Axis mods: A solution in search of a problem?

[DrThunder88]

Stock composition does make a difference to top shooters. Harmonics?

The question I'd still ask is how much accuracy would a top shooter expect to lose if the only thing that changed about their rig is the stock composition. We can even step away from Axises for this discussion. Say our top shooter is using a custom rifle built on a Panda action with a Krieger barrel and a professionally pillared and bedded McMillan stock. What if they woke up on match day and found their gun had transformed into a custom rifle built on a Panda action with a Krieger barrel and a professionally pillared and bedded plastic stock? How much would their scores change if it was wood? We'll assume our top shooter is using an OCW load or otherwise has a load that optimizes the accuracy of the new setup to the extent the old load optimized the old setup. If our top shooter can turn in 0.125 inch groups at 100 yards from the bench with the original rifle, will they suddenly find the plastic stock rifle's groups have expanded to 0.156 inch? 0.188 inch? 0.5 inch? 1 inch? More than that? Intuitions fail me here, as I don't think I've ever just changed the stock of a rifle. I think my first Axis may have gone from a factory stock to a factory stock with a few layers of fiberglass and epoxy laid around the forearm and action area and some epoxy in the wrist, but that didn't have nearly the impact of shimming the trigger if it had any impact at all.

I imagine doing the experiments required to genuinely quantify accurizing modifications is going to be cost prohibitive and may actually be impossible because of the subjectivity I mentioned earlier and piece-to-piece variations in factory guns. We can always qualify modifications as helpful, unhelpful, and harmful, but it's difficult to get a grasp of whether the cost of a modification is worthwhile if we don't know how much it will help (or hurt). The other major factor in deciding if a modification is worth it is the necessary or desired performance. I chose benchrest in my thought experiment not only because it--more than most shooting games--is about throwing money at a gun until the groups shrink but because success is having the smallest group. High power shooters don't really need a gun that will shoot 0.1 MOA when the smallest target they'll contend with is about 1 MOA. It'd be nice to have that margin for shooter error, but as long as they can hit the X-ring with each shot, those resources are better spent elsewhere.

So, to bring myself laboriously back to the OP's original question, the best anecdote I have to justify trigger work as my #1 choice is a .338 Federal Axis I built. It was shooting 1.5-2 inch groups with a trigger that was either not shimmed or just shimmed with no spring replacement. Either way, once the trigger was up to snuff, it was shooting just over 1 inch groups. But that's a gun I never shot very much and only fed it relatively cheap hunting ammo.

[LarryM]

I'm certainly no weapons expert but I do know from other hobbies/sports that sometimes people looking for an edge will employ a concept and claim it as fact whether it's ever really been proven or not. Word gets passed around, and like athletes we can be superstitious and if someone claims that a flexible forearm is bad, then by God let's all stiffen them up.

Again, I may be missing something obvious here, but with a floating barrel like the Axis has, I wonder just how much a flexible forearm makes a difference to bench rest shooters? I could understand it more with hunters shooting from an offhand or other position without a rest, maybe.

I mentioned in another thread that I think Savage must have changed or modified their Axis stock mold somewhat. There is no perceivable flex in the grip area of mine, and no gap in the backside of the trigger guard. It is tight.

Bottom line, I think we pay far more attention to equipment tweaks and far less to tweaking what we do personally when we shoot.