pbike
New member
It was a strange summer for me here in Michigan last year. My son Eric would be Graduating High School and starting a summer job away from home (camp councilor at Boy Scout Camp). This job would require that Mom and I (or somebody) would have to go to a Boy Scout camp 3 hours north every other weekend on Saturday Morning to pick Eric up from work, bring him home, visit a bit and take him back on Sunday afternoon. Through the course of the summer we had Graduation Parties, Eric’s work travel, my broken foot and Doctors appointments. Needless to say it was a very hectic summer and I had little time on weekends when our center-fire matches are held. I shot 4 center-fire matches all summer, one was the score nationals (I sucked there).
I have this little Anschutz rifle (MPR 64) that I had shot with the guys on Tuesday nights the year before for fun. I knew what it was capable of as far as groups go and I thought I’d try my luck with the league this year. I could see from the start that my center-fire summer was pretty well shot to pieces, but I could probably salvage enough evenings for the rim-fire league. So why not go up to Lynwood and shoot in the Tuesday night league this time? It’s a bunch of “good old boys” with some nice BR rim-fire rifles. They shoot 50 Yards for score, and they’re pretty tough. After measuring the barrel “knob” (fat part at the end to accept Anschutz front sights), I called Gene Beggs. The fat part was if I remember correctly, just about .900”. I asked him about his tuner and if he had ever used it for rim-fire. He explained to me that he had used it before but not competitively and that he feels it works but can’t seem to prove it, he more or less told me he is not a known rim-fire shooter and that he doesn’t have the time to spend trying all the ways to make these rim-fire BR rifles work… He told me He’d appreciate if I tested one for him on my rifle.
The tuner arrived in a few days. I installed it on the Stainless MPR barrel. The beauty was that I could cut the threads, which ended up being about as deep as the slots that Anschutz puts in their barrels, and still be able to use the dovetail slots if needed. At the same time I got in there and put my standard 11 degree crown. I like this crown more so than the BR standard flat crown. To me it seems the BR flat crown just isn’t protected well enough. Have I dinged any up? No, not yet, but why take a chance? So I put the tuner on. When I do the crown or the tuner I set up my barrels in a spider the same way I do as if I were doing a chamber. I use the PTG Indicator rods with the piloted tip and I have a set of bushings for rim-fire as well as all the center-fire calibers. Once I fit the proper bushing, I continued with dialing in the barrel on the spider. After it had been dialed in I cut the tenon if you will, then I cut the threads. While there I did the crowning. I use a stiff short Carbide tipped boring bar, and I cut the 11 degree crown. Then I touch the bore with the piloted 45 degree crown tool also from PTG. After that I just break the outside edge of the barrel where it had been threaded with a tool that I use for chamfering. When I put the piloted crown cutter in I made sure to recheck the ID of the bore again to make sure the barrel dimension hadn’t changed. Some will have you believe that cutting the threads on the OD will cause the barrel to swell. The same bushing was the one that still fit best. I guess I did ok?
My plans were to go to the match, and during the 20 minutes that we have to shoot the 20 score targets, twist the tuner as needed and find a “focus”. Once found, shoot some record targets until the focus seemed to go away, then focus again if needed. When I say focus, I mean mostly in the vertical, but I noticed that once you get the barrel in tune, or at least take the vertical out with the tuner, the left right unexplained fliers seem to go away? Why?, hell I don’t know. I just know that the barrel shot better in the wind when the vertical amplitude was lower
It worked like a charm. First off, everyone that new about tuners were skeptical of mine since “it wasn’t heavy enough” (only 4 oz.), and it was screwed to the barrel. Surely that’ll never work. You can’t thread a barrel at the muzzle; you have to have a clamp on tuner. Ok!, but this is what I have so we’ll just see. I noticed on theirs, which were Fudd’s, and Hoehn’s, and one without a name that they had been set up like a micrometer, they were way heavier, and some of the ones with the micrometer had ball/detents to keep the adjustment clicked. Those seemed loose on the barrel and I would think needed to be tight when shot, but no tightening means was there. The guys would shoot all afternoon and find a tune, then they didn’t tune during the match? Coming from Center-fire my thought was that the Density Altitude (DA) determined the tune and as that changed so did your tune… I know the DA changes regularly and it never really holds still for an entire 20 minute match. That’s why I would tune as needed.
The league is set up that they have a possible 18 targets for record; you can shoot 2 a week, on Tuesday night. At the end of the summer you have to have 10 targets for record, but if you have more, your lower scores get thrown out. At the end of the Summer I had 10 targets completed. I had none to throw away. They scored the targets 200-20x’s possible but for the Average or aggregate of 10 targets, they gave the x a point value. An x was worth .05 each, and the 20 x’s would be worth an entire point. This thinking means a target of 200 and 15 x’s would score 200.75 for the aggregate record. To shorten this already too long Story. By the end of the Summer I had just enough targets fired and my scores were all very good that I won for the summer, many of the guys had shot 12 to 14 targets and even with the throw out cards I still had them. THE BEGGS TUNER WORKED. My aggregate score for the summer averaged out to 200.70, that’s an average of 14 x’s. I had 1 target that was a 200 18x. So Gene if you read this it worked and thank you!
