good hunting round. So mostly CCI but each rifle will also have its own preferences.

I think ruger need a kick in the ar*e for not fixing the accuracy issues with 10/22s. They can make good accurate rifles when they wish to and should have solved this problem decades ago. Otherwise than its accuracy problems its a good wee carbine. It is notable that the marlin 60 has outsold it 13m to 6 million over last 50 years. Best 10/22 variant we had is the lovely little 10/22 model 96 lever action. Quite accurate at 0.7" at 50m, and no weaknesses - a wee gem and one of the best wee hunter 22s I've come across. Ruger can do it when they try!

I'd like to hear more about the Lithgow 22 Andy - discussion on this on nzrimfire.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

I have seen hunters hit the ground in front of them

I have had a mate nearly shoot my foot off when climbing a fence with a 270 with a blind mag and he forgot he had chambered a round.

Originally Posted by timattalon

I used to have a Ruger 10/22 that would struggle to hit a 3 foot square from 50 yards, but my cheap norinco would hit a 1/2 inch circle on the same day. Still have the norinco / scrapped the Ruger.

Apart from a small number of 10/22's that came through with chatter marks in the bore near the muzzle about 6-7 years ago, most normal standard 10/22's can be made to shoot 1/2" groups at 50 metres without much hassle. I used to do a 10/22 tune-up package for $70 ( thread the muzzle, crisp 2.5lb trigger job, tune for subs, buffer pin, and barrel refit) and that produced the 1/2" groups every time. As they come out of the box they are hampered by a lousy trigger pull and poor barrel fitting (although the fit has improved a bit in the last 3 years). Once the barrel fit problem is cured then the receiver and the barrel become one solid unit. With a poor barrel fit and the scope mounted on the receiver, good accuracy is impossible to obtain.

Originally Posted by gundoc

Apart from a small number of 10/22's that came through with chatter marks in the bore near the muzzle about 6-7 years ago, most normal standard 10/22's can be made to shoot 1/2" groups at 50 metres without much hassle. I used to do a 10/22 tune-up package for $70 ( thread the muzzle, crisp 2.5lb trigger job, tune for subs, buffer pin, and barrel refit) and that produced the 1/2" groups every time. As they come out of the box they are hampered by a lousy trigger pull and poor barrel fitting (although the fit has improved a bit in the last 3 years). Once the barrel fit problem is cured then the receiver and the barrel become one solid unit. With a poor barrel fit and the scope mounted on the receiver, good accuracy is impossible to obtain.

That sounds semi easy and awesome


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@gundoc when you say you "used" to do a tune up is that something you could still do? Mine already threaded but just seems to shoot like shit.


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