Yesterday I was able to make a return trip to the Rock Pit... I had decided I wanted to do some additional testing with the a discovery and purchase I just made.
One of my neighbors had a ML that he was not longer using and wanted to move. I had seen the rifle before but somehow in my mind I thought it was a Bighorn. I told him I would be interested in looking at the rifle and if I did not want it I would post it up on the boards for sale. He brought the rifle over and my first surprise to find out it was an old Wolverine, which I had more interest in than the Bighorn.
The rifle came with a standard straight black stock and it was a stainless variety which peaked my interest even more. I checked the rifle out and told the neighbor I would let him know but regardless we could sell it on a forum if I decided not to keep it. While checking the rifle it did not even dawn on me that the barrel was short - well I knew it was short but not that short. I thought it would have the same 24" barrel length as the MK-85's that I have. Well it's not it is a 22" barrel same as my White Lightening. I really didn't need another 22" rifle so I decided I would put it up for sale in the fall before hunting season.
But... I really should take it out and shoot it so I could say that it shot well. So I decided to clean it up and treat the bore with 'Bore Tek' as well as clean and adjust the trigger pull. Then 'what the heck' I stripped the old black composite stock off and replaced it with an extra thumbhole that I had. With that upgrade the old rifle was starting to look really nice.
It came with a Williams FP peep sight but still has the Knight factory front sight. This morning I am probably going to strip that off and install the Williams front sight setup I really like. OOP's getting ahead of myself... the rifle still had the short barrel and I really did not need another short barreled rifle.
Tuesday of last week I was messing around in my stuff and found some 50 cal. bullets that I had stuffed away because I could not find a rifle that they would work in - other than the White and actually they were somewhat loose in that bore. Just out of curiosity I thought what the heck.... they have not fit in any Knight bore that I have ever tried them in (way to tight) - but guess what a near perfect fit in this old Wolverine! As most of know now not all 50 cal. bores are the same they can very to a large degree!
Bullets.... a few years ago when Lehigh Dave was just starting to make a dent in the ML bullet market I suggested that I would like to see him build some sabotless bullets. So in those days he had the time and geared up his CNC machine to run some bullets. He had a older Knight 50 rifle on hand at his factory and made the bullets to fit that rifle.
From that he produced a couple of bullets.... the first being the .500x270CF-HP and in a more recent run of his XP bullets he made a very few .500x300 XP's. Both of these are meant to be shot sabotless.
Both of these bullets were to large in diameter to get down any of the 59 cal. bores I had other than the White. So they have been boxed and stored away for a few years.
Thursday the saw the light of day again. Packed up and headed to the Rock Pit with the old Wolverine. Got the rifle sighted in at 25 yards with sabot/bullet combination then switched to the 50x270 for testing. Loaded great both on a patched barrel and a barrel with repeated shots and no patching... Move the target to 75 and fined tuned the sight in. Then a couple of chips on the wall at 100 - all was good. - THEN - the snow came packed up and headed back to shelter.
Bullet ballistics
Cleaned the rifle up last night and this morning I am removing and replacing the front sights - then back to sight it all in again... Will go with this front sight combination.... kinda like looking through a 1X scope
