Please e-mail address changes, unsubscribe requests, or questions to me. In this issue: Re: Acheiver vs bigger gun Re: Acheiver vs bigger gun Re: Anschutz Acheiver vs. Marlin 2000 Re: Anschutz Acheiver vs. Marlin 2000 Re: Acheiver vs bigger gun / canting / dealing with heat Bedding methods for 1907 Re: The problem of canting Re: The problem of canting Re: The problem of canting / dealing with heat Re: The problem of canting (Chet's response) Re: The problem of canting (Editor's response) ******************************************************************** I have seen a rifle in the Champions Choice catalog that would be very nice for smaller folks. It is an Anschutz 64 action silhouette barreled action in a target style stock. It has a 3 to 7 .oz trigger and costs about $650 US without sights. I have not seen it in person, but I did own a 1403D at one time and it was a nice rifle. D.L. Brown [Editor - yes, I forgot about those. It is now $625 w/o sights and they spec it a 8.6 lbs. The "Acheiver" is $595 w/ sights and 6.4 lbs, the 1903 is $730 w/o sights at 9.9 lbs. While you're going to pay $250-350 more, I wouldn't get the Acheiver over one of the other 2 listed. The 1907 would be another $500 more than the 1903 which I think is bit much given the circumstances.] ******************************************************************** How about an Anshutz 1912? They weigh appoximatly 13 pounds. A young laidy here in central PA named Jamie Beirly uses one very well (how about 592 with 55x in a State 4P match). She is about the same size as the man's wife. It would work very well for her as it is made specificly for women and young shooters. I think getting good equipment when you first start is exceptionally important. I still struggle with outdated and worn equipment and equipment that was bought off the rack because I cannot afford better. Start with good stuff and you only have to worry about learning to shoot and not also learning to cope with poor equipment. And up untill the first week in July when I attended a shooting camp I never canted my gun in any position except sit. And there only to get the gun upright. Now I shoot with at least a little cant in all 4 positions to keep my noggin upright. Seems I shoot better with the cant because I do not have an adjustable cheek piece. I will fix that hopefully this fall after the first half of our leauge is done and quits for the Christmas break. YVT Mark Shuman [Editor - while the 1912 is a nice rifle, I think it's way overkill in this case. It's pretty hefty for such a small woman and at $1800 w/ sights is quite an investment for someone in their mid-50s that just wants to shoot a winter indoor league.] ******************************************************************** Marlin rifles are generally the finest made. While not a competition rifle per say, the bolt and receiver group is very tight and is the first candidate for competition type of rifles. The major problem however is the rifle always uses a multi round feed system of some sort and this is for retail marketing. As such the barrel is set for fast rounds again for retail purposes. In those rifles that fit the UIT/ISU/ISSF style of shooting you will find a very good training and practice rifle. Marlin can manufacture a very good rifle that can out perform Anschutz and even our older Rem 40X and Win 52D model rifles. Over the years they have had several models that would qualify if given additional attention to detail. My first competition rifle was a Marlin 22LR. The stock was good and came close to the standard stock and the weight was in the standard rifle range. The time period was a long time ago... What would it take for a US Manufacture to build a rifle that would compete with the German best...? Your support... If the American shooters will not purchase the Marlin rifle in good quantities then you can not expect Marlin to show interest in manufacturing a top of the line rifle for the competitive shooter. The only reason Anschutz is acknowledged as the best as there is none other that comes close. The shooting public is the determining factor which rifle is the best because they purchase the rifle of consensus. It is the shooters purchasing power alone that selects the rifle manufacture that gets the business from the buying public. A lot of psychology goes into the marketing plan of course. Anschutz is the only one because you the buying public did not support any other manufacture in developing and selling a true American precision rifle. So...? Do you want to shoot European rifles in the years to come....Keep buying the European manufacture and no one in the US will do a thing. Support Marlin and they will respond by hopefully giving us a World Class competition precision rifle. Chet Skinner, Coach cskinner@dol.net ****************************************************************** Acheiver vs Marlin 2000 About 3--4 years ago our club bought 2 Marlins and 2 Acheivers. Based on the sample of 2 each the Acheivers shoot better than the Marlins, no question. If I were to quantify each I would say that the Acheiver was a 97-99 gun and the Marlin was a 95-97 gun. How well they shoot should not be confused with how well a shooter can shoot them. How well a shooter does seems to be how well the gun fits him. When a shooter reaches approx. 