Optimising your rimfire’s accuracy
Rifles are rarely perfect straight out of the box, but with a bit of tinkering a good gun can become great
’m quite a fan of the Lithgow CrossOver LA101, so much so I’ve bought two of them – a 17HMR and a 22LR. Out of the box the 17 was impressive, sub MOA without any tinkering. The 22 however was a bit of a disappointment and consistently struggled to make 1 inch groups at 50 metres.
Given both rifles are pretty much identical, barrel and bore withstanding; it was a bit of a mystery. I did all the usual stuff, tried every brand of ammo I could find, checked and recheck the scope but the rifle stubbornly refused to improve.
The groups tended to have a vertical spread, pointing towards a trigger or fore-end issue. I checked the clearance with a £5 looped around the barrel and all seemed well. Must be the trigger then…
A call the Highland Outdoors, Lithgow’s UK distributor and a quick chat with in-house gunsmith Ryan and a date was set to meet at Brock & Norris in Shropshire to sort it. Thank God I didn’t take my ticket! Stunning customs guns, ammo, reloading gear, stocks galore – it’s a real sweet shop for rifle shooters!
After the guided tour, Ryan set to work stripping the gun, sears and bolts were polished, springs were swapped and creep put to the sword. Ryan even recrowned the barrel in a belt and braces approach to improving accuracy.
After watching these guys work I got home expecting miracles. The trigger was transformed, virtually creep free and as crisp as you like. As for the groups… well better, but certainly not breathtaking. Okay, now I’m really confused?
Engineering quality is one of the standout features of a CrossOver. They’re built like a centrefire, the mechanics had been tweaked by not one but two respected gunsmiths and yet still no cigar. It was time to go back to basics.
IFore-end fettling
Off came the stock, a part of the rifle pretty much ignored up to this point. A closer inspection revealed the odd rough bit of polymer here and there, obviously remnants from the moulding process that had been overlooked.
The tolerances on the Lithgow are pretty tight and that includes the stock. As you can see from the close up of the barrel and fore-end, there’s very little gap between the two and that’s a photo taken after the stock had been sanded!
Off to the shed, returning with a 12 inch length of brush stale (28mm), some 22mm copper pipe and a fist full of fine emery paper. The brush stale was an ideal fit for the sides of the fore-end while the copper pipe slipped perfected into the barrel channel itself.
After half an hour of methodical sanding, the fore-end was as smooth as a silk, all the flecks of excess polymer gone. Thanks to the fine grain emery cloth, there was no sign of scratches or imperfections on the stock, just a nice clean, smooth finish.
Happy with the clean-up job, I put the gun back together and headed for the