Model 11 accustock accuracy issue resolved.

I know this has been discussed over and over. But I wanted to post this in order to help others who may have experienced this issue.

A few years ago I bought a model 11 with the accustock, accu-trigger in .308 caliber for deer hunting. When new I could get about 2" groups @ 100 yards. I knew the gun should do better than that so the tinkering and online research began. I tried just about everything including different torque procedures, different ammo configurations, multiple scope configurations and multiple shooting techniques. It seemed as though everything I tried just made it worse. It finally got to the point where the gun was fitted with a DNZ one piece mount and leupold scope and would be lucky to get a 5" group at 100 yards. I was ready to get rid of it.

I stumbled across a thread that discussed bedding the accustock so I decided to disassemble the rifle one more time in consideration of this modification. In doing so I noticed something that I had failed to see before. A very slight wear mark on the side of the recoil lug pocket. I then completely removed the magazine well and trigger guard. I set the action back in the stock and rotated the action back and forth. This showed that it could rotate past center in one direction but the recoil lug would touch the aluminum bedding block before it could rotate past center in the opposite direction. The action rests on the accustock bedding block like a v block. When the action screws are tightened the action is pulled down in the block until the bottom of the action contacts the center pillars with the screws rolling the action to be centered. In my case, the recoil lug is at a slight angle so when the action screws were tightened it actually caused the action to be torqued or bound up in a twisting force. The rear of the action flexed more during tightening. This is why the torque of the rear screw had such a huge impact on accuracy.

To resolve this I opted to remove material from the side of the recoil lug. I carefully removed enough material to allow the action to be rotated past center in both directions. I then reassembled the rifle torquing both action screws to 45 in lbs. When I took the rifle to the range one last time to see if this resolved the issue I was pleasantly surprised with a 1" group at 100 yards. Now I am going to fit it with my scope of choice and dial it in for use.

I only say all this to point out that anyone having accuracy issues with a rifle equipped with an accustock should pay special attention to the orientation of the recoil lug. Mine is rotated about 1 to 2 degrees and that was enough to allow it to contact the aluminum in the stock.