My 12VLP is a piece of junk

First a little history. I started shooting and reloading about 40 years ago when I was 14 years old. Not having anything to hunt where I live and no rifle range I quit the sport for 38 years. A couple years ago I got the itch to take a trip to South Dakota and try my hand at prairie dog hunting. I had a Remington 788 in 223 so I thought the perfect companion would be a Savage model 12VLP in 204 Ruger. I bought one, mounted a Zeiss Conquest 6.5-20 and headed to the range with some factory ammo. Oh, did I mention that 7 years ago I sold (more like gave away) all my reloading stuff. There were some guys shooting long range with a caliber I had never heard of, a 6mmbr. To make a long story short I made one from a Savage PTA HS Precision stock and a Pac Nor barrel. Boy did it shoot. While forgetting about my poor lonely 204 I also built a 20 VarTarg out of a Savage PTA, HS Precision and a Pac Nor barrel. It shoots every bit as well as the 6BR. Now back to the #$!&% 204!!! I have restocked my loading stuff that I gave away at 20 times the price I sold it for and started to try and get this 204 to shoot. I have tried 5 different powders and I do not know how many different combinations of bullets and powder charges never getting a group better than ¾ to 1 inch at 100 yards. My two PTA based rifles would do that after 5 minutes of load development. Did I mention that I have Sightron scopes on my 6BR and 20VT. Jumping forward to yesterday. I decided to try some Ramshot Tac in the 204. I loaded up 6 different recipes and headed to the range and set everything up, adjusted the side focus on the Zeiss so the target was nice a clear like I always had and for some reason noticed that I had quite a bit of parralax. I adjusted it so the parallax was minimal but now the target was slightly blurry. I fired my new recipes and wow, no flyers. Nice tight groups for the very first time. I had some rounds of an old recipe that had not shot well from a previous trip and shot all five rounds into the tiniest hole I have ever shot. It sure was nice to finally remove my head from my rectum and realize that these factory Savages really do shoot! :-[

Somehow I knew this story was gonna have ahappy ending.. ;D

I was all ready to buy the vlp from you at a drastically reduced cost(kinda like you did with the reloading stuff) since it didnt shoot, but I guess its now not for sale. Guess I shoulda asked you 2 days ago, huh? :D

Glad you got it figured out.

I may have sold it to you Pdog!!! I was sooo frustrated seeing how well my PacNor barrels shot on Savage actions that I swore I would never have another factory barrel. It was one of those things where you look around to see if any one saw you screw up.

:D Ive been there before, and people did see me ::)

Nice to hear your finally satisfied w/ your savage.

My 11fcns in 204ruger prints these @ 100yds w/ 29g Varget and 32g v-max

[img width=337 height=450]http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o270/premiumtommy/204ruger.jpg[/img]

and thats w/ a $150 Cabellas 4-12 scope

T-Rex,

I hear you about the $150 scope. The reason I went with the Zeiss scope was that I was basically new to the sport after such a long lay off. I wanted to take all the variables out of this that I could. My thought process was, "if it doesn't shoot it is MY fault". That would have worked if my 20VT and 6BR didn't shoot so well. I just knew it had to be the barrel. Like they say, "to soon old and to late schmart". Oh well, I am having fun again and that is all I wanted in the beginning.

I guess you arnt leaving the Brotherhood of the Barrel nut just yet. Good for ya. Us old timers have to work a little harder it seems lately.

That's why the guys who know, always reccommend swapping scopes on rifles "that just won't shoot".

I've been there and done that myself. :)

Not to get off topic but I'm pretty new to this and this post raises a question.

When you say that you noticed a lot of parralex what exactly does that mean? What did you see/not see that made you adjust the paralex and what is that?

Parallax + shitty cheek weld is the easiest way to double the size of a group. Look up 'parallax' on a target shooting website.

I am not an expert but this is my attempt at an explanation. Parralax is the movement to the reticle on the target as you move your head. It is adjusted by an adjustable objective or the "side focus". That is a simple explanation and not a very good one.