I gave my Handi Rifle action to the UPS man on May 25 and sent it in mostly to get a better trigger pull. It came with an 8 lb pull, but as long as I was sending it in I ordered a .45-70 bbl. This Friday (Jun 18) evening the UPS man shows up at my door with the "new" Handi rifle. The trigger is great, about 3 lbs. The down side is my rifle was/is a .30/06 and has a Monte Carlo stock so I look right over the rear iron sight on the .45/70 bbl. I'm new here and have just mostly lurked and enjoyed everything I've learned but thought some of you might be interested to know that now seems to be a good time to send stuff in for new bbl's or trigger work. Another item or two of interest would be the conversation with the gentelman who handled my phone call to set up sending my rifle to HR. He told me they no longer had any .357 bbl's and had ceased production. I asked him about how to cure the tendancy of my '06 to string it's groups. I'd tried the shim under the forearm but it didn't seem to matter. He told me if my stock was wood, not to bother with the shim, but to free float the fore arm from the attachment lug forward. I've floated the forearm but as yet haven't gotten to the range to see how the new trigger and the floated fore arm will work. The 06 will clover leaf two rounds and then throw the third 1 1/2 inches from the other two.
I am looking for some advise on a couple of things. I like the way the monte carlo fits me with the 06 bbl and don't really want to change the stocks, so that will force me to mount a scope on the .45/70. But not having tried the "standard" stock it might not be that big a deal to use both bbls with it. I'd like to hear what some of you may have to offer. Especially since I'd rather use the iron sights on the 45/70. But I may have to just use a scope on both. I have a couple of old 4X scopes that would work and I'd just have to get the mount. That is probably the cheapest/easiest route to easily using both barrels with a minimum of fuss converting from one to another. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
I'll check back after my next range session, but next week is fishing so it'll be a couple of weeks before I can get to it. CH