Range Report - The Stevens 66-B

Wow, what a good rifle the Stevens 66-B has turned out to be, I hope I don't wind up losing it (see previous post if you are wondering what I mean by that). I took it to an indoor range this afternoon and shot about 30 rounds at 25 yards, 2 sets of 15 rounds apiece since that is what the tubular magazine holds. The first target was nothing to write home about but then I was shooting about 4 or 5 different brands of ammo that were mixed in the tube and I was firing with the rear sight step installed backwards. When I got the gun at an auction recently, that part was missing, so I ordered one from Numrich Gun Parts Corp. and put it in yesterday. I was a little uncertain if I had it in correctly but figured I would find out at the range. When I fired another couple of rounds, this time on a target at 50', I saw that the step was canted and had obviously not been installed properly by yours truly. So I flipped it around and then shot these groups at 50' (about 16 2/3 yards): 1 1/8" with Remington Golden Bullets (two way out fliers but that was caused by the rear sight step being in wrong because once I corrected it the group was in there), 1" with CCI Standard Velocity 40 gr. round nose solids (would have been a 3/4" one hole group except for last shot), 1 1/4" with CCI Blazer and 1 1/8" with American Eagle High Velocity round nose solids. I had also shot the NEF Pardner shotgun before the Stevens, and by the time I shot those groups at 50', I was out of time so I did not try again at 25 yards. No failures to feed, to fire, to extract or to eject.

I was pretty happy with those groups. I look at it this way: I shot them with a gun that is probably older than me, with my old eyes, with varying ammo, seated at the bench in a chair that was way too low for the height of the bench, with foregrip resting on my fist for support and my fist resting on the bench. I think I did pretty good and any squirrel at that distance would have been meat for the pot. I certainly got a pretty decent rifle for $90 plus about $8 or $9 (including shipping) that I spent on the rear sight step. Probably more accurate than any new rifle you could get today at $150. Made in the USA too, what more could I ask.

All the best,
Glenn B