5 ft, he has pretty much out grown the Acheiver. The Acheiver is an superb starter gun. It forces the shooter to develop follow through, or some bad habits if they aren't offered instruction. The trigger is non-adjustable and has about a mile of overtravel. I would recommend to get the Anschutz sights with the rifle. The Marlin, well Eric Long described it well. I just saw an add for an Anschutz 64 for $695. The add looked like they were selling a new model, similar to the Marlin in design. If so I would like to get a couple for our club, because they would be something between the Acheiver/Marlin and the 19xx series. Chuck Whipple ****************************************************************** Mike: Just got back from the Pan-Am Games rifle and pistol events, where I worked as a volunteer. Boy, was it hot and windy!!! Scores showed it, too. If anyone wants the scores, they can go to the Pan-Am Games web page and check them out. Had fun, but I was glad to get home. Some comments on some of the items in the last few lists. I have always canted my rifle and always will. In fact, my old Anschutz Super Match 54 has the butt plate set offset so that my cant is always the same. I used to do this with my M-16 and M-14 when I shot for the Oregon N.G. I was told repeatedly that you can't shoot hp with a cant, but I did it all the time and was pretty successful at it. I would much rather cant a rifle than try to adapt my body to the upright rifle. The secret is to do it the same all the time and adust sights, etc to compensate. No problem, really, if you pay attention to what you are doing. As for the wife that is small, I would try getting one of the women's standard rifles, if it were me. The Achiever is just too small and not really good enough to use for any kind of half-way serious competitive shooting. He could get a standard rifle with a light weight barrel that is not much heavier than the Achiever he is using now, and she would have much more success. Besides, once you get a balanced position, the weight is not really felt all that much. The problem of heat and clothing is ongoing. I was sure glad that I did not have to shoot in Winnipeg. It was in the high 80's to high 90's most of the time, with humidity in the 80-90% range all the time. The perceived heat index was always around the 100+ mark. But, if you are going to compete at that level, then you have to do it under all conditions. The only thing that might help a little is the clothing you noted that is supposed to wick sweat away, but I have not tried it myself. I use a zipper sweatshirt and my newly acquired Custom Leather Wear heavy canvas pants/jacket. Even that is too hot at times, but you cope. Hope this helps to fuel the fires a little. Don Williams, Oregon ****************************************************************** I have an Anschutz 1907 and would like any information or ideas on methods for glass bedding. Pillar bedding seems to be a popular and successful method for the benchrest shooters. Can this method be used on my rifle? Anyone tried a bedding block as used in centerfire composite stocks? Ralph Goodwin ****************************************************************** Many front sights come with cant indicators that adjust to accommodate an angle. Once these indicators are adjusted and used properly I do not see why it is easier to repeat holding a rifle vertically vs. canted. Ralph Goodwin [Editor - I agree. My full response on this subject is at the very end.] ****************************************************************** << Re: The problem of canting >> The only thing that I can possibly think of to explain this is that somehow Chet was commenting on pistol rather than rifle. If so, I would certainly agree. Pistol canting is basically undesirable; if fact so is rifle canting. The big difference is that you don't have to cant a pistol, while the anatomy of most human beings requires at least some cant when shooting rifles. Best regards, Phillip Williams [Editor - perhaps you should further your comments on why you believe rifle canting is undesirable.] ****************************************************************** Re: Cant Chet may have a point. But.... I have an "over the top" - you'll get the pun later! - idea that the problem is not the cant as such but how our rifles are made. When you think of it the design of barrel on top of stock has been around since Adam wore shorts! Maybe THAT is the problem? To wit: 1. The line of action of the recoil is along the barrel 2. Practically all the rest of the mass of rifle is below the barrel. 3. Therefore the recoil must rotate the muzzle end of the rifle upwards. That is, it rotates about the centre of gravity (nearly - the queer facts of baseball bats hitting balls on the centre of percussion point comes into it as well but I digress ). Now I suspect what happens when the rifle has no cant ( AND the shooter has good position) is that the barrel kicks up nice and straight. Gravity is acting in the line of rotation and thus restoring the rifle in balance. But when there is a cant and because of the barrel rotation from the recoil, the rifle gets kicked sideways as well as upwards. Gravity is not acting in line with the recoil rotation and therefore exerts an unbalanced restoring force on the rifle. We all want to see a "nice" recoil when we fire the shot. God knows what that means and I have great difficulty in deciphering peoples idea of what constitutes a "nice" recoil!!! But we shall perservere. My "nice" recoil looks like a small movement generally upwards and the foresight settles with the bull well inside it. My "bad" recoil is when the barrel leaps out - usually to the left, (surprise surprise!! - I cant to the left ) and carries out a real jiggle round and round - anticlockwise. Rarely coming back with the bull in the foresight. The scores invariable are rough when that kind of recoil is left unattended. The rest of what Chet is going on about comes back to the fact that everytime the shot is fired the rifle / shooter must be EXACTLY in the same position each and every time. Keeping the rifle vertical ensures one less variable to keep under control. Having a sight level ensures the rifle is canted the same each time. What do I do about the Jiggly Recoil? Two sighters are usually sufficient to highlight the problem, I stop and rearrange the body especially checking the cheek pressure and butt are snug and comfortably in the right place and have another couple of goes. I have no hesitation in stopping, reassessing the position half way through a match and "sacrificing" a counter as a "sighter" (rarely misses anyway) to get back into rythm. It is cheap insurance! This is where confidence comes into it. It you do not have the confidence that you can assume the "good" position after breaking then work on it. A good training scheme is to sight up, then get up after each shot and get back down. No peeking and no altering sights. I have always wanted to build a target rifle with the centre of gravity directly on the barrel line. That is, if a piece of string is threaded up the barrel and the rifle hung muzzle end up, the string should be free of the barrel sides. This means that the recoil rotation is eliminated. It means that there would be a fair bit of mass above the barrel too. Half of it in fact. Or how about the barrel below the left hand even? The sight height to barrel distance would need to be increased which ever way was developed. I wonder if Chet has any comments on sight to barrel distances? My thoughts are that there is no problem as long as the cant is the same - even with my balanced rifle idea cant is important - at least for plus and minus a few degrees! But that is another story. "Target Gun" had some interesting comment on effects of cant a while back. Re: Shooting in the heat. A regime I have practised for shooting in Auckland (it is tropical compared to Wellington and humid) is to utilise the sauna. A few soaks for a couple of weeks before hand shocks the body into 'learning' to sweat properly. What happens is that all the bodies sweat glands are trained to sweat more efficiently when they become aclimatised and getting aclimatised to hot conditions is what one is doing while enjoying a sauna! When the unconditioned body is exposed to hot weather beads of sweat are usually produced - on the forehead and dripping into the eyes...Ouch it stings! Once conditioned and because of the increased sweating function, the sweat forms as a thin film over the whole body and promotes evaporation. More evaporation equals more and better cooling. Remember the instructions on an Air Dryer? "Rotating and wiping your hands promotes quicker drying". Wiping the hands spreads out the beads of water into a film. Cooling the body is a function of eliminating as much energy (heat) as possible in the shortest time. Promoting film sweating helps to achieve this. Regards Ross Mason ****************************************************************** Cant or not to Cant...? Not all rifle stocks are made alike. This is the problem. We as beginning rifle shooters had to use a loaner rifle or one of the clubs rifles to learn on during our beginning days of shooting. In the military service we again must use a rifle that is intended for the average shooter but again no one has ever found such a person the size that the government says is the average shooter. One common aspect of all of this is do not cut the rifle stock to fit their physical build. Someone else will want to use the rifle and may not fit the your out cuttings of the rifle stock. So here you are, a bad situation involving all shooters and restricting all shooting athletes to incorrect fitting rifle stocks for competition shooting. The shooter response for an incorrectly sized rifle stock is to cant the rifle so that the rifle fits the position and the eye will look through the rear sight. A multitude of incorrect actions occurs because of this typical action by the shooter. Head and torso unit becomes unbalanced and the position in response also becomes unbalanced. The eye's no longer functions correctly because of misalignment of the eye lens with the sensors in the back of the physical eye. An unbalanced head will cause position movement and in fact start a movement oscillation that will grow larger with time. The eye problem of misalignment will give bad feedback data to the cognitive entity causing confusion as to the exact position of the bull down range and the alignment of the front and read sight for the purpose of precision shooting. How do we correct this problem...? We as precision shooting athletes set the position correctly to fire the perfect bull-eye. To do this we close all adjustments in the stock and start building the stock to mold the face/head of the shooter. Now, in the standing position take the rifle as if to fire the rifle. Include the sighting procedure. Look and feel the feedback of the position and the location of the rifle. The head is to be held straight up and down without allowing any tilt or cant to the head in position. The rifle will then be brought to the head and placed with the rifle cheek piece placement just under the cheek bone. The stock cheek piece will fit under the cheek bone snugly but without over pressure that will move the rifle. Nor is the head to place any pressure upon the rifle or the rifle to place any pressure upon the head in any manner what ever. This will move the rifle and sight to the left or right so a Cant of the rifle is not necessary or required during the shooting process. Normally the shooting athlete will find the eye now centered in the rear sight without misalignment of the line of sight through the eye to the front sight or a canting of the rifle during position construction. In cases where the shooting athlete determines that alignment is still impossible then a good gunsmith must be consulted about removing offending wood from the stock when the shooting athlete owns the rifle. Because such wood removal effects all positions great care must be exercised during stock reshaping and adjustments. As for the Russians...? The Russians Cant their rifle and this is good because it allows them to freely participate in match pressure and we will benefit from their errors. Remember this simple fact. You as competitive shooting athlete have only one competitor and that is you. You are your own competitor. No one else on a firing line is your competitor. If you loose the competition it is you that caused the loss. If