Canadian Airgun Forum

In order to prevent hi-jacking of the other rimfire question post, I have decided to re-start here.

Houze's book of course is "The Winchester 52- Perfection in Design".
Please note that this book contains some serious errors- especially concerning the serial number ranges of the 52 E series rifles.
That can be partially attributed to the poor record keeping that W.R.A.Co. was doing at the time they were placed into receivership...

Yes, 1/2" at 200 sounds pretty amazing- until one takes into consideration the tightly controlled environment and test structure that the WRACo engineers used.
I believe (but have no proof) that WRACo exerted pressure on the Western ammunition company for the tightly controlled manufacture of .22 L/R match ammunition.
A good example of this is the 50's era EZ-X's ammunition.
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a box, and found them almost the equal of Lapua Biathlon match- which takes some serious doing.

Daryl- I'd be interested in knowing a bit about the 50's era 52 that you used,
I suspect a "C" trigger for a score like yours, or perhaps even an aftermarket like the Canjar.
They were not all created equally, and came in a bewildering choice of barrel weights, lengths, diameters and different sight types, just for starters.
There were also some pretty serious after market stock makers around that got a bit of business with the 52.

On a more personal level, the closest I've come is the USRAC/Miroku 52-B Sporting, which is a very interesting rifle, and about the maximum of my affordability range

-D.S.

_________________
"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

The M52 I borrowed, I got from Lester H.Hawkes, not passed on. He was a close friend from 1972, through to his death in '95. What guy.
The rifle in question, was the match model, heavy 24" bl. with Redfield aperture sights, seems to me. You know, it might have had an Anschutz front aperture mounted.
The rifle was used by Irene Hawke's first husband who used to shoot with Less in Kalispel. He passed with cancer and Less married Irene, then moved to Canada in the
early 1960's. They both became Canadian citizens by 1970.

The 52's trigger was stock, but had a shoe that reduced the "felt" trigger pull. I do not remember what the weight of the pull was, and if the range officers at the WPFG
checked trigger pulls. They were more interested in the Dutch Team removing all the open class Olympic gear from their rifles, to meet the US "Standard Rifle" specs of no hooks,
palm rests, etc. Since I was finished before anyone else, I perused the firing line and noticed that the captain of the Dutch Team who was the chief of Police in Amsterdam,
had returned his palm rest to his rifle for the offhand. Of course, he was disqualified.
I dropped only 12 points in the offhand - had to shoot quickly as my back was killing me after prone and kneeling. I was a pretty good offhand shot in those days. LOL My buddy Keith, dropped all of his points on the offhand target, acing the prone and kneeling.
He used a new Anschutz Model 54.
Here is a picture of the model 52. Seems to me, I loaded it single shot & did not use it's magazine. The hand stop on the rifle I used, was a larger custom part and made of aluminum.
The hand-stop rail on the bottom of the forend allows almost unlimited adjustment in the stop's position under the forearm.
As I still have the hand stop, I guess it was mine from my 3-po days in the 70's and 80's. I also still have my shooting mitt and Anschutz sling, which I used.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

The most accurate sporting .22 I've ever owned, was a Remington Model 580, single shot. It made many 1/2" groups for 5 shots, at 100 meters at our local range.
Of course it was susceptible to ANY wind. Most interesting group I got with it, was 12 shots, 1 1/2" wide and 1 1/2 bullet holes high. The wind was switching back and forth
across the range that day so I watched the flags and only shot in side to side winds.
The best ammo in that rifle, was Winchester T22.
Buddy Claire, a local Mounty at that time had the model 581, which had a 5-shot clip/magazine. His rifle also shot best with Winchester T22 ammo.
The reason for the accuracy, was the stiffness of the action with it's Rem. model 788 type rear locking lugs - 6 of them IIRC. The Rem. 788 was also renowned for it's accuracy in CF rounds.
Guys in the States have re-barreled 580 series of rifles, and chamberred/converted them to centre fire rifles. The largest ctg. used normally are based on swaged down .22 Hornet cases.
The .22 CCM is one-such round. Others, rebarreled them to .172 cal. barrels, pulled the bullets from .22 WMR, necked them down in custom dies and were the first ones to make what is
now loaded and called the .17 HMR rounds. Guys in the States have been making those since about the mid 1960's IIRC.
Hornady just made them a factory round & due to the use of Hodgdon's Lil'Gun powder, actually improved on the performance the earlier .17 rim fire wildcat produced.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

