Let me preface by saying I have never had a long rifle before up til now I only owned shorter Hawken styled rifles. And never had a .45 before so this was an entirely new experience.
What a fun rifle. Felt recoil is nearly non-existent despite the big drop in this style stock I was prepared for a little bump and muzzle jump and its a relatively light piece but this balances out well.
Its listed as a 1:48 twist. The grooves are not deep but they are not shallow, I didnt try to measure twist or mic the bore. But the bore is tight. A .440 and .018 pillow ticking is extremely difficult to load. At least with the TOW pillow ticking (nope didnt mic it either)
The primitive rear sight and skinny front blade are perfect, I suspect some with vision issues might find them a little too fine but with this sight radius and my 54 yr old eyes I could pick off small staubs in the river where I was shooting out to 60 yds. Its a natural pointer and holds real steady. Something else I was not prepared for.
I didnt even have to adjust the sights in any way, it was dead on at 60 yds using 50gr of FFFg. I had just brought this along with other firearms and didnt have a rest so this isnt really a good "range report" but I tried it on some targets like cans at 100yds + and shotgun shells at ranges from 30yds to 60. It drops a lot at 100 with 50gr so I started increasing the load.
Even with 75gr the recoil was minimal and the accuracy remained great, it didnt bring up the trajectory / distance still hitting low at 100-110 yds. Again Im not used to a 45.
The set trigger is nice and predictable, there is a noticeable creep when set. Un-set its pretty darn heavy to pull and you cant really tell if it creeps or not. It does need some tuning but over all the lock is strong and fast.
The stock and furniture are all finished very well. The walnut stock has a lot of character, some striping in the fore end area as well. The cheek piece along with the drop bring your eye right in line with the sights. There are no I mean zero gaps in the inletting around the lock buttplate or trigger group and no I dont own any custom rifles :rotf: Disassembley for cleaning is nice too as there are no pins to drive our the barrel and stock are held together by screws through the thimbles.
The metal is high polished and browned. There are some places where they missed with the browning solution and only the top of the breech tang got browned. If youve never seen a picture there is no forend cap and the muzzle projects about 1/2" beyond the wood.
So far I didnt find much to not like about this rifle. I am very pleased with the way it looks and shoots. I'll follow up with a real range session soon off the bench at well measured 50 and 100 at a commercial range on paper. I tried some thinner patching materil I suspect was .010 but it was pretty loose so I will get more precise on the patching if I can find some .015 before I go.
If anyone hasnt noticed TOW is substituting some Eastern Maine patches for the Ox Yoke originals and Im pretty sure theyre gonna mic out thicker than .018. My old calipers (non-digital) aint that easy to use.
What a fun rifle. Felt recoil is nearly non-existent despite the big drop in this style stock I was prepared for a little bump and muzzle jump and its a relatively light piece but this balances out well.
Its listed as a 1:48 twist. The grooves are not deep but they are not shallow, I didnt try to measure twist or mic the bore. But the bore is tight. A .440 and .018 pillow ticking is extremely difficult to load. At least with the TOW pillow ticking (nope didnt mic it either)
The primitive rear sight and skinny front blade are perfect, I suspect some with vision issues might find them a little too fine but with this sight radius and my 54 yr old eyes I could pick off small staubs in the river where I was shooting out to 60 yds. Its a natural pointer and holds real steady. Something else I was not prepared for.
I didnt even have to adjust the sights in any way, it was dead on at 60 yds using 50gr of FFFg. I had just brought this along with other firearms and didnt have a rest so this isnt really a good "range report" but I tried it on some targets like cans at 100yds + and shotgun shells at ranges from 30yds to 60. It drops a lot at 100 with 50gr so I started increasing the load.
Even with 75gr the recoil was minimal and the accuracy remained great, it didnt bring up the trajectory / distance still hitting low at 100-110 yds. Again Im not used to a 45.
The set trigger is nice and predictable, there is a noticeable creep when set. Un-set its pretty darn heavy to pull and you cant really tell if it creeps or not. It does need some tuning but over all the lock is strong and fast.
The stock and furniture are all finished very well. The walnut stock has a lot of character, some striping in the fore end area as well. The cheek piece along with the drop bring your eye right in line with the sights. There are no I mean zero gaps in the inletting around the lock buttplate or trigger group and no I dont own any custom rifles :rotf: Disassembley for cleaning is nice too as there are no pins to drive our the barrel and stock are held together by screws through the thimbles.
The metal is high polished and browned. There are some places where they missed with the browning solution and only the top of the breech tang got browned. If youve never seen a picture there is no forend cap and the muzzle projects about 1/2" beyond the wood.
So far I didnt find much to not like about this rifle. I am very pleased with the way it looks and shoots. I'll follow up with a real range session soon off the bench at well measured 50 and 100 at a commercial range on paper. I tried some thinner patching materil I suspect was .010 but it was pretty loose so I will get more precise on the patching if I can find some .015 before I go.
If anyone hasnt noticed TOW is substituting some Eastern Maine patches for the Ox Yoke originals and Im pretty sure theyre gonna mic out thicker than .018. My old calipers (non-digital) aint that easy to use.
