Frankonia vom Hofe 5,6x61 scope issues

[Kiwi_bloke]

Here's hoping this displays well!

This rifle was imported from Germany. The Redfield scope bell was clearly bent. I'm not sure if it was sold like this or it happened in transport. One of the guns sent with it in the same package had its stock broken. Straightening this scope up and getting the optics to align up would be difficult to impossible.

Redfield scope on Frankonia Mauser after export.jpg

I looked on Egun for a replacement and found this made for Frankonia by Karl Kaps, (confirmed by the Karl Kaps factory). This is a lessor known but good quality brand so I won the auction and imported it too.

Frankonia 004.jpg

Then I discovered that the "new" scope did not have enough adjustment and even at the most depressed, (the crosshairs, that is), it would fire right over my target. So I replaced the 10mm elevation block on the EAW swing mounts with an 11mm one from New England Custom Gun. But even at it's most elevated, it now fired under the target. So I ordered a 10.5mm and third time worked a charm.

Here's the new combo complete.

Frankonia 001.jpg

The rifle is now shooting well. I'll post a follow up shortly.

[Kiwi_bloke]

Here's the group, 4 shots under 1 inch on a day when you could chase your hat in the wind and not catch it. The 77 grain Hornady (.228"), was loaded with IMR 4350 to 3,426 fps. Sd10. Bolt lift OK. Extraction OK. No pressure signs. On a calmer day I'll set it for 1.4" high at 100 yards and over target, then test it at 200 & 300 yards.

I used a brass level-level-level tool to get the scope correctly aligned to the rifle and also a good old-fashioned plumb-bob to cross check.

One of the elevation blocks that was replaced is shown in this photo.

Frankonia group L421a.jpg

[mike ford]

Kiwi_bloke,
Good show, I'm happy you have your rig up and running now. You seem to have discovered a couple of the advantages of EAW mounts, especially the ability to use either 1" or 26mm scopes, and the ability to change the elevation blocks and achieve satisfactory sighting. It is very difficult to do this with soldered on half rings. I can understand your problem, I too have had a rifle dropped by a family member who didn't inform me. I didn't discover the problem, until I missed a Roe Buck twice, and saw the bullet strike in a plowed field way behind the buck on the second shot. When trying to re-sight the rifle, I noticed the objective bell had been bent and was touching the barrel. If you drop a scope, it won't likely damage it much, but if you drop it with 7 or 8 pounds of rifle on top of it, it can be destroyed. BTW, you mentioned 77 gr Hornady .228" bullets. Are these new production for 5.6x61, or are they intended for 5.6x52R/ 22 Sav.HP? The 70 gr Hornady Savage HP bullet didn't give satisfactory accuracy over about 3,000 FPS. A "harder" Hornady bullet would interest several of us here.
Mike

[Diz]

Kiwi_bloke,

Nice shooting especially in that wind. Nice looking rifle too. I would expect even better groups on a nicer day. Mike is right, talking about a 77 grain/.228" Hornady certainly got my attention. That would certainly fix a whole lot of troubles.

Thanks, Diz

[Kiwi_bloke]

Bad news guys. From what I can establish the .228" Hornady bullet (meant for .22 Savage Hi-Power), is no longer listed by the factory and there are no stocks left with my agent here in New Zealand. This is what I have been using. I have since found a couple of old boxes of .228" Norma bullets at a gun-show and I'm now working with these. My plan is to shoot a few feral goats and, if the bullets stand up to it, to use this rifle on chamois. I also have some RWS bullets in .228".

The few German reloading manuals I have refer to the Hornady not being reliable past 3,500 fps. I think this may be relative and depend on how smooth the bore is so the exact figure may vary a little between rifles. Most seem to have a similar twist rate, so I don't think that is the issue. However I backed off from a slightly hotter load to get below 3,500fps. One of the experts at Hornady uses the Hornady bullet in his 5,6x61 SEvH at around this speed. Lonnie tells me he successfully shot a whitetail with it and was more than satisfied with the bullets performance.

I had some old Speer bullets, so old the plastic packet fell apart and the factory can't actually tell me about how old the date code is. Their list doesn't go that far back! A couple of them blew up and took out a sky-screen. I don't know if new ones would do the same. I'm not taking the chance to find out even though the Oehler comes with a spare!

