Remington 37 Up and Running!

[Squid556]

Some of you probably saw my earlier post asking for guidance on a righty using a lefty bolt gun.

Guidance On Remington 37 Benchrest 22 Rimfire

I had a very peculiar thing happen to me today. Decided to secretly buy my wife the Charter Lavender Lady 38 she’s been wanting as an anniversary gift. So after I leave it for her to find in the house, I went to town and met with a good friend. After him listening to my woes of trying to squeeze...

www.indianagunowners.com

Well it took a month, but spent the time waiting on my EGW pic mount and doing a lot of snap cap dry fire practice to learn left handed shooting.

Installed the modern mount and a spare 4x Leopold then took it out to the 50 yard range today.

Admittedly, at first live fire left handed was a bit odd. Eye dominance kept switching in and out. Kinda made my head feel funny. I found that on long strings of group fire that my target became hard to focus on. I would start strong and then the last few shots of the group would be quite strained.

Decided to do something unconventional and switch to right hand, but with the rifle cocked at 30 degrees so I could use the left stock as a righty. Bad idea. Groups shifted hard left nearly 2 inches and the consistency was not good.

Being a bit defeated I needed a break. Noticed some tiny steel chickens down range about the size of my palm. So I switched to left handed and went in on them. This was the ticket! I started to have so much fun knocking them down. Shooting steel was much less stress on my eye and I was able to focus. Body shots became too easy so I challenged myself. 4 power scope at 50 yards I did 5 tiny chicken headshots in a row under 30 seconds. Running the single shot bolt gun at speed was a thrill. Had a huge grin on my face but ran out of time and had to leave.

Next step is going to be putting higher magnification glass on it, and with adjustable parallax and higher rings. That may help with my eye strain while shooting 5 shot groups. I may still modify the rifle back to right handed but for now, I’m going to continue shooting it as “intended” and enjoy the challenge.

 

[TJ Kackowski]

Glad to hear you're having fun shooting off handed and are willing to continue with that challenge.

One suggestion to help with your eye fatigue. I'm guessing that you're right eye dominant and only shooting left handed because of the rifle stock configuration. It also sounds like you're shooting with both eyes open. Both eyes open is good because squinting one eye closed will fatigue you faster than forcing your non-dominant eye to take over for your dominant eye.

So, if this is a correct assessment, the easiest fix it to place some frosted scotch tape over the lens of your dominant eye. You still shoot with both eyes open, but the dominant eye can't take over since it has nothing to focus on. Many, many shooters employ this trick with great success.

However, as stated in the post you linked, if you want to shoot this rifle right handed, engage a custom stock maker, or hop over to Rimfire Central and see if there is a southpaw looking to swap stocks.

 

[Squid556]

Glad to hear you're having fun shooting off handed and are willing to continue with that challenge.

One suggestion to help with your eye fatigue. I'm guessing that you're right eye dominant and only shooting left handed because of the rifle stock configuration. It also sounds like you're shooting with both eyes open. Both eyes open is good because squinting one eye closed will fatigue you faster than forcing your non-dominant eye to take over for your dominant eye.

So, if this is a correct assessment, the easiest fix it to place some frosted scotch tape over the lens of your dominant eye. You still shoot with both eyes open, but the dominant eye can't take over since it has nothing to focus on. Many, many shooters employ this trick with great success.

However, as stated in the post you linked, if you want to shoot this rifle right handed, engage a custom stock maker, or hop over to Rimfire Central and see if there is a southpaw looking to swap stocks.

Great idea, thank you!

 

[MrSmitty]

I shoot lefty, and have left eye dominate....That is one neat set up. I bought my son a savage bolt gun years ago, and found out he shot lefty too, I liked running the bolt with my non-trigger hand, seemed faster (to me) Hope you have great shooting for years, and the whole pay-it-forward thing worked out for you!!

 

[Squid556]

THREAD UPDATE

I spent the last 8 months tweaking and shooting this rifle in a few different configurations. It will take a few posts but I’d like to share its progress.

After learning to use the odd custom stock left handed, I got to trying 4 different optics on here. First was the 4 power Leupold, because that’s what I had on hand when I got the optics mount in.

