First bolt gun 10 BA stealth 6.5 in left handed, good but one issue

Took my first bolt gun to the range the first time today, previous guns are a sig p320, 10/22 with a $25 scope and a scar16 with iron sights and a red dot.

new gun is a 10 BA stealth in 6.5, built as a left handed by savage.
Athlon Cronus btr 4.4-29 scope.

The gun was fun to shoot as expected, pretty excited to get a chance to shoot longer distances.
Scope is good (but I'm comparing it to a 3-9 tasco), only issue was it took a bit of tuning to get sight picture at full zoom, anything bellow full zoom and it's a lot easier to get your eye lined up. Was able to shoot groups just under 1 moa at 100 yards on a bench using a bipod and no rear bag (tried to use off hand under the pistol grip). Was happy with that result for first time shooting a bolt gun.
Magazine has the issue others mentioned where it is hard to insert when fully loaded. Ammo was hornady 140-gr-BTHP-American-Gunner which was ok for 32 of 35 rounds.

Problemwas with 3 rounds mixed through the batch. Two made it hard to close the bolt, had to real push it forward to get it to be in a position to close. He last one would not allow the bolt to close, there was a small gap. The RSO took a look and mentioned either head spacing or that the rounds were set with the bullet a bit far out preventing the case to seat properly and therefor the bolt to engage. Even tried hand loading that round from the top and had the same issue so not a magazine issue. Any thoughts on this problem?

pics of rifle and target with one round I felt myself rush and force the trigger pull a bit.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4186/3...2cdabe3a_h.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4186/3...2cdabe3a_h.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4194/3...03be7828_h.jpg

I have a Stealth and it will shoot a 5 shot group that a dime almost covers at 100 yards with 147 ELD Hornady factory ammo. I do have a Viper PST FFP 6-24x50 on it for shooting 1K yards. What ammo where you running through it?

Part of the group spread is me and not the rifle as it's the first time trying to shoot a rifle like this. The ammo listed above Hornady factory bthp American gunner.

Did you eventually force the bolt closed and shoot those rounds ?

Did you keep any of those rounds ?

Do they have marks on the bullet suggesting they were jamming in the rifling ?

When you tried to chamber them, did you un-chamber them ?
If you un-chamberd them, was it hard to start pulling the bolt back ?

It's one of few things...

Tight headspace (but still within specs) and those 3 that didn't chamber had the brass not sized enough.

Or the chamber has short freebore, making the bullets stick in the rifling.

Or you had a piece of brass shaving (or other foreign material) in the chamber or on the bolt-face (shrinking the working headspace of the rifle)

Or the reamer that cut the chamber was worn and cut the chamber to tight specs (but barely within specs) and the brass base was too big to fit in the chamber.

Two of the three I was able to chamber and shoot, one I never managed to chamber enough to close the bolt (bolt wasn't all the way forward and never twisted down to close). That one fell back out of the chamber without that much effort, bolt pulled open and it didn't extract the bullet but tilted the rifle and shook, tapped the side a bit and it dropped out. That bullet has a set of fine horizontal lines on the bullet, not very wide starting from a bit back from the tip and two marks down the side of the case after the neck (hard to see but you can feel them) and matches to the two times I tried to chamber it.

ill try more rounds and pay attention to the ones that don't feed.

Thanks for the tips.

Austaz. from reading your post it sounds like that higher end scope is a first with the features it has. Learning how to adjust the side adjustable parallax correctly will shrink your groups. Do you need help with that?

First for a few things. For the parallax I was just trusting the markings on the dial, dialed it to the distance of the target and figured it was good?

Part of the problem could be how I setup, my natural point of aim was off by about 2 feet and I twisted the rifle some to line it up, after each recoil the rifle settled back to almost that exact same spot 2ft off target and I'd twist a bit to bring it on target. Not sure how much that matters at 100 yards.

Quote:

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Not sure how much that matters at 100 yards.

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It does. This is the cost of a more versatile scope.



This is how you set it up. Point the rifle at something with a light colored background. The sky works for me.

Adjust the rear focus on the ocular lens until the reticle is sharp as you can get it. Spend some time on this to get it right. Check the sharpness of the reticle often. Once this is set you may never need to adjust it again unless someone else shoots your rifle and makes changes or you eyes change.

Next look through the scope at target at any range. Adjust the side parallax adjustment until the sight picture is clear and focused. Do not adjust the ocular focus. Now with the rifle on the bench, make no contact with the rifle or the bench move your head around in small amounts in every direction. The reticle must maintain its position on the target. If the reticle does not hold perfectly still on the target you need to make fine adjustments. Repeat the process until the reticle holds its position as you move your head.


Once you have done it this way you will realize the benefit. There are only a few scopes that are close to being accurate on the ranges printed on the dial. Count your blessings if you have one.

Good Luck