Ruger Mark lV 22lr Handgun Competition

[doddg]

Sorry, don't have a pic of the range. The first competitive shooting I ever did (mid 80s) was handgun metallic silhouette. Big bore was 50, 100, 150, and 200 meters. Small bore was 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards. Accuracy was paramount, so that is a given for me. Recently, from December thru February, I have been shooting with several friends at Michigan City Rifle and Pistol Club. Two Friday nights a month they have a rimfire match in their indoor range: 50 feet. I shot a couple of rifles as well as my Anschutz Exemplar pistol. The targets are very small, sometimes just a dot. Shootoffs sometimes are toothpicks. That is fun. My buddies and I are pretty competitive. I never won, but I was only 1 or 2 points down.

So, most of the shooting I do, accuracy is a priority. I guess that should explain my leaning towards accuracy for most of my shooting. Even when I shoot Steel Challenge, I rarely miss. Part of that is due to me mostly shooting revolvers in SC. With a revolver, you can't afford to miss. I'm not the fastest here, but they are a little impressed with the revolvers.

Very interesting!
I need to get over to MCF&G on the West side of Indy to watch some steel shooting to get excited about it again.
I think they have them every Friday evening or at least 1x/month.

 

[Whip_McCord]

Very interesting!
I need to get over to MCF&G on the West side of Indy to watch some steel shooting to get excited about it again.
I think they have them every Friday evening or at least 1x/month.

Yes, they have something similar to our long range rimfire match. We kind of styled ours after their matches. They post info about their match in the Shooting Sports section here. Check it out, it should be fun.

 

[Whip_McCord]

.

 

[gmcttr]

...bcannon msgd me a few days ago and said I could enter a target with my Black Mamba to give gmcttr a run for his money...

NICE shooting! Given the 50' range, I'd say you have set a new mark to beat.

 

[doddg]

It came to my attention that my pics did not display. I will try them as attachments now to see if that works. Sorry for the inconvenience.

bcannon msgd me a few days ago and said I could enter a target with my Black Mamba to give gmcttr a run for his money. I shot some groups today at a private range. The indoor range is 50 feet without any way to move the target or bench. So I figure that could be a self-imposed handicap for using a non-standard Mk IV. I did put a scope on the gun though and used a rest.

We needed to have more than one group posted, so here it is. A little further target, but not quite as good a group as gmcttr. It was nice to get out of the house and shoot a little bit.


Black Mamba
6-18X40 scope
50 feet
CCI SV 40 grain bullet
Group was .510" measured OTO

Two of them: one for the target, one for the gun!

You are living my dream!

 

[bcannon]

Nice shootn Whip. Pretty close competition now. Thanks for posting. I like your setup, can definitely see youre into precision shooting.

 

[scottka]

I’m gonna pretend like this didn’t take me well over 350 rounds of my coveted CCI SV, but I finally got the group that I was looking for! The picture of the two sheets of paper/targets was round 2 for the day. Haha. Definitely was a test in patience and frustration. Some of the groups tell those stories. Had a fair number of decent 8 shot groups. Took awhile to get all 10 in though.

Ruger Mk IV LITE with Tandemkross and VQ goodies.
Old school red dot
25’ to target
10 shot group
CCI SV 40gr
Rested on shooting bag
Measures 0.3020 inches
-I tried to be as conservative as I could by making sure that there was a little paper fringe visible on each side of the calipers so everyone knows I’m not gaining an extra couple hundredths. Tried to measure similarly to the ones before me.

Also, I tried a comically large scope because I had it sitting around waiting on its rifle, but it didn’t work for me at all (big surprise, right?) so I switched to my old tube red dot which treated me much better. Glad I brought both. I’ll add a pic of it at the end for people to get a kick out of. It just BARELY cleared the suppressor!





Now, for my original thought that didn’t pan out at all... way too hard to see the crosshairs at this close.

 

[DadSmith]

Shaping up to be a nice competition. Are the MK4 more accurate than the Buckmark pistols? Those are some very tight groups from several different people.

 

[gmcttr]

Nice shooting scottka.

Shaping up to be a nice competition. Are the MK4 more accurate than the Buckmark pistols? Those are some very tight groups from several different people.

Don't know, never shot a Buckmark.

I suspect both pistols are more accurate than most shooters. Notice we made various sight systems work as we now have groups shot with iron sights, a scope and a red dot.

I think the trend you should take note of is that all three pistols have top of the line aftermarket fire control groups.

 

[scottka]

Nice shooting scottka

Thank ya, sir. Same to you! Your great shooting cost me a few hundred rounds, almost 3 hours, and a lot of frustration. Haha. I’ve been doing mostly longer-range rifle and fast acquisition (Metal Madness-ish) pistol shooting recently, but this was a great change of pace.