Despite not looking right, this optic was actually a good performer. But it’s 4 power made 50 yard group shooting kinda tricky. Sizing bullseye to match the low power was the key to getting good groups.

Second after that, purely for purposes of experimentation… I found a take off scope at my LGS. It was an older Japanese Tasco 3-9x40

This optic was honestly very difficult to use. It would never let me focus on both the target and reticle. Only one or the other. Despite that and fighting the whole left handed shooting I did manage to squeeze an awesome 50 yard group out of this “junk” scope.

After this I had a good friend offer to loan me a reproduction Unertl 15 power scope that mounted to the original dovetail blocks. I spent the end of the shooting season with this guy. Got a lot of great groups and got to learn this old tech. 200 yard shooting is where this one started to fall apart for me. Elevation was easy but the wind hold overs on a simple crosshair reticle was driving me nuts.

And finally the rifle ended up here with exactly the optic I wanted to put on it. A Vortex Diamondback 4-16x44 FFP with lots of hold overs for long range rimfire shooting. Put this in a set of Weaver grand slam rings, lapped them, and then put it back on the EGW mount.

This set up of course blows the others out of the water. Extremely easy to use with very little eye strain like I was having with some of the others. The EGW mount is still the weak link here being that it’s cantilever. So long as the shooter doesn’t touch the scope, the consistency is perfect.

 

[55fairlane]

Back when I started shooting 3p smallbore us beginners got Remington 37's & Winchester 52's . Those 37's will shoot.

Are you gonna take up 3P or prone matches?? Or just a benchrest toy?

 

[Squid556]

Back when I started shooting 3p smallbore us beginners got Remington 37's & Winchester 52's . Those 37's will shoot.

Are you gonna take up 3P or prone matches?? Or just a benchrest toy?

For now it’s just getting used recreationally Although I don’t doubt it’s good enough to compete with.

There’s talk of NRL rimfire competitions starting in wabash soon. I’m considering it.

 

[55fairlane]

For now it’s just getting used recreationally Although I don’t doubt it’s good enough to compete with.

There’s talk of NRL rimfire competitions starting in wabash soon. I’m considering it.

We have NRL up here at our club.

That 37 won't set any records but will,hold its own

 

[Squid556]

Big milestone in the Rem 37 project this weekend. Have been gradually moving to longer ranges gathering data and learning to read wind. Went out with a group of 3 shooters and we all took turns at maxing out our rifles. Made it out to 431 yards….Landed 2 of 5 on a 2 moa target! Such a rush!

Some technical stuff that went into this… about 30 feet of drop and about 3 feet of wind either way. Flight time was around 1.5 seconds.

I was surprised that I had enough elevation to do this. Only using a 0 moa rail on this rifle. The 4-16 Diamondback I had to dial 50 minutes, then hold an additional 28 minutes. Spin drift and windage came out to 11 minutes.

Lots of fun pushing rimfire way beyond its effective range. I hope to inspire other shooters to do the same

 

[DadSmith]

Big milestone in the Rem 37 project this weekend. Have been gradually moving to longer ranges gathering data and learning to read wind. Went out with a group of 3 shooters and we all took turns at maxing out our rifles. Made it out to 431 yards….Landed 2 of 5 on a 2 moa target! Such a rush!
View attachment 290288
Some technical stuff that went into this… about 30 feet of drop and about 3 feet of wind either way. Flight time was around 1.5 seconds.

I was surprised that I had enough elevation to do this. Only using a 0 moa rail on this rifle. The 4-16 Diamondback I had to dial 50 minutes, then hold an additional 28 minutes. Spin drift and windage came out to 11 minutes.

Lots of fun pushing rimfire way beyond its effective range. I hope to inspire other shooters to do the same

That's awesome.
Good shooting.
Long range shooting with a 22lr is a great challenge and very fun.

 

[Noble Sniper]

I agree long range rimfire is alot of fun!!!! Back in my younger days I’d paint a penny fluorescent orange…. Super glue it to a 1x1 post and then knock a bunch of them in the ground. I got real good with my 10-22 with irons….. I’m not sure I could replicate that at 53

 

[bgcatty]

Congratulations! That is one sweet looking and shooting rifle!