Need help, can't figure out what is wrong with my groupings...

[axio]

wow.... complete n00b mistake.... how much time would you guys put in between shots? 3-4 minutes good enough?

[Captain Finlander]

5 minutes minimum IMO but I've waited as much as 10 or more. Let the barrel tell you, touch it cold, then touch it after one shot, then touch it after a 3 shot string. If your trying to get the smallest group possible your going to let the barrel cool down cold between shots.

Don't let the sun shine on the barrel either. I shoot in Florida and the sun will heat up the barrel from the outside and make cooling it off a real chore.

[axio]

lol wow... good to know.... i will definitely try waiting it out.

ok, ordered a rest... Caldwell Rock... hopefully good enough to just test things out. i don't have plans to get into benchrest competitions as the only range out here in the SF Bay Area I know of only gets out to 200 yards... I also ordered a Karsten cheek rest as I've noticed it's hard for me to get a consistent cheek weld.

[axio]

I noticed something this morning as well. I was looking at the rifle from above. The barrel seems not straight vs the stock. The barrel is closer to one edge vs the other. Basically at the muzzle end of the barrel, the barrel is closer to one side than the other, but otherwise everything is still free-floating.

I'm sure everything is ok with the barrel and action, perhaps the two v-blocks in the Choate tactical stock are not perfectly straight relative to the foreend. This shouldn't be causing any problems, will it? I hope not as I threw the box away a while back.

[Captain Finlander]

The stock is just holding the action and it is not uncommon to have a slightly offset in-letting.

[Matt Peetz]

I have a choate tactical on my Rem.260. I bolted it up and made some loads and hit the range. My best load was right at 1 3/4" at 230 yards. I thought ok but was still wandering if it was the load or something else. I disassembled the complete rifle. I noticed that (my action is kryloned) i had inconsistant markings from the v-block on the bottom of my action. I ordered up some devcon and bedded it. I took it out the other day and shot the same load that shot the best group at 230 yards. I only was able to get to 180 yards but all seven shots touched and it went 3/4". I had a nice triangle and the rest went into the center of the group. Bedding it made a HUGE differance. The group at 230 yards had really no defined pattern to the group unlike the new group with it being bedded.

Forgot to add on testing loads: I (personally) don't believe in waiting inbetween shots for a specified amount of time. I want to see what the load will do. I have always found a solution to get the result i want. I am talking about if it is a hunting rifle i like to see what the load does fired quickly in 3-4 shots for a follow up shot if i needed it. If i fire 1 round and miss i am not going to wait 10 minutes to fire another one. The animal will be gone.

If it is for my F-class gun i have 20 shots in 20 minutes usually. Thats 1 a minute. I personally am a fast shooter and get the string done in under 10 minutes. My load work up is finding the group that shoots best with 5 shots in succession. Then i will load that group up and fire at least 15 to see how it does. IThis method hasn't failed me yet

[axio]

Matt,

Do you mean you skim bedded the action to the v block? that was it, right? Please correct me if i'm wrong here...never done any rifle bedding work before.

take the action out
drill a few small holes into the v-block
put on neutral color Kiwi shoe polish on the bottom of the receiver, the back of the recoil lug, in the action screw holes, and on the action screws themselves
put on a THIN layer of Devcon (any recommendation on what kind? Can I buy it from the local Home Depot or OSH hardware stores?) in the center of the aluminum blocks ONLY
Put the action on top, insert the action screws, tighten it up so that the action stays put, but not super tight?
After a day or so, take it out and let it cure for another day or so
Put it all back together?

[Matt Peetz]

I don't know if i can post links to differant websites or not but the best tutorial for bedding i found was at snipershide by wnroscoe in the gunsmithing forum sticky'd at the top. There is 4 or 5 pages and it is worth reading them all.

The only thing i did differant was that i taped down the back of the action only to help from my 32" barrel hanging off the action even though i taped the barrel at the end of the stock so it leveled the whole action out.

I took a dremel and cleaned up all the excess plastic that was on the v-block and roughed up all the areas i wanted the bedding to stick to with the dremel. Wnroscoe's detailed procedure will explain it far better than i can.

I used Devcon 10110 and bought it from midway. Some think it is expensive ($35) but it is by far the most reccomended and shrinks the least.

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad32/260shooter/bedding036.jpg

I wanted to bed the first couple inches forward of the lug but i didn't put enough devcon in. I might redo it but it is shooting good right now.

[axio]

Thanks, Matt. That seems like a lot of work! If shooting off a rest with some time between shots doens't yield good enough results, I can try to bed it next per the instructions you've directed me towards. I assume for skim bedding of the V-blocks, i would just put the Devcon right on the blocks themselves and not everywhere else? I ask cuz I looked through a few pages and couldn't find any pictures on there showing just skim bedding V-blocks.

[Matt Peetz]

I wish i wouldn't have deleted some of my pics thru the process. All i did was mix up the devcon and use a popsicle stick to put it on. I gooped up the lug area good and lathered some on the v- block and gooped it up pretty good down in the v-block. I layed the action in and pressed down on the action pretty good. While maintaing some pressure i wrapped some painters tape around the action and stock to hold it down. I also used some 3" 1/4X28 bolts with the heads cut off to help center the action. I also wrapped painters tape around the studs so they were pretty snug in the screw holes. I also bedded the tang area. You can choose if you want to or not but if you decide not to the choate is already pretty well free floated in the tang area

After i got done bedding it i noticed the area behind the lug got coated with devcon so my lug was not making good contact with the v-block. So that did not help accuracy. I was fully not expecting the stock in factory setting to be anything to write home about but once bedded it is a good stock. Well worth the money i got it for. I bought it for $180 before it went up to $220.

