poor grouping w/ new Savage 11 Long Range Hunter 308

[GaCop]

My problem ended up being the scope. As soon as I replaced the faulty one, groups immediately dropped below MOA.

[chowder]

Well... all I had to put through the rifle today was a couple boxes of 168 grain Hornady Superformance (need to get a hold of some Fed GMM 168/175). First 3 rounds made a hole thru the bull the size of a nickel. After that I wasn't quite as impressed by the groups but I'm also realizing that it's a simple fact that; a.) I don't normally shoot this many larger caliber rounds at one time, and b.) I probably need to get some advice on setting up the cheek piece/ eye relief relationship because there does seem to be a critical issue involving cheek weld, sight picture and right hand torque influencing my groups.Anybody got some good pointers about cheek piece adjustment, etc?

P.S. Hollow Point; you seem to be a much more knowledgeable shooter than myself as well as a thoughtful and witty dude- thanks for your input & I apologize for being a bit prickly. -Andy

[HollowPoint]

No offense taken Sir.

I'm not that knowledgeable but, with respect to the setbacks you're LRH's been displaying, I can tell you that
I've been there and done that.

The only difference was the brand name of the rifle. (Remington 700 BDL in 17 Remington cal.)

Only after changing the scope, pillar bedding, floating the barrel and changing the trigger did it finally start shooting
the way we rifle shooter dream of having our rifles shoot.

With this rifle I can now shoot the fore-skin off a sexually aroused mosquito at 200 yards. If I were shooting incendiary loads out of this rifle, I could cauterize the wound and still leave that mosquito with a fully functional erection.

OK, that's an over the top exaggeration but, you know what I mean. It always feels good to have an accurate shooting rifle. It makes it feel like you made an excellent choice when you bought the rifle and your money was well spent.

These frustrating setbacks that we get from time to time; the ones that have us spending alot of additional time or money trying to figure them out can be some real weeny-shrinkers.

When we finally figure them out though, it makes for some good story telling around the camp fire.

HollowPoint

[bootsmcguire]

My problem ended up being the scope. As soon as I replaced the faulty one, groups immediately dropped below MOA.


GaCop I am glad to hear that, I was hoping it wasn't the barrel. I ordered a 6BR in CBI and yours was the first one I have heard wouldn't shoot, and I was starting to doubt my purchase decision. Glad to hear it was the scope and not the barrel.

Chowder, glad to hear your prob is looking up, those bigger calibers can take a toll off the bench and affet your shooting. I have discovered that when I take my 30-06 to the range I better shoot it last, of my groups with my smaller guns will not be as good that day.

[GaCop]

"Chowder", how heavy is the barrel? A medium weight sporter? With three shots shooting tight and then groups opening up, heat may be the problem with a lighter barrel. For a hunting barrel, three shot groups are the norm before barrel heat blows the groups all to h-ll.

[chowder]

Got some good pointers over on 'Long Range Hunting', including 2 videos on scope setup/ cheek piece adjustment/ natural point of aim,etc.Also a Great article on what can happen to a shooter who only sights in using a bench rest position and switch's to a field position - I was simply not aware of the possibility that you can look thru different portions of the scope from different angles even after taking a 100 deer or so over the years, sure feels humbling!. I'll put the links on here at some point, pushed for time right now. I'm kind of feeling like I've opened Pandora's box by having some trouble with this rifle but I sure am opening my eyes to some stuff I really should know something about!
Anyway, I'm going to readjust the scope to my natural rifle hold position and then readjust the cheek piece to line up my eye with the scope, re level the scope and then shoot again with some Fed GMM and see where I'm at. There may well still be an issue w/ the Bushnell 4200 Tactical that I bought for this rifle that still needs to be resolved, but I think the biggest problem at this point is with the 'nut behind the stock' ;D . -Andy

[cfvickers]

I would bet 10 dollars to a donut that it is the accustock alignment/tightness. You can look at one and see if it is right screws need to be fairly tight but not cranked down, looking from the front, down the barrel, you should have a good bit of clearance on the bottom and sides between the barrel and stock, and it should be the same amount on all sides. Sounds simple but it can be a pain to get it right until you have tinkered with it a bit. Have you taken the stock off for any reason, to adjust the trigger maybe? Either way I have seen a few that came from the factory canted in some way and needed the stock screws adjusted and the stock realigned. These guns generally shoot extremely well. I would bet yours will too. I got my 6.5-284 all out of whack for about 3 months and it would not shoot well at all.

[chowder]

I did completely readjust the scope and cheek piece to fit me and then releveled the scope,etc and the whole package felt much better but the rifle still would not group well, so I shot 2, 3 round groups w/ both the Fed and Hornaday Match grade ammo w/ the Model 11 long range hunter and the groups are still poor. So I removed the Bushnell 4200 Elite Tactical and the rings and rail from the Model 11 308 LRH. I did shoot 3 groups with my Mueller equipped Model 12 22-250 just to make sure that my portable bench or some other thing wasn't behind the model 11's poor grouping problem b4 I remove the Mueller scope from the 22-250 to put on the model 11 to see what gives. The 2 groups from the 22-250 were roughly .5 MOA or less so I would say that Mueller scope has no issues.
Kind of hate to take the scope off of the 22-250 to check the 308 to find out if the problem is coming from the Bushnell 4200 but I don't have any other good choices.
What's anybody's guess as to how much I will have readjust my data table for the 22-250 when I finally get my Mueller back on it? Thanks, -Andy

P.S. I can't back out the allen heads in the rings for the Mueller because the cheap little allen wrench strips itself, the set screw heads themselves look fine. I did order an 'accurizing' torque wrench set from Midway, hoping the bits that come with it are better quality than the wrench that came w/ the rings. Any other suggestions?