 

[scottka]

It came to my attention that my pics did not display. I will try them as attachments now to see if that works. Sorry for the inconvenience.


bcannon msgd me a few days ago and said I could enter a target with my Black Mamba to give gmcttr a run for his money. I shot some groups today at a private range. The indoor range is 50 feet without any way to move the target or bench. So I figure that could be a self-imposed handicap for using a non-standard Mk IV. I did put a scope on the gun though and used a rest.

We needed to have more than one group posted, so here it is. A little further target, but not quite as good a group as gmcttr. It was nice to get out of the house and shoot a little bit.


Black Mamba
6-18X40 scope
50 feet
CCI SV 40 grain bullet
Group was .510" measured OTO

Great shooting! I’d be interested to know a little more about your scope. I’ve never considered a scope for a pistol, but this has me kinda thinking about it now.

 

[Whip_McCord]

Great shooting! I’d be interested to know a little more about your scope. I’ve never considered a scope for a pistol, but this has me kinda thinking about it now.

It is a BSA Sweet 22 6-18X. It was on my 10/22, but when I started using that rifle for more precision shooting, I put a 6-26X scope on it. We were shooting toothpicks at 50' so I needed all the help I could get. My buddies are very competitive. Both of those scopes have adjustable objectives that focus closer than 50' which helps a lot.

I put the Sweet 22 on the Black Mamba for fun and to test the accuracy. I was going to see how it groups at 50 yards too, but it was very windy the day I was at my range. We are mostly a bullseye club and the outdoor range has targets at 25 and 50 yards. Camp Perry is cancelled this year, so I was trying some different type of shooting. The Mamba normally has a red dot sight on it for action shooting. Many of my T/C Contenders (10" & 14" barrels) have rifle scopes on them. Unless the pistol kicks a lot, a rifle scope is a good option.

 

[bcannon]

Looks like we've got a competition nice shootn scottka .

 

[Whip_McCord]

Nice shooting scottka. Seems like shooting long-range rifle, you should be fine shooting that scope on a pistol. Curious what the issue was seeing the crosshairs. I just realized, it probably does not focus at close distances like 25'. An airgun scope might be able to do that. They usually focus as close as 10 yards, some a little closer.

 

[scottka]

Nice shooting scottka. Seems like shooting long-range rifle, you should be fine shooting that scope on a pistol. Curious what the issue was seeing the crosshairs. I just realized, it probably does not focus at close distances like 25'. An airgun scope might be able to do that. They usually focus as close as 10 yards, some a little closer.

Yep. 100% this. Adjustable objective only went down to 40 yards and it’s a FFP scope so the crosshairs were super tiny/wispy and I couldn’t maintain focus on the crosshairs. That’s why I went to the little marker dots. Helped me see the crosshairs initially, until I bailed on the scope all together. I shoulda bailed earlier, but I was trying to stick it out. Groups got considerably better the second I took it off.

 

[Whip_McCord]

Yep. 100% this. Adjustable objective only went down to 40 yards and it’s a FFP scope so the crosshairs were super tiny/wispy and I couldn’t maintain focus on the crosshairs. That’s why I went to the little marker dots. Helped me see the crosshairs initially, until I bailed on the scope all together. I shoulda bailed earlier, but I was trying to stick it out. Groups got considerably better the second I took it off.

Or, just move the target further away.

 

[gmcttr]

Put a scope on the pistol and gave it another try and after several attempts had nine shots in ~0.28" OTO and of course the tenth opened it up to ~0.35".

 

[hANNAbONE]

Ruger MKIV model #40163

SK Pistol Match Spezial, 40gr

25' measured from target to muzzle from a rest. 10 shots.

The measurement with the calipers is a very rough measurement of the out to out size of the group. The OTO is probably a bit larger and of course the CTC would be smaller.

niiiice Reed.!!

really great shooting.!

 

[scottka]

Put a scope on the pistol and gave it another try and after several attempts had nine shots in ~0.28" OTO and of course the tenth opened it up to ~0.35".

haha. I felt like I was about the same a few times. Maybe not quite 0.28”, but felt good until that last shot just barely takes a little more paper. That’s still plenty impressive. We’ll have to do 9 shot groups next time.

 

[Whip_McCord]

I shot some more groups today at my range. The indoor range is 50 feet without any way to move the target or bench. I bested my previous group, so I thought I would post that group. I shot 5 groups and the first one was the best.


Black Mamba
6-18X40 scope
50 feet
CCI SV 40 grain bullet
Group was .410" measured OTO