Poor accuracy , need help.

No one seems to have mentioned checking your barrel crown.

While picking up a rifle at my small FFL, I saw a resale of a gorgeous cerakoted, well-bedded Remington 308 with the standard 24" 5R barrel topped with a vintage 3-10 matching cerakoted Leupold sight with Leupold level, on a Badger Ordnance Picatinny rail, and a perfect matching Mcmillan stock in their Desert camo with a fitted brake. The cerakoted bolt had the Badger Ordnance bolt knob. Well, says I: the original rifle was close to $1000, the stock is $1000 and the scope is $1000, what is not to like with a $3000 price? Well, the groups aren't: just over one MOA with fliers. I hand-turned off the brake and looked at the crown where it appears that the crown over the front 5/8 x 24 thread was cut with a dull tool and some of the lands material was slightly pushed into the crown, instead of being removed. My friendly local gunsmith friend concurred, removed the barrel, after I marked the lug position on the receiver (as he taught me earlier), turned a slight bevel on the crown and used it to replace the barrel on my hunting rifle which is now just at barely 1 MOA with no fliers to date.

I bought a Bartlein barrel from my commercial gunsmith, Southern Precision (who does great work), which my above-noted local friend (BTW an 85-year old former Marine who knew Land of Carlos Hathcock fame) chambered and threaded with his home lathe and cut a muzzle thread for a brake. He took the time and care to match the lug position so that the new barrel and old received slid perfectly into the very professional-looking bedding. Now, I have to engage a local cerakote sprayer to apply and cure the paint that I hopefully perfectly matched with my large selection of cerakote chips. Accuracy to be determined.

Oh, and in the process, always wanting a vintage sniper rifle and being a Carlos Hathcock fan, he is selling me a pre-64 Winchester rifle with the big (and legal) non-raised comb target stock with a heavy 30-06 barrel and 8x Unertl scope for $2000 - which took some of the sting out of my prior purchase buyer's remorse. The scope is at a Unertl specialist to have the recoil spring removed as required by Vintage Sniper rules.

Yes, I know that Carlos used the commercial stock and somehow managed to prop his head high enough on the very down-sloped relatively thin commercial stock to get a stable cheek rest for his superb shots.

Sasman said:

I put the brush through it after each trip as i do all my rifles . Usually 3 passes with brush then patch until its clean . I usually only go through 20 rounds max for each rifle each session , (likely less ) but i'll say 20 .

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Try leaving the barrel for 50-75 Rds. Everytime you clean it requires X number of rounds to re-foul the barrel to get back your accuracy....my 6.5 generally takes 10 rounds just to bring it back...I don't think you are clearly giving it time. Could be the easy button here! Just me! Edit: I just noticed the 15 inch pound comment....I would surely call the manufacturer to confirm that.....seems to me that can really be a problem....I torque all of mine at least double that....takes nothing for 15 to work loose!

waveslayer said:

Havebt read through all the posts, but could be something loose, but most likely it was a rifle built on a Friday! Get a new barrel from Bartlein and you will be set!

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Bartlein there has been problem with them. Wrong twist rates and a few other things. They finally said they screwed, but not barrel.
Get your action fitted, Float the barrel, check the scope mounts, and putting the action back in correctly. Besure your barrel is clean.
Get good brass cases, get different primers to try, adjust your seating on your bullets, and powders changes.
I have taken rifles straight out of the box and gotten 1/2 groups with those rifles, and I had others I never could be it to group under 1".

If you exhausted all the recommendations from group members I would get some reputable carbon and copper solvents and do a through cleaning of barrel, soaking over night on subsequent nights. Sounds like copper build up in barrel or carbon build up in neck/throat area. bore scope would diagnose this issue.

Sasman said:

I have a Remington 700 semi heavy barrel rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor sitting in a Magpul stock .
This rifle gave me major headaches trying to figure out what bullet and powder would work to an "acceptable " level for accuracy .
It was shooting sort of OK for a while now its back to useless again.
It started throwing flyers so i changed the scope , all to no avail .
I took the stock off just to see if something bad was going on ( not really sure what i was looking for) .
Didn't find anything out of the ordinary .
I Re assembled it all , went to my favorite shooting place , first group came back ok , after that , it went to hell again .
The rifle will not shoot a group , its more like a line and not even a close one . Last one before i gave up was around 3 inches at 105 yard range .
Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong before i jam the barrel in a vise? .
Could it be an issue with the Stock ? Is the Barrel shot out ?
I,ve wasted so much time and effort trying to get this *** to shoot but i'm all out of ideas and patience now .
Thanks in advance for any help , please feel free to ask questions but no bashing .

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Have you checked to see if your bolt handel is hitting the stock
A simple way to check is a spot of whiteout on the highest point on the underside of the bolt handle and close the action as usual then open as usual there should be NO whiteout on the bolt handle.If it is take some sand paper to the cut out in the stock and check with fresh spot (do not paint it on because it's a little hard to remove)
Just a dot will be sufficient
And repeat as many time as needed and Wipe off the whiteout between standings. So it won't build up

Sasman said:

I have a Remington 700 semi heavy barrel rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor sitting in a Magpul stock .
This rifle gave me major headaches trying to figure out what bullet and powder would work to an "acceptable " level for accuracy .
It was shooting sort of OK for a while now its back to useless again.
It started throwing flyers so i changed the scope , all to no avail .
I took the stock off just to see if something bad was going on ( not really sure what i was looking for) .
Didn't find anything out of the ordinary .
I Re assembled it all , went to my favorite shooting place , first group came back ok , after that , it went to hell again .
The rifle will not shoot a group , its more like a line and not even a close one . Last one before i gave up was around 3 inches at 105 yard range .
Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong before i jam the barrel in a vise? .
Could it be an issue with the Stock ? Is the Barrel shot out ?
I,ve wasted so much time and effort trying to get this *** to shoot but i'm all out of ideas and patience now .
Thanks in advance for any help , please feel free to ask questions but no bashing .

Click to expand...

Remington 700 rifles are inherently accurate and shoot sub moa without any problems. There are however problems that do crop up and affect accuracy. Like any rifle they like a clean bore, no copper fouling and usually shoot the best after 2 to 4 fouling rounds. We used to only get 2 sighters when shooting competition and that was usually good enough for fouling shots. Remingtons, like others have favorite ammo and taking the time to find the best ammo, factory or reload will make you a happy shooter. One of the things I have noted is the variation in the action screw torques. Factory recommends 65 inch pounds with the front screw torqued first, rear to follow. The 700 is very intolerant of loose action screws. The barrel needs to be free floated. If it is touching anywhere forward of 1 inch after the action the accuracy will be compromised. Do you have a muzzle brake installed? If so make sure that there is no evidence of the bullet contacting the inside of the muzzle brake. The slightest touch will throw the bullet way off in strange directions. Usually this will be evidenced by a shiny or burnished spot on the brake. I have had several Rem 700s over the years, they all shot sub moa, my current 338 Win Mag shoots clover leaf groups or better using Nosler and Sierra bullets. Barrel life for a stock Remington barrel is around 2000 rounds but again, the barrel needs to be clean without any noticeable copper fouling.

All factory barrels will have improved accuracy with a cleaned up crown.