I had one of those Winchester Miroku 52-B Sporting rifles back in the mid-late 90s. A local store had them for $599 back then. Very accurate rifle with a sweet trigger after the adjustment limiter pin was removed. All I ever shot was cheapo highvel ammo but it would group 1.25" to 1.5" at 100m with it's favourite (5 shots). I had a couple of sub-1" groups but would likely have had a lot more with some Eley or Lapua ammo. I kick myself for selling that gem.

Daryl:

That is a model C 52. The trigger is obviously a "C" I suspect very late 50's to early 60's manufacture.
The stock is a factory "Marksman" stock, and Len Brownell had a hand in it's design.
From what I can see of the sling swivels, they are after market.
I don't know enough about globe fronts to differentiate that one from the factory supplied.
At the time the C trigger came out, it had the fastest lock time.
Pull weights were easily modified with this trigger via the adjustment screw.
Barrel is the factory heavy variant.

The last WRACo 52 I saw in person was a "C" type sporting, and that is going back a few years.

TCooper:

I'll never sell mine. It and my 1954 Marlin 39-A are staying with me all the way through.
I do need to find a replacement stock for my Miroku repro 52.
The barrel channel on mine would not stop warping.
I had probably the last gunsmith operating in Winnipeg gouge out the channel to the point of free float, with a good 1/32" clearance all the way around. It looks like heck from above, but shoots like a dream.
He also gave it his version of a glass bed- which was a couple of drops of Accra-glas just behind the front trigger guard screw.
He had high praise for the rifle- it had been a while for him to see close mechanical tolerances like that.
He suggested replacing the stock- which will happen when I can find one.

-D.S.

_________________
"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

Doc - have you tried Boyd's Stocks in the States? Used to be called Boydboys, now just Boyd's Gun Stocks.
EDITED: I just looked and they have no M52 stocks.

https://www.boydsgunstocks.com/

The front sling swivel was a hollow receptor (female) for the expanding balls of the peg on my Anschutz sling which fit perfectly.
I agree, it was a replacement for the original, which likely was just a steel loop for the typical US sling.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

It's possible to get a random act of accuracy that produces a 1/2" five round group at 200 yards (about .25 MOA) with .22LR. The rifle or barreled action would have to be in a testing fixture or vise and shooting in a windless testing tunnel at least 200 yards in length. Of course such results must be considered rare and unusual, as would be a 200 yard testing tunnel. By comparison, the longest currently available for .22LR testing is 100 meters.

Why would it be rare and unusual? It requires extraordinarily consistent .22LR ammo. It's challenging to get the best .22LR match ammo, with a sufficiently small ES to shoot .25 MOA at 50 yards, let alone 200. To put this in perspective, a five shot .25 MOA group at 50 yards would be .125". This is doable but challenging to produce consistently. And as distance increases, such performance gets more and more difficult.

The vertical dispersion at 100 yards resulting from MV variation alone is about 1/4" for each 10 fps difference between rounds. At 200 yards, a10 fps difference betweeen two rounds results in about an inch of vertical.

With .22LR a .25 MOA level of performance at 200 yards can happen as a random act of accuracy, but it cannot be produced regularly -- no matter what rifle is used. No rifle can ever outperform the ammo it's shooting.

For an illustration of what's occasionally achievable at 200 yards, see https://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/20 ... 200-yards/

For some Win 52 pictures, about four years ago I had the Winchester 52 E shown below.

Nice bench gun. For 50 meter competition I suspect. BR50, I think it's called.
Maybe it's yards, not meters as the class originated in the States, I think.
Same target for all disciplines.
Air Rifles - 25 yards
Rim Fires - 50 yards
Centre Fires- 100yards
Instead of scoring line touching gets the higher score, this is 1/2 bullet hole rule & scoring is ruthless.
If there is question as to whether in or out, it is scored OUT.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

The E shown above wears an after-market trigger.
Not too sure on the stock- it looks a bit more modern than the factory International stock. Likely aftermarket as well.
Nice Japan Weaver. Is it a T-12?