The only "hard" bullets I know of are Degol from Belgium. These were made with the 5,6x61SEvH in mind and are shaped like the original factory bullet. I have a few of these left but I'm too afraid to shoot them as I don't know if I can replace them. German gun laws just stepped up another notch so export is getting harder. For chamois these would be best of all.

I might add that, I did measure the distance between the scope rings and, calculated how many times that would fit into 100 yards. Multiplied this by the change in height of the elevation block/s. That should have told me how much difference an extra 0.5mm should add or subtract in POI. However, I didn't have an actual group on the target to measure the elevation of, as they flew over it to begin with. So it was a bit of guesswork involved in elevation block height to get to zero. If any of you worked with army tanks in years past, I think that is sort of how they did things; the first shot over the target, the next one short of it and that way they could work out exactly where the third shot needed to go to bullseye - if the bad guy hung around that is! That's sort of what I had in mind and it worked.

[mike ford]

Kiwi_bloke,
The system you described is "bracketing the target", it is also used by Artillery . I like to also do it, when sighting a rifle in; you can use all your ammo, trying to sneak up on a zero, but if you make bold changes and get a group on each side of the aim point, you can "split the difference" and get to a quick zero. The .228"( sometimes .227") bullets intended for 22 Savage HP weigh 70 gr. and are intended for about 2800 fps. In my rifle( rimmed version of 5.6x61 vom Hofe SE) these bullets are satisfactory to around 3000 fps. My friend that had owned the rifle before he passed away, had a load with this bullet and 4350, that gave around 3250 fps. While in "Hospice" , he asked me to try the load "on paper"( I had killed a whitetail with it), but it did not produce acceptable groups. By reducing the velocity to about 3000 fps (not with 4350), I was able to show my friend an acceptable group, before he passed away. I know each rifle gives different results, but all this is why I got so excited when it seemed you had found a fully acceptable 77 gr bullet.
Mike

[Kiwi_bloke]

Bracketing the target was also the way used by naval forces in WWI. I had not thought to use it deliberately in sighting-in though, thanks for that tip.

German reloading manuals for 5,6x61 SEvH (rimless) state that; "the quest for a bullet was solved by using the RWS 5,6x52R (.22 Savage Hi-power). But the speed out of the muzzle, at high speeds gets too soft at the point of impact and in flight. If you go higher than 1080m/s, (3,543 ft/sec), "hot loading" the bullet disintegrates.

Hence my plan to stay below 3,500ft/sec.

The Hornady Inter-Lock in .227/8" was introduced in 1976. Sorry, I was mixing it up with the Degol which is 77 grain. I'm sure Lonnie who works with Hornady loaded his 5,6x61 SEvH with the Hornady bullet to 3,500 ft/sec, (I'll have his email printed off somewhere), to take a whitetail deer. He was more than happy with the bullets performance. I've used this bullet in my 5,6x61 Walter Roell Mauser to around this speed as well as in the 5,6x61 Frankonia Mauser. Good accuracy in both and all bullets land on target, not disintegrating in flight. I have used it in the field on feral goats but need to do a but more work to make firm conclusions on this bullets use on game.

If you are worried by the speed of this bullet, then the good news is that the rimmed round is quite a bit slower for pressure/extraction reasons. My one, a Drilling in 5,6x61R, is spending a long vacation with a skilled gunsmith who is semi-retired, so it may be a while before I get to do more with it.

The 5,6x61 SEvH is described as a "Gamswild Flitzer", meaning a chamois zapper, (chamois being a smallish mountain goat). From what I have seen of how it behaves in high winds compared to 5,6x57RWS and others, I think the fast time of flight should really help in windy mountain situations for which this cartridge was conceived. While it has an ordinary muzzle report, the light bullet means not a lot of recoil at the shoulder end, which is a good thing if taking long shots from awkward angles where the stock may not be exactly where it should be at the bench-rest. Knowing this before "touching one off" is likely, I think, to eliminate pulled shots. Likewise that taunt-string trajectory out to 300 yards has to take a lot of guesswork out of ranging targets in mountain situations where there aren't always trees and other familiar things to judge distance by. It's possible to use the scope reticule to bracket the animal, to determine distance away, but this assumes they all come in one standard size! Also, the chamois is a little larger than the roe buck this system was built around, (see illustration).

