When the barrel is pulled, its pretty easy to measure if the receiver is true or not. I guess its just habit for me to measure every receiver I am going to put a barrel on. Even when a $1750 Nesika Bay receiver comes in, it gets speced just like all the others because at times they need correction as well.
The 721 is a good receiver. That said, its not as strong as the Rem 700 because of the cut out on the back of the bridge for the old striper clip loading. Add that to the weight if the barrel your using which is a pretty heavy barrel combined with the intensity of that chambering, you better have everything square and true to get the most support you can out of the receiver.
I am not saying its not the barrel. Bad barrels get out the door from EVERY shop out there. If someone tells you that they have never had a bad barrel from a certain barrel maker they either have not fitted a decent amount of barrels or they are not being honest. I have had bad barrels from Rock, Krieger, Lilja, Pac-Nor and Broughton.
That said, all have replaced those barrels without question. There are many other brands of barrels I have used and had no bad barrels but the volume of those barrels I have used has been very low.
I have fitted well over 300 Lilja barrels and I have had Three that had issues. One simply had to be relapped. This is on my personal 300 AX Raptor. New, it shot 1.5 moa at best, I returned it and they relapped the barrel and it is now a sub 1/2 moa rifle consistantly.
The other two were just replaced and their replacements shot great.
Getting two bad barrels in a row, that would be like winning the lottery, not a good lottery but you get the point. Very rare.
I would suspect the majority of the consistanty problems are likely in the receiver and stock area.
Simply put, a 300 RUM is not that hard to get to shoot under 1 moa so something is wrong, just have to find out what and correct it.
Few questions:
1. How many shots are you shooting in your groups. Should be no more then 3 shots for this size of chambering. Barrel heat is a problem with this size of chambering, shoot three shot groups.
2. What type of reamer was used? Live Pilot or solid pilot?
3. Is this a SAAMI spec chamber?
4. How long is the throat? Are you seating to the lands?
5. Is the barrel freefloated?
6. Was the barrel broken in properly?
Perhaps as important as anything tell us if you see any patterns in your groups. Are you seeing horizontal stringing, Vertical stringing, unexplained, inconsistant fliers or just big groups.
Let us know, there is something causing the problem, just have to find and correct it.
