Gary Reeder
the results from the shootin' Saturday
Monday, September 09, 2024, 15:15

Things are a bit crazy today. Snow on the mountain this morning and temps here at 8000 feet in the low 30s, and this is September. Mother Nature is foolin' with us.
Anyway I spent a good while on Saturday sighting in a bunch of rifles and a handgun or two. I had sighted my 22 Magnum semi auto CZ 512 recently for our Squirrel season that just started. I knew the CZ was shooting a tiny group but wanted to check out a couple of other 22 rifles just in case. Here is the group the CZ shot and all these groups were at 25 yards, which is what we have here in the shop.

Thru the years I have mentioned doing an accuracy test using several 22 rifles for an article in a Nashville newspaper. I did a weekly article called Southern Sportsman. This was in 1979 and several of the ammo companies had each come out with a high velocity 22 LR. CCI had the Stinger, Remington the Yellow Jacket, Winchester the Expeditor, and one or two others.
I wanted to do a test with each of these and in several rifles so I borrowed a couple of rifles, plus I had the Remington 541, the Remington Nylon 66 and the Marlin 99 M1.
I borrowed the Remington 572 pump gun and a Winchester plain jane model 52.
In the test I mainly wanted to see if each of these guns functioned with the high velocity ammo and if so were they accurate. It was not a test of the gun itself, just a test of the new high velocity ammo, rather than the gun. To be honest I expected the Winchester model 52 to be the most accurate.
At the end of the test I was pleased that one of my guns came out on top. At the time I was still in radio and working part time for the Sportsman's Store in Clarksville Tennessee, plus writing the weekly article on guns and hunting in the Nashville newspaper. After posting the results I had several gun guys tell me I was full of it. That was nothing new but the results were honest even though I was a bit surprised myself as the gun that worked best with all ammo was the Marlin 99M1. I knew the gun was accurate but surprised that it beat all the others in overall accuracy.
This past weekend I pulled the Marlin 99 M1 out of the safe and using the ammo we currently had over at our gun shop, the Pistol Parlor, again the Marlin shot everything we had and posted super small groups. Here is the Marlin 99 M1 rifle.

I had a little cheap scope on the gun we shot this past weekend.
Here are a couple of targets that the Marlin 99M1 shot.
And again all groups were shot at 25 yards.




The amazing thing was the gun was 44 years old plus I had a cheap $39.95 K-Mart or Walmart 4X scope on it. And to keep things honest I had Eric (normally known as Noodle) behind me to verify the groups.
I also shot a stainless Ruger 10-22 but it didn't like the ammo for some reason and failed to feed in a couple of instances. I have a picture of one of the groups shot. I am sure it will do a lot better if I find the ammo the little rifle likes.


The ammo I had on hand for this test was the Remington Hunter ammo, a good 40 grain bullet and ammo that has always been accurate for me.
I decided to check the accuracy out of a couple of other guns that I normally used as squirrel guns.
One was a hybrid pistol, consisting of a Ruger MK 2 frame and an 8" heavy barrel from AMT, the old Auto Mag company. I had an older Leupold pistol scope on it.




I was more than pleased with the groups these 2 guns shot so I decided to see how Colleen's Ruger rifle in 22 Magnum shot. This was her main squirrel rifle and has been a good one thru the years. This is the group her rifle in 22 Magnum shot.



Plenty good enough for tree rats.
Now this test wasn't anywhere near the test I did back in 1979 as this one was just for chits and grins. But it told me my squirrel hunting guns were ready, if I could just find the time.