It's mid May and the RNBRA outdoor shooting season is well underway. I had the pleasure of working with a few of the guys from the Fullbore section a couple weekends ago at our target maintenance day on Batouche range at CFB Gagetown. This dedicated group did a much needed cleanup of our target storage and prepped targets for our upcoming summer. Their hard work was rewarded with a good afternoon of shooting at 600 and 900m.
Al Much, a Maritime shooting pioneer, trailblazer and friend recently shared a story that describes what motivates many of us who tinker with accurate firearms. ( I'll share it below ).
I haven't been able to do any shooting so far but I'm hoping to get out a few times this summer to burn a little gun powder. My personal shooting goals are continuing to evolve and change to meet circumstances. I have been heavily committed to a competitive program for a few years and I'm pleased with my progress, but this year I'm going to do my best to not plan or commit to any competitive shooting. If you have followed my past rambling, you know how I feel about the importance of high performance competition in sport and there are excellent RNBRA programs in several shooting disciplines that can lead to high performance national and international competition. The road to high performance shooting is expensive, no more so than many sports, but in Canada there is very little financial support from Government or Industry for shooters on that high performance road. Our challenge is to increase shooting sport recognition because if we don't it will be lost as a recognized sport. (Then how long before the anti-gun wing nuts want all the guns) The recent discussion about eliminating Prone Shooting from the Olympics is a serious threat to all shooting sports but it will likely happen due to a lack of sport recognition, the perceived lack of participation and general apathy from most firearms enthusiasts.
This summer I hope to get a couple vintage Fullbore target rifles, (that I bought a couple years back from the RNBRA), regulated and ready to go for anyone that would like to get started in the sport. I don't expect it will be as easy to shoot possibles with them as with the aluminium monster I've run for a couple years, but I am hopeful that the accuracy potential is similar. These rifles are much more "standard" in appearance and have less adjustments to confuse and distract a newer shooter. I plan to make them adaptable for FTR and TR and also to shoot them a bit myself. Building and proving accurate rifles has always given me great pleasure and on that note I'll give you Al's story for your enjoyment. Good shooting from Michael Lutes
"I bought a CIL rifle in the late 60's.
CIL had made a bunch for target rifles for sale in Canada when the HP game opened up to match rifles about 1968. While the actions were good, the word around was that the barrels were the pits. Finally, CIL announced it was dumping them for a pittance including in the package a loose 30 caliber Anschutz barrel. This was probably, around 1970. Both barrels may have been 26 inches. The fact was, that CIL had screwed up making the barrels and the bad press stuck to the good actions.
I was living in NS and Ed Stewart and I were experimenting with anything which would shoot, trying to find what would work and more, why it worked. I never went to a rifle shoot with the same gear as the last. Most of all we loved to make something shoot that had not been working.
I bought the CIL rifle package with the spare Anschutz barrel. Ed and I started to work on it and quickly found that the CIL barrel would not shoot a lick.
The neat thing about the CIL action though, was that it was so easy to switch barrels. Ed pulled out the CIL barrel and mounted the Anschutz one. The action was also drilled and tapped and it was easy to mount the scope - so Ed stuck a hunting scope on top.
We took the rifle to the range and I fired 4 consecutive groups of 5 shots at 100. I was shooting a 5X scope (or something) and I don't remember if I rested the forend or not, but I got four groups all less than an inch, using DA ammo. This was the best shooting which I had seen from anything at that time. Fact is, it was the best shooting of military ammo which I ever did. I think I still have the targets somewhere.
For the life of me I don't remember shooting that barrel and the CIL rifle in matches. I must have but we were having a field day with different gear and I had something new every trip to the range.
Now, the rest of the story, there was still the CIL Barrel. Ed lapped that CIL barrel. (Incidentally, I still have his lapping gear and have done a number of barrels on my rifles over the years). Ed smoothed it out, made it parallel, put it in a #4 action that I had around and I used that rifle to make the "Top Ten" in the Atlantic Championship that year. Man, but we got a lot of satisfaction out of that one.
The CIL rifle was still around. It was wonderfully easy to change barrels and to try things but Ed's heath got worse and all good things come to an end.
I had a lot of respect for the smooth action, (not a lot for the trigger) and I sold it to Ian Hogg. He is still using that action. It has probably been in constant use for forty five years."
Mutch
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