I dis-agree with 1/2" at 200 being random in Winchester's case.
I think it was a goal that they worked quite hard and diligently for- and tested for repeatability.
They were most definitely set up for very tightly controlled accuracy testing.
I'm still not too sure over the amount of control John Olin had over the Western Cartridge Company.
I do know that both were Olin owned.
Olin had personal interest in the 52 series rifles, and kept them in the line long after they were economically feasible to manufacture.

-D.S.

_________________
"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

The rifle had a Kenyon trigger and is a Winchester 52 E International. The stock is not unusual for that model.

The question of whether 1/2" groups at 200 yards with .22LR can be achieved consistently or with regularity is not usually the subject of debate, tightly controlled testing or not.

First and foremost, consider that .22LR accuracy performance is not linear. In other words, groups size typically more than doubles as distance doubles.

Why does it more than double? As distance increases, vertical dispersion due to MV variation alone more than doubles as distance doubles. To illustrate, the same MV variation between two rounds (10 fps) that causes a .22LR bullet to drop about .07" at 50 yards results in a .25" drop at 100, and about 1" at 200.

See the ballistics chart below which shows two rounds, one with a nominal MV of 1073 fps, the other 1083 fps.



Second, the above applies to ammo that is perfect except for the difference in MV. Any very slightest of differences in the bullet itself, especially in the heel or in center of gravity offset (which, like airgun pellets, cannot be near perfect with soft lead .22LR bullets), will only further exacerbate performance challenges.

Even with the shooter taken out of the equation by use of a vise or fixture and wind or air movement eliminated by shooting in a 200 yard testing tunnel (if one has existed for .22LR), ammunition shortcomings make 1/2" groups with .22LR at 200 yards random rather than expected or produced consistently.

If there was better .22LR match ammo available, the kind capable of regularly producing 1/2" groups at 200 yards, serious shooters would have cause to celebrate. Unfortunately, such ammo is exceedingly rare and can't be manufactured on demand. That was true in the past and it's true today, with the best ammo production standards that have existed.

I seriously doubt Winchester would enter data into the factory records based on a random event.

I really don't know what they did for ammunition in those tests- that is not a matter of public knowledge.
Whatever it was, it was likely too absurdly expensive to make available through mass production.
That the company had access to ammunition making is un-deniable fact. Whether they used that access or not, or did something completely different is currently a huge un-known.

I'll take what's in the records at face value, and try to keep an open mind on this.

-D.S.

_________________
"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

Doc, if you can take a scan or a photograph of the 200 yard data from the Houze book and post it, it would be appreciated greatly.

Unfortunately, information directly from Herbert G. Houze, The Winchester Model 52: Perfection in Design is not easy to find.

From what I've seen trying to find this information, there is information regarding Win 52 ten-shot groups at 200 yards (presumably outdoors) from page 112. The following group sizes are given with year:

1920: 3.0" average 10-shot group diameter
1924: 2.5" average 10-shot group diameter
1927: 2.25" average 10-shot group diameter
1929: 2.0" average 10-shot group diameter
1932: 1.75" average 10-shot group diameter
1934: 1.50" average 10-shot group diameter
1937: 1.25" average 10-shot group diameter

From post #15 here https://www.rimfirecentral.com/threads/ ... cy.746409/

The five shot group records referred to previously, or information relating to more recent results, may be on another page of Houze's book.

I wasn't aware 1952 was not representative of the year the model 52 was presented.
Interesting.
Of course the first model 70's were produced in April 1936. Mine is serial numbered well under 1900
& they made 2,200 before 1934.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

No flies on those groups. Even the first one, of 1920 at 3", that is just under 1 1/2 MOA.
I noticed the 1/4" tighter group with each listed year of testing & that no such testing was done after 1937.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

I am going to have to dig for my copies.
There were 3 different printings that I'm aware of.
It may take a while to find the books.

-D.S.

_________________
"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.