you win it is you that won the competition. None of the athletes on the firing line allowed you to win just as they are powerless to defeat you. Any shooting athlete you see on the firing line with a rifle Canted is announcing that they are careless athletes and have not taken the time to correctly adjust the rifle stock while constructing a precision shooting position during their training and competitions. Do not Cant the rifle or the head in precision shooting training and competitions. Was asked why the Cant is prohibited. The rifle recoils upon the centerline through the barrel and rifle bolt to the rear and rotates upward over the shoulder during recoil. A Cant of the rifle will cause an incorrect and off center recoil therefore pulling or pushing the strike of the bullet off the perfect bull eye. During recoil the front sight will be noted to move straight up and down to a reset upon the perfect bull-eye when the rifle is not Canted. When the rifle is Canted the recoil never occurs up and down any longer which changes the point of impact on each shot fired. Under Cant conditions the recoil is variable because of the variable butt hook or plate positioning upon the shoulder at each shot caused during recoil. Because of this variable positioning of recoil impact on the shoulder is never the same and therefore the point of impact is never the same at each shot fired. The cause of recoil/Cant variance is the rifle stock and butt plat or hook assembly. Above you were informed that recoil occurs on a center line through the barrel and receiver group. This indicates the recoil energy mass will occur at the top of the rifle stock (sometimes called the toe). As the shooting athlete adjust the rifle stock up or down or in the case of adjustable free rifle stocks butt plates and hooks, such movement will change the rifle stock recoil energy mass point of impact upon the shoulder. It is this movement of the point of impact from the toe of the stock to the heel downward that causes the change in the point of impact of the bullet down range. Cant of the rifle has the same effect upon the recoil energy mass point of impact upon the shoulder that the movement of the rifle stock in the position. The shoulder acts as a receptor of the recoil energy mass and thereby becomes a fulcrum for which the rifle butt plate or hook rotates around during recoil. Upon the relocation of the point of contact or angle between the rifle toe and heel or hook causes differing responses with concurrent changes in the point of bullet impact upon the target by the rifle at recoil time. Psychologically, Cant causes increased analysis and preventative actions for the correction of any position and firing technique. The more time the cognitive entity has to waste on analysis and redirection to correct for incorrect cant detracts from the precision shooting technique required by the neuromuscular system. Believe me when I say that the cognitive entity knows when you are performing incorrectly because it must correct any errors in technique or position. This causes stress and distress on the part of the cognitive entity. In a relaxed condition the cognitive entity can better sight the rifle and fire the perfect bull eye. Physically, the cant changes or destroys the act of recoil and prevents the rifle from responding to the physical aspects of recoil and movement toward the least amount of pressure or resistance. Therefore, the rifle will miss the point of impact sighted through the sight set mounted upon the rifle. Chet Skinner, Coach cskinner@dol.net ****************************************************************** Editor - after discussing this back and forth for a week, Chet and I couldn't manage to agree on very much. The following has been my rebuttal to his statements: I still don't understand how the head and torso become unbalanced or how the eye is misaligned with the sights because the shooter brought the rifle over to fit their perfect, balanced position but that is another subject. The recoil may not be up and down but will still be exactly the same if the cant was the same so this is an invalid argument. If someone was stupid enough to zero their rifle with the rifle vertical and then shoot for record with a cant without changing their sights, sure the POI will be off. Chet's argument is based upon VARIABLE recoil from shot to shot, which will not happen unless you use variable cant or variable buttplate placement from shot to shot, which will not happen with any serious shooter who is methodical about their position. The positioning of the hook/plate on the shoulder is not any more variable than if the rifle was upright. In fact, on free/sport rifles, the rifle is canted about the plate so the plate is in EXACTLY the same position as if the rifle weren't canted at all. We all strive for perfection so the variability of cant will approach zero. However, this is true whether the cant setpoint we are trying to achieve is 0 degrees (vertical) or 15 degrees from vertical. Thus, the entire issue of what that actual setpoint is has nothing to do with performance so there should be nothing wrong with having a non-zero setpoint. I can agree that you may not need to cant given modifications to the rifle. Unfortunately, the rules don't allow enough variation for air or standard rifle so many people must cant. Most others don't want the extra expense and potential damage to their free rifle stocks. I have seen very few if any shooters not using cant even with free rifle. And I thought it would be hard to have such controversy as we did with calling the shot. Perhaps somebody else can offer a logical point that will enlighten Chet or myself to what the other is missing. ****************************************************************** End of UIT Mailing List #35 Michael Ray - Systems Engineer Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach UIT Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm