Retirement 93R17BTV

Well I just retired yesterday after nearly 40 years in the textile business; like most other manufacturing based industries we are one of the few who survived this long. For lower cost shooting my wife bought me the bull barrel thumb hole 17HMR beauty that I tried out at the local range today. Had a Bushnell 3200 10X tactical on backup that fits it nicely. A bit windy but the Hornady 20XTP provided a 0.5 inch 5-shot group; the 17VMax a little worse at 0.7 inch - all strung horizontally (presumably due to the variable wind). I must say I am thrilled at the first day's performance. While the Accutrigger was adjusted to the minimum, there was still a noticeable pull required while I was focusing through the scope, waiting for the slight recoil to occur. Cleaned up now and I think I will pull the trigger, polish the sear surfaces, and install a lighter spring. Report to follow.

Good results
For the Vertical stringing, check your action bolts for proper torque

Congradulations of your retirement and you new rifle

above is correct but, be careful when tightening the action bolts as the btm metal is thin and the wood can be a bit soft.

Might be worth considering replacing that btm metal with one from.....

http://www.savagegunsmithing.com/rimfire_rifles.html

DIP products also sells bottom metal.

Cleaned away the Accutrigger grease and cut a couple of coils off the spring to get a very nice trigger, and upgraded the scope to a 4-12 Vortex Viper. I have SSS and Rifle Basix on the centerfires, and I must say I like this one (my first Accutrigger) just as well. Getting consistent 0.4" groups at 100yd now ;D. The rifle clearly is capable of doing better as I still get the occasional flyer, and I'm liking the 17 for more economical practice to improve my skills. More consistent concentration and trigger pull are the main points for me!

Once you get the heavy bottom metal, and you should, torque the screw in the bottom metal to 18 inch pounds, the rear one to half that, 9 IP and see if it does not help your groups. You can try other torque until you find the best, but splitting the 2, the one being 1/2 of the other seems to work best.
Bedding the action helps also, these are easy guns to bed.

Use Purple thread locker, not blue, it will keep the scres from moving, changing the torque.

My Best, John

Well I got the heavy bottom metal; clearly more substantial. When going from torque of 10front/5 back to 15front/10back the vertical point of impact went 3" higher at 100yd! WOW, this thing really needs a good bedding job to stabilize the action. It looks like the action screws are also supposed to contact the stock and support the action like pillars (not simply tighten it against a good bedding), which does not appear to be a robust design. Think I will replace these with some home-made pillars and bed the action like the centerfires.