which .22lr std pistol is MOST reliable - no more alibis!!!

[Guest]

The GBPL is still going strong, but it's not nearly as big as it once was. There are only A, B, & C divisions now, where it used to go all the way to F. There are on the order of ten clubs still active, with about half fielding more than one team.

It's hard to say why things have shrunk. Some of it is the Massachusetts gun laws, but a lot is people getting drawn into other forms of competition. When I started shooting in the early '70's, GBPL & NRA bullseye was all there was. Now you have people shooting IPSC, bowling pins, cowboy action, international, silhouette, etc. Combined with the crazy pace of modern life, folks don't have time on weekday evenings to shoot in a league.

It's odd, because despite the gun laws, there is a lot more competitve shooting around Boston than there was in California in the Silicon Valley area when I lived there. There certainly wasn't any sort of league or even regular matches at most of the clubs.

[Ed Hall]

I too have a Hammerli 208s and have found it less than failure-free. Some of my issues have been scope related, so they wouldn't really fit here. But aside from those, I have had trouble with magazines, a slide peening, firing pins breaking and main (hammer) springs relaxing. I've changed to using modified S&W 41 magazines, and replaced the slide and a couple of firing pins. I've also changed to a different main spring which I wanted to mention to Slo Cat especially.

The current spring I'm using fixed all my light hits I kept getting from the Hammerli ones. I installed a common stock coil spring with the following dimensions and have had no further trouble:

wire size - 0.050 inch
spring outside diameter - 0.250 inch
12 coils per inch
16 coils total

These are the current dimensions after using this spring for several months. I don't think it has shortened much in its set, but it may have. I also have no idea of its weight. It does not sit inside the spring depression in the top surface of the magazine catch, although I've considered enlarging the depression so it would. My original spring lasted a few years, but the Hammerli replacement didn't last long at all, which is why I tried this other one.

Take Care,
Ed Hall
http://www.airforceshooting.org/
http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/

[David Gray]

My experience is as follows:

FWB93 - never misfired - new - loves RWS Pistol Match
Browning 150 International - 2nd hand - very few misfires
Pardini SP - many misfires - I purchased 2nd hand and sold it recently because of the problems. Tried lots of different ammo.

I have noticed a number of 208s at both of the clubs I shot with more misfires than I would be happy with. I do not really know why. Different ammo and different shoters.

My 2 cents worth.

Regards, Dave

[Fred Mannis]

My experience is as follows:

FWB93 - never misfired - new - loves RWS Pistol Match
Browning 150 International - 2nd hand - very few misfires
Pardini SP - many misfires - I purchased 2nd hand and sold it recently because of the problems. Tried lots of different ammo.

I have noticed a number of 208s at both of the clubs I shot with more misfires than I would be happy with. I do not really know why. Different ammo and different shoters.
Dave

It's always nice when a gun is totaly reliable right out of the box, but some (many?) require extra effort. My Pardini SPE was very unreliable with any ammo. Finally sent it off to Don Nygord who worked his magic. No more problems, as long as I keep it clean and feed it good ammo (Eley)

[jer]

I have Pardini Rapidfire and only jams (2) I had were when shooting first 50 shots after I got the gun. After that there has not been not a single jam and I have feeded it with different ammo (old Russian, Lapua, Federal).

[JamesH]

I had a FAS 601 (.22 short) and 602 (.22 long). We also had a 602 in our club.

All worked flawlessly with the right ammunition - RWS R25 or Pistol Match (old type) - and regular cleaning.

Eley worked well also 99.99% of the time.