I just bought anther one for my 7wsm that i got back from the smith. It doesn't have the barrel nut. It is sporting a 32" bartlein and the choate will be getting bedded also before i even work loads up for it.

It really wasn't all that hard to do but it was really nerve racking beings it was the first time bedding an action

[82boy]

Yes. one round a minute is considered rapid fire for what were talking about.


I would have to totally disagree.

In Benchrest competition we shoot 5 shots on a record target and more on slighter targets, all in a 7 minute period. This is not rapid fire, and we stride for the highest end of accuracy. It is not uncommon for a shooter to shoot 10 to 15 rounds in that period depending on conditions. With that said the barrels never got hot enough for us to notice any accuracy difference. What I would call rapid fire is what in benchrest is called "Run and gun." If a favorable condition comes around, it is not uncommon for a shooter to fire 5 rounds in 3 to 5 seconds. (Or faster if they can.) This is common with long rang shooting, it also doesn't make enough heat to affect accuracy.

Yes, ultimately heat will affect accuracy usually makes the rounds go higher, but it takes a lot more than 10 shots in a 5 minute period to do that. Yes, the sun will make a barrel heat up, and time of year and angle of the sun will also make the barrel heat up more or less. Varmint hunters will fire hundreds of round an hour in the hot sun, and they torture barrels, many of them will place wet cold rags over the barrels, or even run water through the barrels to cool them off, but this is the extream side of things. These hunters are shooting small prairie dogs that require good accuracy, and they get it with hot barrels. I would agree it is a good idea to pay attention to the heat of the barrel, but don't focus on it. If you shoot 10 or 20 rounds in 10 minutes let it cool down for a a bit, but don't worry about it.

[drybean]

+1

[Captain Finlander]

I agree too but he still needs to eliminate it as a variable.

[axio]

AN UPDATE!!!

Thanks for the help everyone! Matt, I went ahead and bedded the rifle. Not everything went smoothly, but the errors were dumb mistakes on my part. Luckily nothing that ended up affecting accuracy.

I did a few hour cleaning session yesterday... probably 4-5 hours long... at the end, I was still seeing blue from the copper fouling, but after having run wet patches, dry patches, scrubbing the bore with what was probably 75-100 times throughout the night, soaking the bore with Butch's (by running a few wet patches through and not running any dry patches through) for about two hours, etc. End of the night, I gave up after scrubbing and still seeing blue when I ran patches through. I'm not sure how good is good enough.... but there was still quite a bit of blue in there. It only really happened after brushing with the bronze brush though. Running wet patches alone did not produce blue, nor did scrubbing with a nylon brush when accompanies with Sweet's. Only when using both Butch's AND a bronze brush did I get blue on the patches afterwards. I basically gave up after a few hours.

Anyways, today was a cold 57 degrees out. I made a windstick as 82boy suggested. I basically only shot when the tape was at a standstill. The Choate stock's bipod thing was removed per Ace's suggestion and I replaced it with a fixed sling swivel with some washers as spacers. Regardless, I didn't end up using a bipod, used the Caldwell Rock with a rear Caldwell "rabbit ear" bag. Took a few shots to sight the rifle in. I then proceed to shoot the rest of the box of 20. That's all I could muster out with the weather (I was underdressed).. First group of 3, probably 1.5". The next groups were 3/4" and 1/2" groupings... i had 2 three shot groups that were 1/2" from my factory Federal GMM SMK ammo.... I was very happy! This is the best I've ever done! Thanks again for all of your suggestions. I tried to do a firm hold on the rifle, took my time between the shots, paid attention to maintaining a sight picture, and just tried to keep it consistent between what I was doing for each shot.

Thanks again guys, you guys rock! Now I want to learn how to load ammo... lol

[tammons]

With a Shilen barrel you should be able to get 1/4" groups.
You will have to load your own to get it.

If you are plinking at 100 yards try some 110 gr Vmax bullets some time.

Besides those I shoot the 208 gr amax and the 220 gr prohunters in 308 over RL17.

[sha-ul]

The Choate stock's bipod thing was removed per Ace's suggestion and I replaced it with a fixed sling swivel with some washers as spacers. Regardless, I didn't end up using a bipod, used the Caldwell Rock with a rear Caldwell "rabbit ear" bag.

I Have a rifle with the US stock& I too noticed that the consistency with a bipod on the slider is not satisfactory. I notice a big improvement when I took it off& found a solid front rest.

[leather5to1]

Honestly I wouldn't shoot factory if you gave them to me. I'd pull the bullets and reload. Every gun will like something different. On the slim chance you get one that would shoot anything (they do exist, but not commonly) hold on to it and shoot it sparingly. With a taylored handload you should be able to group under 1" all day long. The factory of today, especially the match grade is better than it ever was but still generic to work in a number of different guns. Your barrel will vibrate and flex differently than the next and how it vibrates and where in its vibration it is when the bullet leaves the bore is what is going to make or break your groups.

[CRNA]

I did a few hour cleaning session yesterday... probably 4-5 hours long...





Good God! I don't really think all of that is necessary. I get pissed if it takes me more than 20min to clean mine.