Rimfire Rifle Photos Thread

Here is my rig as of now
Cadex Defense Chassis
RimX action
Triggertech Diamond 2-stage trigger
Krieger 20" MTU barrel
Gray Ops Scope mount
Vortex Razor HD Gen 3 6-36
MDT Send it Level and Crush it Timer
Area 419 Arca rail
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About a year ago, I was looking at rifles in the behind the counter rack at a semi-local gun shop, and found a pre-A 52 Winchester with a factory stainless bbl. I'd read about these barrels in the Houze book on the 52, but had never seen one before. A previous owner had cut the butt 1/2" shorter and cut off the tip of the forearm from the bbl band forward, then checkered the pg & forend. The wood has some nice darker stripes running through it; just goes to show that it's not unusual to find these older 52s with some nice grain in the stock. Anyway, I looked it over out of curiosity, but eventually handed it back to the sales guy and got out of there before I was tempted to buy it.

So a few weeks ago, I went back to that same shop to see what might've shown up since my last visit, and found a Winchester 9422 XTR in very good condition. I'd been thinking about buying one of these rifles forever, from back when they were still being made, but had never pulled the trigger on the purchase of one. This one had the muzzle threaded 1/2-20, and when quizzed about it, the sales guy told me that they'd imported it back into the States from Finland. I wound up buying it...but that pre-A 52 was still in the rack. Again, I walked out with the 9422, but couldn't stop thinking about that old 52...

I wound up going back to that shop a couple of weeks after the 9422 purchase, and asked to look at the pre-A 52 again. The owner came down a few hundred on the price, and so it came home with me. I had bought a 15x 1" Unertl target scope with 2" objective several months ago, and finally decided to mount it on this rifle. I'd examined the bore with a Hawkeye borescope before making the decision to buy the rifle, and was impressed with its condition - very smooth, no pits or any other visible defects. Only thing that needed done was to remove a carbon ring in the leade, which was easy enough to do with Bore Tech C4. So yesterday, I had time to take the 52 out to zero that Unertl scope and hopefully find out how the rifle shoots. I started out with a box of old Wolf Match Target, the type that was made by SK. That old stuff shot pretty decent, so I moved on to a recently purchased lot of SK Std+, and it shot even better. Then tried some SK Rifle Match, and it was good too. Finally broke out a box of Eley Match, and the 1st 5 shots went into a nice tight group, as is often the case when I follow up shooting SK/Lapua with Eley...and is often the case, the next few groups of Eley don't do as well - which is probably something to do with dissimilar bullet lubes, since I didn't wipe the bore out before shooting the Eley.

Whatever - I'm pleased with this old rifle - with the exception of the trigger not being 100% predictable. When I get the bbl'd action out of the stock to examine the trigger, I'll also look for a date stamp on the bbl.

ETA - Finally pulled the bbl'd action out of the stock, and found not only the bbl date stamp - 31 - but that someone had glass bedded the stock. As far as the date stamp goes, from what I've read in the Houze book on Winchester 52s, the factory used some stainless barrels in '30 & '31. I have no idea of the type of stainless alloy they used, but when I borescoped this barrel, I didn't see any of the 'frosting' that you usually find in the lower part of the bore in a well-used rifle. 22RF priming compound includes crushed glass, and as each successive bullet is fired, it runs over this priming compound fouling - the majority of which lies in the bottom of the bore - and creates the 'frosting'. Either this rifle wasn't shot much, or the SS alloy Winchester used was harder than CM & most modern 416R SS, because it doesn't have that 'frosting' appearance.
 

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How it started in April of this year:

U26iVT1.jpeg


How she sits currently:

oTLhM23.jpeg


Bergara factory barreled action
MDT XRS
Burris XTR IIII 5.5-30
Trigger Tech Diamond 2 stage
Area 419 arca rail
Accutac Bipod
and a whole bunch of lead to get it to balance...

Currently shooting (personally) lot tested Eley match and it's beating custom guns in our local matches. Placed 26th/96 at our regional finale. Been a good first year!
 
Added another piggy bank buster to the herd today. CZ457 MTR heavy barrel. NF 12-42 Benchrest scope, Area 419 rail & waiting on JARD 3oz trigger to be delivered.


I have one of these incoming in the next week or so, and I'm new and just gearing-up. What's the bag it's on? How's the stock thickness rest on the Protektor vs. what you've got it on? Thx.
 
I have one of these incoming in the next week or so, and I'm new and just gearing-up. What's the bag it's on? How's the stock thickness rest on the Protektor vs. what you've got it on? Thx.
It's on a Armageddon Gear Pint-Sized Game Changer. This bag works better for me with the MTR stock. Protektor bag ears are too narrow to work the best but it can do in a pinch.
 
Rebuild of one of my CZ457. Now has a L3I 24" barrel, JARD 3oz trigger in a MDT ORYX chassis. Just assembled today and did a quick function test & semi line up scope. Target is 7 shots at 50 yards, SK Rifle Match. Much more testing to come but I think it maybe a keeper.

View attachment 8573937View attachment 8573938
L3i clears the Oryx without modifications ?
 
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It has been a rough week in Pasadena. I got the last bits of this on Tuesday night and spent some time yesterday and today de-stressing by putting it together and loading up some center fire ammo.

RimX action
PVA barrel
Triggertech Special
Mark5 7-35 in an MPA mount but I’ll need to swap the mount to a 1.5”
Cadex Falcon Light bipod
Balance point looks to be 2-3 inches in front of the magwell but I’m not 100%