Practical Rifle

[TonyF]

Dunno if anyone is familiar with the term but it is basically a spin-off of the Scout Rifle concept as pioneered by Col. Cooper.

The F.I.R.E. Institute has scheduled Randy Cain of Cumberland Tactics to teach a Practical Rifle course twice in Pittsburgh (in 2002 and 2004). I really had no desire to purchase a Steyr Scout rifle just for the first course in 2002 so I bought what I thought was close to what the concept suggested. A Ruger M77MKII Compact.

After the first course it evolved into a project gun and went way beyond what I originaly intended and is now finally complete ......... I think.

Here are pics of the first and second generation of custom mods.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7t3ct/ruger.htm

A short (16 inch) barreled .308 has enormous muzzle blast and flash. The night shoot in the 2002 course proved that beyond any doubt. First order of business was to add a flash hider. Problem was that the OEM factory barrel profile was too thin to thread so I had it replaced with a shilen of slightly heavier profile. This enabled us to add a 7.62 x 39 AR15 A2 birdcage flash hider which tames the blast and flash quite well.

While rebarreling the rifle I decided to install an XS Scout Mount just to provide more flexibility for mounting optics. This is the rail interface you see forward of the action. It is basically a tube that enshrouds the barrel.

I'm fond of aimpoints on my AR's so I thought I'd add one to this rifle although with the extended range of the .308 I opted for an Aimpoint M2 2X. Finding a suitable ring became an odyssey because you need only one for an Aimpoint but it has to have a sufficiently wide gripping surface. I found that Warne makes their Maxima rings to fit Ruger factory bases and they are about 1/4 wider than conventional rings. They aren't as wide as a typical Aimpoint ring but I haven't had any issues with POI shift.

I also wanted iron sights and happened to see an ad in shotguns news of one that fits the Ruger factory bases. It is sold by New England Custom Guns and we used their ramp front sight base with a patridge sight.

This rifle was the stainless steel version with a laminated stock. A friend and the gunsmith both advised painting the stock and refinishing the metal as they said it looked *pimpy*. So we painted the metal work flat black and the stock O.D. green. Since laminated stocks are so hard and tough on checkering tools and as laminated stocks are kind of slippery we added 3M friction tape. I'm not thrilled with that because they eventually are impacted by humidity. We'll have to find some kind of alternative.

Lastly we relieved the forend to mount a piece of rail for an M3X flashlight because the light needs to be coaxial with the barrel and as most stocks have a taper, the light wouldn't directly illuminate where you're searching, especially as the distance increases.

About the Practical Rifle course.

This was without a doubt the most fun I've ever had in a formal training course. It's organized around fighting with a bolt action rifle and thus many of the drills are similar to what you'll find in a typical carbine course. I would never have believed you could shoot on the move with a bolt gun all the while topping off the magazine and running the bolt.

There is one particular drill conducted at dusk prior to the night shoot that is very interesting in terms of the performance of optics. It will also give you an idea of the physical endurance and stamina required to be a *sniper*.

Did I mention there is a night shoot?

Wait until you have to keep the rifle topped off at night! Don't construe this as *it's impossible* because it isn't. The night shoot is the evening of TD2. After two fulls days of topping off the rifle you do get the hang of it.

There is one drill in particular, conducted during the night shoot, where the entire line participates. Randy's class was the first I'd ever done it. It is a non-typical drill that puts to the test your rifle loading skill learned during the first two days.

There is also a two man team drill that is WAY cool.

Lots of steel targets in this course. A scrambler drill on twin lollipops which is quite challenging once they start *bobbing* and *weaving*.

[27hand]

Tony,

Nice job.

I bought an old Spanish mauser to take that class with.
It came with a 19 inch bbl and a flash suppressor.

I was going to take the class with irons but the eye injury crapped that up.
Doc suggested to me to take it left handed but before I went that route, I wanted to see what I ended up with for vision (I'll probably know in another 3 months or so).

I was going to see how feasible it would be to mount an aimpoint on this rifle. I shot Phils AR and even though the aimpoint dot has a spur going to 2 oclock with a starburst at the end, I can still see the main dot fairly well.

I wasn't going to spend much on any mods to this old piece but might take it locally to a friend of mine who is just getting into smithing 3-4 yrs to get his take on an aimpoint mount and maybe smooth out the action.

I know I could never cowitness the irons but can't see them anyway.

Hans

[TonyF]

Tony,

I bought an old Spanish mauser to take that class with.
It came with a 19 inch bbl and a flash suppressor.

Is that the FR-8 that DG is so fond of? I almost bought one about 12 years ago.

[27hand]

Tony,

Yes, it is the FR-8. Saw it on Gunbroker.

Bore was very clean.

The first time I shot it, i was hitting a one hole group at 25 yds with one round off about 3/8 to 1/2 in. That was with the dreaded Indian OFV ammo.

I hit a 2 3/8" group at 100 off sandbags. With glasses on at that time ,I could see the front sight but the target was somewhat blurred.

This rifle has a pretty good write up on Surplusrifle.com.

Randy Cain told me my pumpgun in '06 would break before I finished his Practical Rifle class and lever guns were marginal. When DocG wrote up a report on his new FR-8 I started looking around.

I'm not sure what to do until the vision stabalizes. I may have to shoot lefty if corrective lenses don't work. time will tell. The last stitch is supposed to come out mid Nov.

Later,

Hans