Below will be pictures of the tuner job-be-do.
I have this little Anschutz rifle (MPR 64) that I had shot with the guys on Tuesday nights the year before for fun. I knew what it was capable of as far as groups go and I thought I’d try my luck with the league this year. I could see from the start that my center-fire summer was pretty well shot to pieces, but I could probably salvage enough evenings for the rim-fire league. So why not go up to Lynwood and shoot in the Tuesday night league this time? It’s a bunch of “good old boys” with some nice BR rim-fire rifles. They shoot 50 Yards for score, and they’re pretty tough. After measuring the barrel “knob” (fat part at the end to accept Anschutz front sights), I called Gene Beggs. The fat part was if I remember correctly, just about .900”. I asked him about his tuner and if he had ever used it for rim-fire. He explained to me that he had used it before but not competitively and that he feels it works but can’t seem to prove it, he more or less told me he is not a known rim-fire shooter and that he doesn’t have the time to spend trying all the ways to make these rim-fire BR rifles work… He told me He’d appreciate if I tested one for him on my rifle.
The tuner arrived in a few days. I installed it on the Stainless MPR barrel. The beauty was that I could cut the threads, which ended up being about as deep as the slots that Anschutz puts in their barrels, and still be able to use the dovetail slots if needed. At the same time I got in there and put my standard 11 degree crown. I like this crown more so than the BR standard flat crown. To me it seems the BR flat crown just isn’t protected well enough. Have I dinged any up? No, not yet, but why take a chance? So I put the tuner on. When I do the crown or the tuner I set up my barrels in a spider the same way I do as if I were doing a chamber. I use the PTG Indicator rods with the piloted tip and I have a set of bushings for rim-fire as well as all the center-fire calibers. Once I fit the proper bushing, I continued with dialing in the barrel on the spider. After it had been dialed in I cut the tenon if you will, then I cut the threads. While there I did the crowning. I use a stiff short Carbide tipped boring bar, and I cut the 11 degree crown. Then I touch the bore with the piloted 45 degree crown tool also from PTG. After that I just break the outside edge of the barrel where it had been threaded with a tool that I use for chamfering. When I put the piloted crown cutter in I made sure to recheck the ID of the bore again to make sure the barrel dimension hadn’t changed. Some will have you believe that cutting the threads on the OD will cause the barrel to swell. The same bushing was the one that still fit best. I guess I did ok?
My plans were to go to the match, and during the 20 minutes that we have to shoot the 20 score targets, twist the tuner as needed and find a “focus”. Once found, shoot some record targets until the focus seemed to go away, then focus again if needed. When I say focus, I mean mostly in the vertical, but I noticed that once you get the barrel in tune, or at least take the vertical out with the tuner, the left right unexplained fliers seem to go away? Why?, hell I don’t know. I just know that the barrel shot better in the wind when the vertical amplitude was lower
It worked like a charm. First off, everyone that new about tuners were skeptical of mine since “it wasn’t heavy enough” (only 4 oz.), and it was screwed to the barrel. Surely that’ll never work. You can’t thread a barrel at the muzzle; you have to have a clamp on tuner. Ok!, but this is what I have so we’ll just see. I noticed on theirs, which were Fudd’s, and Hoehn’s, and one without a name that they had been set up like a micrometer, they were way heavier, and some of the ones with the micrometer had ball/detents to keep the adjustment clicked. Those seemed loose on the barrel and I would think needed to be tight when shot, but no tightening means was there. The guys would shoot all afternoon and find a tune, then they didn’t tune during the match? Coming from Center-fire my thought was that the Density Altitude (DA) determined the tune and as that changed so did your tune… I know the DA changes regularly and it never really holds still for an entire 20 minute match. That’s why I would tune as needed.
The league is set up that they have a possible 18 targets for record; you can shoot 2 a week, on Tuesday night. At the end of the summer you have to have 10 targets for record, but if you have more, your lower scores get thrown out. At the end of the Summer I had 10 targets completed. I had none to throw away. They scored the targets 200-20x’s possible but for the Average or aggregate of 10 targets, they gave the x a point value. An x was worth .05 each, and the 20 x’s would be worth an entire point. This thinking means a target of 200 and 15 x’s would score 200.75 for the aggregate record. To shorten this already too long Story. By the end of the Summer I had just enough targets fired and my scores were all very good that I won for the summer, many of the guys had shot 12 to 14 targets and even with the throw out cards I still had them. THE BEGGS TUNER WORKED. My aggregate score for the summer averaged out to 200.70, that’s an average of 14 x’s. I had 1 target that was a 200 18x. So Gene if you read this it worked and thank you!
Below will be pictures of the tuner job-be-do.
