Is it the Striker, the scope, or me?
I shoot mainly cast bullets and have been trying to get a Savage Striker and a sorta pistol made from an M10 Savage rifle ( both 308 Win) to shoot lead for a while now.
I can get these guns to shoot five group five shot 100 yard averages, reliably, under 2", with some averages under 1.5"-but not better.
Scopes have included 2-6X Simmons handgun scope, various rifle scopes and 30X Lyman STS.
The rifle scopes don't have enough eye relief, and I developed a flinch and bleeding from "scope eye".
The Striker trigger is/was a bear to get adjusted so it stayed put; and the scope caused problems.
I wondered if the guns or scope or me was the problem.
In a rifle I'd try jacketed bullets to check gun accuracy, but the 308 Win recoils plenty with slow lead bullets and I didn't want to test faster jacketed bullets.
I bought barrels in 22-250, two 14" Striker and a 22" sporter rifle barrel, for testing.
Using various small lots of left over 22 bullets, from 35 to 55 grain, with arbitrary beginning loads of Varget, IMR4895 and IMR4350; and with the 2-6X Simmons handgun scope, all using the Striker
14" barrel #1, 4 groups averaged 1.475", 1.719" and 1.269"-total 12 groups
14" barrel #2, 5 groups averaged 1.460", 1.167", 1.250", 1.435" 1.454"-total 25
groups
22" barrel, 2 groups averaged 1.038" and 1.513"-total 4 groups
And 4/25/2012, 2 groups were .750" and .775"-total 2 groups. I had to stop after 2 groups, but felt that the gun would have continued to shoot as well.
My conclusion is that neither the scope at 6X shooting a 3" black round target, the Striker nor me was the problem. This setup should shoot 30 caliber cast bullets at least under 1.5" reliably.
Next is to put the 26" heavy 308Win M10 barrel on the Striker after I figure out how to hog out the stock barrel channel..