Hello to All posters on this board!
I have been a regular lurker for quite a while now and have made but a few posts. But, I would like to make this post to let you all know a bit about me and to give a range report from my perspective on the handi-rifle.
I grew up in the Republic of Kalifornia (25 miles from SF). In my family we did not hunt or shoot guns. Although hunting and shooting were not talked against or put down, it was just not an activity that my dad enjoyed so I did not have the opportunity to "grow up" with guns, shooting, and hunting. But, I did develop an interest in shooting as a teen and took it up on my own. But, with little encouragement, I was never able to shoot much or hunt.
Once I got married and started my family, I was not able to shoot much due to financial reasons and still, the hunting was out due to many reasons. But, I could still get to the range once every couple of months. Not what you would call an avid shooter.
Fast forward to 40 years of age...My family and I move to Houston, Tx. Here, the hunting and shooting sports are much more promoted, encouraged, and available. For the first time in my life, I have been hunting! So far, I have gone duck, goose, and dove hunting here in Tx and squirell hunting in Arkansas. But, still, no big game hunting.
With big game hunting in mind, I started looking at what type of hunting that would be available to me where I live. The factors that I had to consider was expense of the hunt (I'm not rolling in dough) and availability of places to hunt (99% of Tx is privately owned. The public lands are hard to hunt because of all the people, at least that is what I hear). Therefore, I chose hog hunting. There are many hogs here and many places where you can hunt them all year round.
After much searching and visiting sites like this, I choose the Handi-rifle for my rifle of choice in the caliber 45-70.
The first time I took it out to the range, I was rather dissapointed in the results. I was shooting the Remington 405 gn "trapdoor" loads at 50 yards. I was getting "minute of plate". But, I had read the threads on this site and knew that there were fixes that could be applied to the rifle to help with accuracy.
This weekend, I went out for the second time after applying all the "fixes". Before I tell you my results, let me describe what I did. I used the now famous "O-ring" washer, removed wood from the fore-arm where it was touching the barell (I had to remove a lot of wood on my particualr rifle), installed a sims recoil pad, and installed a mercury recoil reducer in the stock. The scope that is on it is a Nikon 2-7x32 shotgun scope with plenty of eye relief. I also screwed up the wood while doing my work so I decided to put my own camo paint job on it to cover all my "sins". (I'll try to post a pic of the rifle and groups when I take some pics.)
It took a few shots to get the rifle sighted in, but once I got it sighted in, I was shooting 1 in groups with the Remington 405 gn "trapdoor" loads. I sighted it in to be 1.5 inches high at 50 yards. I then switched to some Federal 300 gn loads that the box said were travelling at 1830 fps. I was also able to print a 1 inch group at 50 yards with that load as well.
Now I understand that 1 inch at 50 yards is not great according to some standards, but for me, the occasional shooter, that is pretty good.
The recoil on the rifle with the Remington loads was less than the 30-30's that I have shot in the past. The recoil with the Federal loads was slighty more than the 30-30's. Those Sims pads and the recoil reducers work extremely well! I will take the recoil reducer out when I go out for the hog hunt to save some weight (it weighs 8 oz).
Now here is the real kicker. My wife, who does not like recoil, and has only shot a large caliber rifle in her life once, and she hated it, asked to shoot the NEF. So, I let her even though I though it might make her fear the bigger calibers. She takes her first shot, and it is way off. She was expecting a huge recoil. After the first shot, she sees that there is hardly any recoil and she proceeds to shoot a 3 shot .75 inch group! Now, I am trying to take the rifle from her so she doesn't embarass me further but she won't give it up. She wants to finsh the last two Remington loads in the box. Whew! She opens the 5 shot group up to 1 inch. Now I don't look so bad.
I am not a "gun tinkerer" (evidenced by how I screwed up my stock and had to paint it camo), nor am I an avid shooter. But, I was able to take one of these inexpensive guns and get it to shoot well enough that I feel good enough to take it hog hunting. These are really good value guns. On top of that, I would like to thank you all for the advice that you gave on how to fix the bugs on these rifles.
My next step is to schedule that hunt. There is a place a couple of hours from me called Huan Ranch. He only charges $125 a day with a guide. That seems very reasonable to me and from what I hear, there are lots of hogs on his property. So, once my pennies are saved, I will schedule my hunt and hopefully have a hunting report fro you.
Take care everyone and once again, thanks for all the advice on this forum. And thanks to you too Greybeard for hosting this site! I have been a lurker since the Marlin talk board days and found my way here as well.
Matt
