Well, I guess it's not too bad.....shot 95 rounds today, the first 5 for sighting in. Had a bunch of old ammo I was gifted, so thought I would put it to good use. Notice the price on the Lightning.

Shot 5-shot groups at 60 feet with the 4X scope. It has a thick crosshair, and previous experience with this kind of scope on my new Marlin 25MN told me not to bother with farther out--can't see the 9/16" bullseye with those crosshairs at 72 - 75 feet. Anyway, mainly I was just breaking the gun in, and not taking accuracy too seriously. No lubers were shot between ammo types.

Gave it some SK Magazine at the end, to reassure the barrel that it would be seeing good stuff later on. It seemed to appreciate the gesture.....I wonder what else I should shoot in it?

The barrel, stock and bolt handle are all very nice upgrades! Strongly recommend this gun If you don't actually need CZ accuracy. Heck, this might prove to be as good as (or almost) my two CZs. Just upgrade the scope. Of course it will get a better trigger real soon now.

 

Gave it some SK Magazine at the end, to reassure the barrel that it would be seeing good stuff later on. It seemed to appreciate the gesture.....I wonder what else I should shoot in it?

Somewhere around this forum are several Rascal threads. I recall seeing that in at least two of them they stated it _loved_ Norma Tac-22. I think I just replied to one of the threads in the last two days (building a 4H rascal) so it might still be on the first page.

I've yet to try and dial in ours and see what the little purple rascal loves, but I probably have about 50 or 60 different kinds of standard velocity stuff from the last 30+ years we can test on. I mean to get around to it this spring when ranges start opening up again soon.

We'll all be interested in what you find to feed it that it likes.
Good luck! :bthumb:

 

I shot 50' indoor league with a Ruger Government model using Lightning, it did rather well, still have several bricks around, bought it by the case for about $87 a case at Walmart in the day. :bthumb:

 

Pulled the 4X scope today, and did my little trigger job on it too. Pull is now averaging 12 oz.; good enough, I'm declaring victory. Back to the range on Wed and/or Thurs. with my 3 - 9X UTG Bugbuster AO scope.

 

Just out of curiosity.....

Tried swapping the stocks on my two Rascals.

The thin-barrel stock has a cutout on the right side for the rear peep sight that the XP stock does not, so I would have to remove the peep to fit that action into the XP stock. Didn't bother.

The XP action fit nicely into the normal stock. Not free-floated, but it could easily be done, and anyway I doubt it matters as much with the bull barrel. Looks very nice in person, and handles well. Just slightly front-heavy. Probably drops the weight about a pound.

 

What are the dimensions on the XP stock?

1. buttplate to trigger

2. trigger to forearm tip

On the Rascal stock I just made, these are 14 1/2 and 14, respectively.

 

XP buttplate to trigger is 11 3/8"; for the thin-barrel Rascal it is 11 1/2". Not sure where you mean by forearm tip.

 

Between the two of you, you guys are making me want a Rascal. And I don't even need one except as a brother to my old Springfield 120. I really like the looks of the varmint barrel and wood stock. I also like what toomanyguns has done with his stocks. Savage has always seemed to make good single shot rimfire rifles.

 

Tom, he is meaning the measurement from the trigger to the end of the stock (opposite of the buttplate)

 

OK thanks. On the XP the trigger to forearm tip is 11 1/8"; on the normal Rascal it is 9 1/2".

 

So, the XP stock is also a youth stock. Thanks. I couldn't tell from the picture.

 

FYI, here are the weights for the various versions of the Rascal:

2.71#.....Basic Rascal with plastic stock (RH only)
3.25#.....Basic Rascal with hardwood stock (LH or RH)
3.50#.....FV-SR Rascal, plastic stock (LH or RH)
4.42#.....Rascal Target, hardwood ProVarmint stock (RH only)
5.95#.....Rascal Target XP, hardwood ProVarmint stock, bipod and scope (LH or RH)

FrankenRascal in post #5: 4.05# estimated. Subtracted 2.71# from 3.50# to get barrel weight difference (+0.8#), then subtracted 3.25# from 4.42# to get stock weight difference (-1.17#). Net decrease over Rascal Target of -0.37#.

IMO the best-buy Rascal is the Target, then install a decent scope, and a bipod if you want. I got the XP because I really wanted a LH gun. I'm probably gonna sell my basic LH Rascal with the XP scope and bipod, after adding the DIP rail so the new owner can use either peep or scope without having to remove the rail.

 

Spent a few minutes making a crude stock extension.

Wood is simply a 1.5" long piece of 2x4. Slightly shaped it to fit the stock (BTW the XP stocks do not have an actual buttplate, they just put screws in the buttstock for some reason), and countersunk the holes at the rear for the longer wood screws. The 2x4 is about 4mm shorter, vertically, than the vertical measurement on the stock. See pic 1.

Then I added a small Limbsaver, part #10550, to get another inch. LOP is now 14" even. I left the 2x4 wider than the stock so the Limbsaver would have more grab.

An actual woodworker could do this much nicer.

 

MUCH faster and easier than building a new stock!!!!

 

Been away from shooting for a few weeks, as I prioritized my time to study for my brown belt test. So here is a target comparing four different SK ammo types: Magazine, Standard +, Rifle Match and Pistol Match Special. The result was exactly the progression I expected, with PMS taking the win. Shot at 24 yards, bipod, rear squeeze bag. Cheap UTG Bugbuster 3-9X with AO, set on 9X. Trigger is 12oz, due to some work I did on it and spring changes.

At the end I fired six shots for bullseye, after adjusting the scope for POI. The sixth was fired due to the loose-nut flyer in box four. The way I score my one-shot targets, hitting the center dot is a 10; hitting white but not the dot is a 9; red with no white is an 8. So with tossing the flyer, this came out to be a 49, missing 50 by maybe 1mm (box three). I noticed after five shots that they trended a bit low and right, so for the last shot I held at 10 o'clock in the white instead of dead center.

So in effect what we have here is a kid-sized Mk1. Definitely a keeper! :bthumb: It did have six FTFires out of 85 - 90 shots, all of which fired upon reinsertion. About 185 rounds through it now.

 

Nice groups, especially for a little rifle. Std+ lately has been my preferred ammo for my Mark II's; I'll haf'ta try some of that PMS.

 

In other guns I have done this comparison with, the same thing happened--Magazine, Std+ and Rifle Match pretty much the same, Pistol Match Special ran away from them.

 

As mentioned, the trigger breaks at 12oz. On my sporter-barrel Rascal, the trigger breaks at 8oz. I discovered that I actually prefer the 12oz one.

I will probably sell the sporter one, after reinstalling the stock trigger spring (adjusts down to 1.5#/24oz), and adding the XP's 4X scope and bipod to it. It's hunting-accurate, so far: I haven't done any exhaustive ammo testing with it and don't plan to.

 

The Rascal XP decisively beats two CZs in the bullseye portion of my little four-gun competition--including one with an MTR barrel! See thread here.