I have an 882SS and it likes the Remington 33 grain V-Max the best for accuracy. It also likes the standard 40 grain Winchester stuff.
Marlin .22WMR report
Well I got some rings & mounted an old Redfield Widefield 3-9 scope in low rings and sure looks sleek! The rear sight tucks just behind the objective. I managed to find 7 or 8 different loads and made my way to the range.
I tried to not have any pre-determined opinions one way or the other about the round, but my personal experience has been less than stellar - albeit admittedly limited. I also know that going at it with a $200 fifle as opposed to a $500 rifle, might make a difference!
First the gun:
Fit and finish are actualy quite good. A great little laminated stock and very well done blueing all over. Excellent wood to metal fit. The magazine is a stamped metal unit that rides a little rail up into the magwell... it edges are sharp and unforgiving. And the spring is pretty stout, which makes loading it a little tricky until you get the hang of it. It has a medium heavy barrel with open sights (that I won't use) that is very well finished.
The bolt on this little 882L feels like is was cut out with a hack saw. It is without a doubt THE roughest bolt I have ever had. It is badly in need of a polishing, which I will take care of alongwith the trigger. The trigger has zero take up and minimal overtravel. It breaks quite cleanly, but at something in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 pounds I am guessing. I will have to do something about that! With a sporter type forend, I really had to concentrate on the trigger pull
The safety button is on the right side and is a push/pull type. The button itself is fine, but the movement is so rough, it is difficult to tell where it is without looking at it - it did not make for confident handling!
This little gun needs a lot of polishing! Another idiosyncracy is that the rear of the receiver is very sharp and I have yet to be able to move my thumb up and hit the safety button... it always lands on the edge of the receiver and I have to LOOK to see what I am doing becase the button seems to be a little too far forward. Hopefully that will change with some trigger time, but before I do anything else, I will be polishing some parts.
One other odd thing I noticed was the color of the patches. Where they usually come out black or dark gray they came out with a brown tinge all the time. I have no idea why. There was absolutely no rust anywhere on it and of course I cleaned everything before firing a round.
It may sound like I am complaining, but I am not really - this is a handy little rifle with good lines and a classic feel... not too heavy, but it gives the feeling of a 'real gun'. For what it is, I like it a lot and am just hoping that it will be as accurate as some of the other WMR folks around here talk about.
My shooting consisted of 5 shots/clean for 50 shots, then 10 shots/clean for the balance of my time there. I am guessing somewhere around 140-160 total shots were fired. After shooting 3 x 5 shot groups with each load, I reshot several more to reconfirm my findings.
Of the 7 or 8 loads (I'm sorry I don't remember exactly and didn't write them all down) I found two that will shoot into around 1/2" at 50 yards - but no better. All of the others hovered around 3/4"+ with the exception of the CCI Maxi-Mag+V, which spread them around 2" every group. #2 Was the Winchester Supreme load and #1 was the Remington 40gr HP; oddly the cheapest round I had.
Now that I have a solid 100+ rounds through it, I will try to get my hands on more different loads to find it's 2 absolute favorites, then I can start doing some 100 yd shooting, but I didn't want to do that during the first shoot. Once I find what it likes I will try to put a bigger scope on it and get into that 200 yard shooting vs. the VQ 9/17 and we'll just see what happens.
Mark
I tried to not have any pre-determined opinions one way or the other about the round, but my personal experience has been less than stellar - albeit admittedly limited. I also know that going at it with a $200 fifle as opposed to a $500 rifle, might make a difference!
First the gun:
Fit and finish are actualy quite good. A great little laminated stock and very well done blueing all over. Excellent wood to metal fit. The magazine is a stamped metal unit that rides a little rail up into the magwell... it edges are sharp and unforgiving. And the spring is pretty stout, which makes loading it a little tricky until you get the hang of it. It has a medium heavy barrel with open sights (that I won't use) that is very well finished.
The bolt on this little 882L feels like is was cut out with a hack saw. It is without a doubt THE roughest bolt I have ever had. It is badly in need of a polishing, which I will take care of alongwith the trigger. The trigger has zero take up and minimal overtravel. It breaks quite cleanly, but at something in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 pounds I am guessing. I will have to do something about that! With a sporter type forend, I really had to concentrate on the trigger pull
The safety button is on the right side and is a push/pull type. The button itself is fine, but the movement is so rough, it is difficult to tell where it is without looking at it - it did not make for confident handling!
This little gun needs a lot of polishing! Another idiosyncracy is that the rear of the receiver is very sharp and I have yet to be able to move my thumb up and hit the safety button... it always lands on the edge of the receiver and I have to LOOK to see what I am doing becase the button seems to be a little too far forward. Hopefully that will change with some trigger time, but before I do anything else, I will be polishing some parts.
One other odd thing I noticed was the color of the patches. Where they usually come out black or dark gray they came out with a brown tinge all the time. I have no idea why. There was absolutely no rust anywhere on it and of course I cleaned everything before firing a round.
It may sound like I am complaining, but I am not really - this is a handy little rifle with good lines and a classic feel... not too heavy, but it gives the feeling of a 'real gun'. For what it is, I like it a lot and am just hoping that it will be as accurate as some of the other WMR folks around here talk about.
My shooting consisted of 5 shots/clean for 50 shots, then 10 shots/clean for the balance of my time there. I am guessing somewhere around 140-160 total shots were fired. After shooting 3 x 5 shot groups with each load, I reshot several more to reconfirm my findings.
