Vacation is finally over!!

Well, all I can say is, "It's good to be home." Vacations are more stressful than relaxing for me. Not sure why, but that seems to be the way it always turns out.

We managed to do some fun stuff like spending the day at the indoor water park (no sunburn - YIPPEE!!!) and wearing ourselves to the bone at Kings Island. More leisurely activities included several visits to the Cheesecake Factory and a stroll through the Newport Aquarium. Now, on to more important matters...

I managed to hit the range shortly before vacation and try out some different ammo in the Magnumlite .17M2 rifle. Ran some CCI, Hornady, and Eley rounds down the bore with the following results: all three brands showed case head bulging just like the Remington ammo; there were no case head ruptures from any of the three; and, functioning was 100% with CCI and Hornady, and 96% (2 failures to eject out of 50 rounds) for the Eley. The Eley was much stinkier and dirtier than the other brands, which is odd considering the Brits usually take great care in their ammo manufacturing, especially with a "target" driven brand like Eley. Here are a few pics of some of the spent casings:






So, at this point, it looks as if the gun may need to go back to Magnum Research to correct a timing problem or some other issue such as bolt mass or recoil or hammer spring tension. Needless to say, I'm a bit disappointed in the performance of this gun considering it is essentially a custom "production" conversion built on the ultra-reliable Ruger 10/22 action. Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.