More on the ISSC SPA 22LR Rifle

When I posted my initial impressions of the rifle, I felt the SPA was a lot like a boxer who got hit in the head too many times – something wasn’t right. Just like a trainer who checks over his fighter, I checked the rifle for anything that seemed out of place. I started by removing the stock. Um, wow! The rear stock screw was actually loose. I wonder how badly that affected the accuracy? I would rectify that after looking under the hood.

You should know that the first time out, the rifle could only manage 1.16 inches at 50 yards – and that was a 5 shot group! Ten shots would open that group up even more. A hunting rifle has to do better than that!

The action looked good. No problems there. The action itself has a flat bottom which would make my stock fix a lot easier later on.

I looked at the stock. It was a typical modern, plastic noodly thing that would be better off someplace other than cradling the action, but it is an ISSC SPA. No aftermarket stocks are made for this rifle!

In addition to it being a polymer thingy, there were a couple of other problems. The first was that it had no sling studs. They weren’t missing; they were never there. While that made it inconvenient to use a sling or attach a bipod, it wouldn’t affect accuracy. You could add them later, but the original price for this in Canada was $600. For that amount, I would expect more than what is here. I only paid $310, but still, even cheap rifles come with sling studs! Things must be different in Europa. La merde aux yeux!

The second thing was this – a barrel channel insert. It’s similar to what Tikka puts into their T1x stock, but theirs is purely cosmetic and serves no purpose other than to make the barrel fitting look better. WRT the SPA, I don’t know. Without the insert, the stock is more wobbly. The SPA insert is a mystery, but it does stiffen up the forend…a little.

What I discovered was that it pushed up against the barrel and the barrel was not free floated. Whether cosmetic or structural, I didn’t like that the stock was bearing unevenly on the metal. The old dollar bill trick (in my case, a five dollar bill – merci M. Laurier) wouldn’t go between the barrel and the stock. Hmmm. That might be why it didn’t shoot.

Since it is a plastic channel insert in a plastic stock, fitted to a flat bottomed action, I performed some meatball surgery. I added two nylon washers to the action screws. The washers are about 0.040 inches thick. I torqued the action screws to 12 in/lb. The barrel is now free floated.

The muzzle was threaded for a moderator or tuner. I ordered a Spearhead tuner to see if that would also help in conjunction with free floating the barrel. The thread pitch is 1/2-20, so it will fit on my CZ if things don’t pan out with the SPA.

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It appears the nylon washer fix worked. This is a 10 shot group, shot at 50 yd using CCI SV Flat Noses – 0.82 inches. — 1.039 – 0.224 = 0.815 (0.82)

This doesn’t mean the rifle is now a shooter. It simply gives me hope that I will be able to find an ammunition type that will shoot respectably. What is respectible? .75 inches or less at 50 yards and 1.5 inches or less at 100 yards.