Of the 7 or 8 loads (I'm sorry I don't remember exactly and didn't write them all down) I found two that will shoot into around 1/2" at 50 yards - but no better. All of the others hovered around 3/4"+ with the exception of the CCI Maxi-Mag+V, which spread them around 2" every group. #2 Was the Winchester Supreme load and #1 was the Remington 40gr HP; oddly the cheapest round I had.
Now that I have a solid 100+ rounds through it, I will try to get my hands on more different loads to find it's 2 absolute favorites, then I can start doing some 100 yd shooting, but I didn't want to do that during the first shoot. Once I find what it likes I will try to put a bigger scope on it and get into that 200 yard shooting vs. the VQ 9/17 and we'll just see what happens.
Mark
1 - 18 of 18 Posts
If I had to do it again I wouldn't bother with all the trouble and frustration. It's easier to buy a $59 BASX trigger and lower the pull down below a pound if you so desired.
If you enjoy tinkering, and know how to solder, here goes:
Remove the stock and take a close look through that opening in the side of the trigger assembly housing. (That hole was put there by the factory just so you can view the trigger and sear contacts.) Observe how the sear and trigger meet up, and how they disconnect when you slowly pull the trigger. Now that you see how the parts engage and work, take the trigger assembly out of the barreled action. (It's held in by one simple screw.) Remove the "c" clips and free the trigger, sear and 2 springs from out of the housing. Replace the one spring with a ballpoint spring. (This will help lighten the pull somewhat, but is by no means the main remedy.) What you want to do is to narrow that gap ("ledge" for a better description) that the trigger catches. That gap (or ledge) is probably about 3/16" deep. Simply solder a thin sliver of brass into that gap. Don't worry if the solder and brass blob up real sloppy in there, because you are going to file it neat and square. Now slowly and neatly file out the mass of brass or solder until you have a ledge gap that has been narrowed down to about 1/16" deep. There now is your lighter trigger pull with NO creep!
Buy any kind of solder you wish, but use clear fluid kind of flux . (soldering paste sold at most places is designed for copper plumbing pipe or copper wire soldedring and will not work) If you need scrap brass, simply get it from a spent cartridge, and cut it with shears, and hammer it straight and flat as needed. In case you were wondering.....yes, you could do the job using only solder, but solder is too soft and will eventually wear in from friction.
And the last step now after rerading and understanding what you have to do: Buy a BASX trigger.
If you enjoy tinkering, and know how to solder, here goes:
Remove the stock and take a close look through that opening in the side of the trigger assembly housing. (That hole was put there by the factory just so you can view the trigger and sear contacts.) Observe how the sear and trigger meet up, and how they disconnect when you slowly pull the trigger. Now that you see how the parts engage and work, take the trigger assembly out of the barreled action. (It's held in by one simple screw.) Remove the "c" clips and free the trigger, sear and 2 springs from out of the housing. Replace the one spring with a ballpoint spring. (This will help lighten the pull somewhat, but is by no means the main remedy.) What you want to do is to narrow that gap ("ledge" for a better description) that the trigger catches. That gap (or ledge) is probably about 3/16" deep. Simply solder a thin sliver of brass into that gap. Don't worry if the solder and brass blob up real sloppy in there, because you are going to file it neat and square. Now slowly and neatly file out the mass of brass or solder until you have a ledge gap that has been narrowed down to about 1/16" deep. There now is your lighter trigger pull with NO creep!
Buy any kind of solder you wish, but use clear fluid kind of flux . (soldering paste sold at most places is designed for copper plumbing pipe or copper wire soldedring and will not work) If you need scrap brass, simply get it from a spent cartridge, and cut it with shears, and hammer it straight and flat as needed. In case you were wondering.....yes, you could do the job using only solder, but solder is too soft and will eventually wear in from friction.
And the last step now after rerading and understanding what you have to do: Buy a BASX trigger.
Here's my 882...scope and dog weren't included.
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"a $200 fifle as opposed to a $500 rifle" ...um...what's a fifle?
There's one in every crowd!!!!
22ingaround, Just FYI the 882 does not have a T-900 trigger group, which I presume your instructions were for. I am guessing the T-900 went into effect on the 900 series of rifles... or fifles, depending how much you've been drinking.
BUT the good news is the trigger in my 882 is unbelievably simple.. really a remarkable piece. I spent an hour or so polishing not only the trigger and sear, but most of the polishing time was spent on the bolt, which was very rough. It could probably do with some more, though it is much better than it was.
I swapped out the spring, put it all back together and now have a 2.7lb pull. It was just under 6 before the work, but before I measured it this afternoon, I would have guessed it was even higher than that. There is no creep, no mush and minimal overtravel, so I am very happy with the way it turned out.
I even did a little work on the saftey lever surfaces so it would be a bit smoother and easier to work... it was WAY too stiff before!
Whadya know... looks lke the Ol' Man knew what he was talkin' about! :t
22ingaround, Just FYI the 882 does not have a T-900 trigger group, which I presume your instructions were for. I am guessing the T-900 went into effect on the 900 series of rifles... or fifles, depending how much you've been drinking.
BUT the good news is the trigger in my 882 is unbelievably simple.. really a remarkable piece. I spent an hour or so polishing not only the trigger and sear, but most of the polishing time was spent on the bolt, which was very rough. It could probably do with some more, though it is much better than it was.
I swapped out the spring, put it all back together and now have a 2.7lb pull. It was just under 6 before the work, but before I measured it this afternoon, I would have guessed it was even higher than that. There is no creep, no mush and minimal overtravel, so I am very happy with the way it turned out.
I even did a little work on the saftey lever surfaces so it would be a bit smoother and easier to work... it was WAY too stiff before!
Whadya know... looks lke the Ol' Man knew what he was talkin' about! :t
1 - 18 of 18 Posts
