would use it. While it may be macho to shoot offhand, I prefer to hit what I am aiming at. The following morning, I returned
to the scene of the shooting. Since I had left the crow carcasses strewn around the oak tree, I knew that crows would return to mourn the fallen. I already had one visitor — a buzzard was staring hungrily at the lifeless crows. I decided to change things up by replacing the Jack-in-the-box owl decoy with a more elaborate setup. I built an artificial “tree” out of ¾" PVC pipe. I had two “limbs” that stretched out four feet. On each side, I placed a Greenhead Gear FFD Elite Series crow decoy. The series consists of an aggressive caller decoy and a lookout decoy. A durable coating of flocking makes these birds life-like and will fool the wariest crow. I placed an aggressive caller on one side and a lookout on another. Above this structure was a two-foot perch on which I placed a Bird-X Prowler Owl. This impressive decoy has a 44" wingspan that incorpo- rates airfoil technology. The design of the wings will catch the wind and cause the wings to uplift and move. A massive 7" diameter plastic owl head makes for a very realistic and imposing predator. In addition, I added several more crow decoys on the ground to make incoming crows feel safer. The goal was to place this setup 15
feet up in the air, but the PVC pipe was more flexible than I thought it would be. At only 10 feet, the weight of the crow and owl decoys caused the PVC pipe to drastically flex and tilt over. I lowered the decoy setup to five feet and encountered no problems. The solution to the flexing problem was to replace the ¾" PVC pipe with ¾" metal conduit pipe. The conduit pipe is lightweight, yet strong enough to stand straight. This morning I was using the latest
lightweight 10/22 rifle that I had built. I started the build with my favorite 10/22 stock: Boyd’s SS Evolution stock. The SS Evolution stock is a great look- ing stock that is lightweight, quick and easy to handle, and has a comfortable ergonomic cheek weld. As you shoulder the stock, your line of sight is perfectly lined up with the scope. The scope used was a Leupold V-III 6.5-20x40mm LR with a custom reticle designed by their custom shop for subsonic .22 LR ammo. I used Tactical Innovations Elite22 10/22
Page 46 October — December 2011
receiver. I have used these for several builds and have been very impressed with the performance. The receiver is precision machined from a billet of 6061 T6 aircraft grade aluminum. It has several features that make it ideal for a custom build. At the rear of the receiver it has a ¼" hole that allows the barrel to be cleaned from the chamber so that there is no chance of damaging the muzzle crown. In addition, the sup- plied Picatinny rail is machined from billet aluminum and attaches to the receiver via 8-32 #10 cap screws, not the much weaker factory 6-48 screws. This receiver not only offers many features not found on factory receivers, but it is very affordable. Ron Power of Power Custom, now
known as Grandmasters LLC, told me about their new Ruger 10/22 Grand- master trigger guard. This aluminum trigger guard is CNC machined and all internal parts are state-of-the-art wire EDM’d. It comes from the factory with a crisp, smooth-as-glass trigger pull of about 1¾ lbs. The trigger is fully ad- justable from 1¾ lbs to 3 lbs. A unique feature that was incorporated into this design is a patent pending push forward and pull back safety. At first, I didn’t know if I was going to like this style of safety, but it soon became apparent that it was much easier and more convenient to use. To remove the safety you have only to push forward with the front of your trigger finger. Your trigger finger is still inside the trigger guard and you can then just simply squeeze the trigger in one fluid motion. Another unique feature, also developed along the same lines as the safety, is the extended maga- zine release. The release is designed so that it is directly in front of the trigger guard. To change magazines one simply has to move his trigger finger to the outside of the trigger guard and push forward. These are both welcome refine- ments that will be appreciated by both hunters and target shooters. The next step was to procure a
lightweight barrel that would comple- ment this build. I perused my peren- nially favorite Brownell's website and found a new offering: Beyer Barrels. Clint Beyer offers barrels that are 16" long and 18" long and 0.920" in diameter for .22 LR, .22 WMR, .17 HM2, and .17 HMR. The one thing that caught my attention was that Clint uses 7075 T6
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