I have a friend who is just a ball to be around and to Big Game and Varmint Hunt with. But he is a little compulsive and is a last minute rush to get things done kinda guy! I am sure you know the type. Well this friend was so impressed with my Ruger 77/17V that we used last week on Ground Squirrels that he had to have one! We live in a remote part of Montana and he called all over heck to find one. He even called Idaho Falls (145 miles away) checking prices. He found one and drove over and paid cash for it last Saturday. Then the hectic part started. He knew of a 10x Leupold scope in New York that was for sale and he bought it sight unseen and had it delivered to my house today via second day air ($11.75) so I could mount it up for him. The urgency is he has a friend coming in today from New Hampshire and he wants to Hunt tomorrow with his new Rifle - that has not been sighted in or the scope mounted or the rings lapped! He begged me to be ready to get this done for him today and I consented! I should have known better. There is always something that goes wrong! I checked his Rifle out that his wife brought my way last Sunday. Every thing looked good to go. I decided to wait until today to lap the Ruger rings in. There are two rear positions the Ruger integral rings can be mounted in and I wanted the scope in hand before I attached the rings to whichever slots looked or performed best. I had to have the scope to make this decision so I could not have the rings lapped in advance of the scope arriving. Well my mail comes pretty promptly at 1:30 PM each afternoon. The mail comes and I was expecting the mail person to bring the package to my house. Nope she left a notice in my mail box that the package would be at the post office! Well I had visions of her carrying it in her car all afternoon and me not getting the scope til 5:00 PM and that would screw up my being able to sight the Rifle in for my friend during daylight anyway. I went to the post office and luckily they had the scope. I raced home checked the two positions of the rings and went with the furthest rear one and began the process of lapping those Ruger rings! Next problem! The Ruger rings now have a Toryx style batch of allen screws and I have no Toryx head that fits them! I have all the Toryx wrenchs known to man including the original Leupold Toryx tool. None fit! I take a set of the rings to town and none of the hardware stores have one that fits! My friend left the Rifles box at the sport store he bought it at and its 65 miles away. I assume the Ruger Rings Toryx wrench was in there! I stop at the tiny pawn shop sport store here and luckily he has a Ruger Toryx wrench he will loan me! I race home! I align the rings in the integral mounts and then tighten the rings down. Then I begin lapping the rings! They (of course!) were by far the worst out of line rings I have ever lapped! By far! And I am certain I have done at least 200 pair! Wouldn't you know it. It took me an hour of steady lapping to get 60% lapped in coverage! I called my friend before I started lapping and asked him to drive the 50 miles to my house and we would set the scope up to him on the Rifle. The Toryx wrenchs he had also would not fit this Ruger! My same Rifle from just last year used regular allen head screws in the rings! I am in a panic now as things are going crappily and the wind is starting to pick up. Ben had told me it had been snowing and blowing all day at his house! More gloom and doom! Finally the scope is mounted but the skies are darkening by the minute! I had previously loaded all my sight in gear, sand bags, spotting scopes, targets, shooting box and such in the VarmintMobile so at least it was ready to go! I thought! I remembered the key to the range and we jumped in the Dodge diesel to race to the Rifle range and rrr... rrrr... rrr.. dead batteries! Curses were exclaimed and we raced to transfer all the gear to my friends rig! Away we race trying to beat a snow squall to the range! The wind is now HOWLING in front of the squall! Damn! Of course I have no 17 caliber spud for my bore sighting tool and it would be necessary to bore sight the Rifle the old fashioned way! The targets would barely stick to the target stantions due to the wind. During the bore sighting process the wind and the squall did pass somewhat but winds were still gusting to 15 MPH! Oh well we would get it on paper at least. The 25 yard sight in went pretty well and quickly but our fingers were freezing. Out to 100 yards goes the target. The wind is still 12 MPH according to my wind gauge when we start at 100 yards. Adjustments to the old 10X Leupold scope are working properly and things are looking up a bit. The wind is also subsiding a bit. We achieve final scope adjustment and my friend fired 4 shots for a final check. Those four shots at 100 yards made an absolutely amazing 3/4" group! In that wind and with runny noses and cold fingers that was a great group in my mind! The old Leupold came with straight fine crosshairs and not the Du-Plex reticle that my friend had hoped (assumed) were in it. Other than that a first rate Ground Squirrel Rifle this will be.
The trigger on that Ruger 77/17V was very crisp & no creep at all! But it was a bit heavier than my friend wanted. I had checked it for him this morning with my Schrader trigger gauge and it measured 74 ounces. 4 pounds 10 ounces if my figgering is correct. My friend had heard I had a Volquartsen sear and spring kit added to my Ruger 77/17V and he of course needed the set also. I called Midway and they are shipping one out today! But for the way it shot today I wonder if it is needed! $31.00 or so is not to bad for the trigger upgrade!
I have the battery charger on the VarmintMobile and we will see what went wrong there.
On the way home from the range we stopped at the pawn shop just as it was closing and bought the only 17 caliber cleaning rod he had in stock! So with that little bit of luck and the excellent group he shot it turned out to be a pretty good day anyway!
The sight in session used only 22 rounds of Remington 17 HMR ammo. My friend can do more accuracy testing with other ammo later. He has a Hunt planned for tomorrow!
My friend could not thank me enough and wanted to pay me for my work and troubles and all the trips to town but I would not take anything. I told him he owed me one! He usually kills his bull Elk on opening day and I may just call in this and other chips he owes me this coming Elk opener!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

What did Steinbeck say about the best laid plans .... ? Ugh.



I haven't been in a great rush lately to get afield since the weather's been so flaky. I'm only seeing about

30% of the pasture carp I'd normally see around my house at this time of year. I hunt by walk-and-spot in

neighbor's fields and shooting 30 rounds in an afternoon has been good lately!



Cheers



Redial

Redial: Pasture Carp - I really like that one! Every time I see or hear it I crack up! Its earned its place on my list of "slang" names for the little crop wrecking rodents!
Yeah lets hope for moisture in the mountains and sun in the valleys!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy