poor accuracy guns

[Calif. Hunter]

To try free floating, place a business card thickness of paper between the recoil lug and the stock and another small piece at the rear of the action where the rear bolt attaches. That should lift the action enough to slightly free float the barrel. Shoot a group and see how it does.

I have often done the same thing just behind the forend tip to provide pressure tip bedding.

Check the tightness of the action screws/bolts. You CAN overtighten them, too. They need to be snug enough to keep that action from moving, but not tight enough to torque the action.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

HS, Chuck Hawks rattles on for nearly as long as I do...LOL!! I do agree with him as far as this discussion goes concerning practical accuracy.
I'm assuming that anyone who is concerned with fine accuracy understands and pratices the principals of benchrest/target shooting. I'm the first to admit that there is target shooting type accuracy, and then there is hunting accuracy. Some of the better benchrest target shooters I know are some of the worst deer hunting shots I have ever seen. Go figure.
Mr. Hawk implies that anyone claiming to be able to routinely shoot 1 moa (I would assume 3 shot) groups is either a liar or is somehow not being factual. More than a couple of us could get upset at such an acusation, but I could care less what Mr. Hawks is attempting to imply. He obviously has never owned an impressively accurate rifle before and nowhere in what he wrote does he ever mention anything about carefully produced handloaded ammunition. Perhaps it's fair for me to say that it's clear to me that he has 1) never owned a really accurate rifle, 2) might not know all that much about the fundamentals of benchrest shooting, and 3) doesn't know how to handload.
I try to be patient with people who are ignorant, and who are constantly attempting to induce other people into accepting substandard, second rate performance in either anything they do -or anything they own. I'll be the first to admit that a typical factory rifle right out of the box will typically give you 3 to 6 inch, 100 yard 3 shot groups. Does this mean we should all be happy with such marginal performance? Not me.
Too bad Mr. Hawks didn't buy my .257 Weatherby Accumark. This is the rifle that would 3-shot, 3/4 inch cloverleafs all day at 100 yards with handloads. Second in line is a Browning A-Bolt Hunter in 7 Mag. 1 inch, 3 shots at 100 is normal. All the rest in the arsenal are 3 to 5 moa... and that's why I went to work on them. Maybe I'll mail the targets to Mr. Hawks when I'm done. DD

 

[noharleyyet]

DD, my quarter-roy accu$$$ would do the clovers too...as long as I kept it cool & clean...& fed with wby premium.

...that heavy expensive accurate sucka is long gone..

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Exactly, NHY. I couldn't hunt with it because I'm becoming a weak, older dude, so I sold it to a younger, stronger dude who doesn't get winded as easy. It's now become a challenge to accurize 3 of my other rifles up to a certain standard. Hey, if I mess any of those rifles up I'll be honest enough to say so. I shot them at 100 yds offhand last weekend out at a ranch (2 shots each, fairly fast -didn't have much time) and none of them were 2 inches apart. I might be on the right track.
Really, Mr. Hawks is intitled to his opinion, but he has no business telling anyone what I know to be just the opposite. It's pompus and condensending. Just because it hasn't happened to him doesn't mean that it can't happen to someone else. It's not a matter of telling lies or bragging about how good of a shot anyone is: it's all a matter of ballistics and physics. All rifles aren't made equal. DD

 

[noharleyyet]

What I know to be true is that all my rifles shoot better than me. I do like Chuck's product reviews & gun geek advice.

 

[JB]

it's almost equally rediculous when i hear people claim that you must handload to get a rifle to shoot accurately.
im gonna go out on a limb and say "today, factory ammo is probably better than the handloads that Billy-Bob produces."

 

[Dangerous Dave]

JB, you're correct. Handloading is NOT required for getting a rifle to shoot accurately, but it's very important to handload if anyone wants to get the BEST accuracy from their rifle that they can get. I have also used some pretty impressive factory ammo before too, but all anyone has to do is set up a cronograph and check standard deviation to tell what's going on.
Hundreds of thousands of deer are killed each year with factory rounds shot from rifles that can hardly group 3 bullets at 100 yards in a 4 or 6 inch circle. I have no problem with this and any rifle with this type of accuracy standard is obviously adaquate.
Still, some of us demand more because of the long range distances involved out here. We are usually required to shoot in very open country where stalking closer is rarely an option. It's during situations like this where a tight-grouping rifle is worth its weight in gold.
Schmalts got this thread going by asking what can be done to 'tighten up' a rather "normal" rifle, and besides the other suggestions offered, careful handloading would also be an option and would more than likely improve accuracy. Dave

 

[shoots-straight]

I bought a Remington Mountain Rifle back in 1990 a 280, it didn't shoot all that impressive, and I concluded that the thin barrel was to blame. I ran a dollar bill down the barrel and it hit on a pressure point. Hunting season was at hand so I sanded the point off. The lugs of the rifle would tighten untill the barrel touched the stock again. Frustrated I shimmed the action right in front of the lugs with two pc's of duct tape, this keep the barrel up off of the stock, bingo groups tightened up to 1" m.o.a. To this day the duct tape bedding job still hold my groups with this rifle.

I have a new .223 WSSM in a browing A-bolt. Shot a bunch of lead with it and it sprayed the paper like a shot gun. loaded some barnes triple shock bullets and achieved 1"m.o.a. Factory wouldn't and couldn't do this for me.Some guns just need the right combination to shoot good. Others shoot anything great. Just my .223 cents worth.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Right on, Shoots-straight. You never know what you can accomplish until you try to improve something. Dang, hope that I don't come off as an accuracy snob or something, but improving accuracy is what this post is all about. We all know that breathtaking accuracy usually isn't required on run-of-the-mill 50 to 100 yard shots. On those 200 to 300 yarders it really helps to have a rifle that shoots where its pointed -especially when these coastal deer take off at a gallop. You don't have to miss by very much out here.
I have an "old school" open-sighted .30-06 I use when I'm breaking brush on hot days that can sometimes put 4 or 5 shots in a 6 inch circle at 100yds. I don't even think about shooting at something much beyond 200 yards with that particular rifle. It's totally a different thing when it comes to my better shooting rifles. At 300 yards (as long as I do all that's required of me) it's usually a done deal with a well-tuned rifle that likes a particular load. Then again, I've been known to miss from time to time. But at least it was and ACCURATE miss. lol DD

 

[Delw]

If I cant get mine to shoot under 1" at 100 yards with standard reloads right out of the box I sell them as they are of no use to me.

 

[Horn Seeker]

I pity you for having guns that would only shoot 3-6 inches! Wow...I dont have a big gun collection, but between my guns and my dads, there are a few...

Not one of them has ever shot that bad off the bench...I was not aware that was possible...or normal.

My a-bolt will do about 1 1/2" and thats off a wobbly table, not a good bench. My 721 will do the same... as well as my 700's, my dads Savage ??? 7mm, his springfield 06' and his weatherby ultralight... I'm sure I'm missing a couple there..anyhow...I'm glad I've lucked out on guns..

I am also glad you brought me back to reality concering Mr. Hawk. I know outdoor and gun writers are almost surely full of chit most the time, but every once in a while I forget!! Thanks.

Ernie

 

[Horn Seeker]

PS...I dont shoot factory rounds...so I cant attest to their accurracy in any of the above mentioned rifles....

 

[Dangerous Dave]

As far as factory loads are concerned, I also tried to figure out what my A-Bolt would shoot best so I went out and spent upwards of $75 on 4 different brands of premium ammo. The results were depressing. Somebody handed me 3 cheapo Federal rounds out of the silver box: 3/4 inch group out of a dirty barrel. You never know.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

That's not unusual, DD. A Tikka .243 I just got will shoot the "cheapo" Federal 100 gr Powershocks into itty-bitty groups, as small as anything I can get by reloading so far. But.....the 85 gr TSX shoots just as small, is flying faster and will penetrate better, so I am still happy to be reloading for it!


I have a Remington 660 .308 that would not shoot worth a damn with anything I tried in it. The barrel was free-floated. 2 or 3 inch groups were the best I could do. Then I folded up a business card so that it was 3 thicknesses and placed it under the barrel right at the tip of the forend...now it shoots 5 150 TSXs into one, half-inch size, hole.

 

[schmalts]

some will some wont, But i just checked a couple boxes of ammo with a concentricity guage and it was horrible. .005-.008 was the norm with a box of Federal Fusion in 300WSM. A box of federal premium ammo was better, but still bad .002 (2) .004-.005 (3) and the rest were .006-,007. So i dont agree all factory ammo is better than most guys will make, at least the guys i know. A guy from work "cranked out" a half dozen rounds for me and i put them on the guage and they were all under .003

 

[gundog]

Make some chamber/barrel castings from typical rifles and check the concentricty. You'll be surprised at how bad it can be. Makes that box of Federal Fusions look pretty good.

 

[shawncmc]

I had similar results with a Rem700 Sendero and Fed Premium 180 Nos Partions, but I when I got some dies to handload I ended up with much better groups.

 

[snake river rufus]

Good advice all around. The truth is that every gun is an entity unto itself- there are no rules that apply in every instance. All that a guy can do is try one thing at a time, ( I'd start with free floating the tube) if it works, fine. If it doesn't or you want more accuracy, use some epoxy on the forend to support the barrel and try the next thing.
I'd mention that some guys are reporting winchester brass has a shorter headspace dimension ( as much as 0.040") on belted cases. You might want to measure your new cases to see if that might be part of your problem.