Zielfernrohe Nr 1.jpg

[Diz]

Kiwi_Bloke,

It's a shame about the Hornady because I had some high hopes that the factory had come around to making something more useful than the 70 grain pill. I have had no luck with that bullet above about 3200 fps as they all evaporate a short distance from the muzzle. I tried their 77 grain .223" diameter bullet but Sierra has come out with a new 77 grain .223" Match King tipped that carries a much heavier jacket. I bump these up in my bullet swage and have had excellent performance out of both my vH's with them. I assume they would work on game as well. I bought 200 rounds of factory ammo at auction and was surprised that it chronographed at just a tiny bit under 3700. Very accurate as well.

We were discussing P.O. Ackley on another thread and he was a big proponent of the 220 Swift and used it to kill a number of game animals. The Swift is what got me interested in very high speed cartridges and the vH was just a natural progression. Good luck with it and I for one would be very interested in the outcome of your hunt.

Thanks, Diz

[Kiwi_bloke]

By the way, you might find this photo of the Gehmann 5,6x61R SEvH Drilling of interest.
vom Hofe Gehmann Drilling 007.jpg

[Diz]

Kiwi_bloke, a fine example of the gunmakers art that's for sure. How does it shoot? Thanks, Diz

[Kiwi_bloke]

Ah, well, that is the one having a long vacation at the semi-retired gunsmith. It has very heavy trigger pulls, (even for a Drilling), about 11 pounds each trigger. That has to change. Also a slight bulge one barrel to be fixed. Also the rim recess for the shotgun shells is not to spec, so that on one shot barrel the gun will usually close on them, (just) on the other side only rarely. I haven't come across that before. If I really work at it, I can nearly size the cases to fit in a MEC. It won't even accept new RWS shot-shells, so don't ask me what it is the former owner used.

On the plus side, I have obtained some Bertram 5,6x61 SEvH brass, so at least that has been straight forward. I've also obtained a couple of loading manuals that list lower velocity loads for the rimmed round. The stock has since been refinished by Kevin Gaskill who trades as 'the Stock-doctor'. Also the action stripped and cleaned by gunsmith Arthur Cleland and, as you can see, not too bad inside.

[mike ford]

Kiwi_bloke,
Your problem with rim recess, indicates may have a new hinge pin installed, to correct looseness. You can usually tell if this has been done, by looking at the bottom of the gun, with the barrels installed. The lugs will have been moved backward, and there is usually a small "gap" between the front of the hole in the frame and the lug. It is not hard to adjust the rim recess by hand, with the proper cutter. First, however, verify that the "hook" has been properly refit to the hinge pin. Trigger pulls, likewise, can be adjusted; but it is highly unusual that they need it. I suggest you first insure the drilling has been reassembled with the screws, sears. etc. in the proper location. The rifle barrel, of course would normally be fired by the "set trigger".
Mike

[Diz]

Kiwi_bloke,

That is a rather unusual problem and would generally not think that it could be caused by refitting the hinge pin as Mike suggests but then he has far more experience with drilling than I do. I would suggest trying to measure the rim recesses using the "depth" end of a vernier caliper to see if there is a physical difference in the clearances. Or with the barrels off and using a good straight edge across the base of the shells in the chamber. You should get a bit of light between the bases and edge when it sits on the barrels. It is a simple task to adjust the clearance with the proper cutter as Mike suggested. I would be very interested in hearing about what it is and how it was fixed.

Thanks, Diz

Thinking a bit further about the issue and perhaps something happened to the barrels / action when the scope got damaged. Possibly sprung or bent somewhere? Thanks again, Diz

[Kiwi_bloke]

The scope was damaged on the magazine rifle, of course. The Drilling, (on which the scope and mounts appear to be fine), is now with a gunsmith who trained with Purdey in England, so I'm leaving it in his capable hands. Although the Drilling has been carried more than shot, I'm inclined to think there is an explanation perhaps along similar lines of your suggestions. I'll see what Robert has to say when he has had a chance to have a good look at it. The Drilling is certainly tight and I don't see any sign of wedging or similar hook work. Here's a picture from before the stock work.

vom Hofe 007.jpg

[Diz]

Kiwi_bloke,

For some reason I thought the scope was bent on the drilling, old age creeping up I guess. I doubt if anyone could ask for a better fit between the barrels and action than what you have. A very fine looking rifle and a Purdey trained smith should take good care of the problem. Best of luck with it and keep us informed.

Thanks, Diz