BLR takedown: to improve groups

[nord-partizanen]

hi fellows,
as I imaging, the BLR take down is not the best choice for LR hunting, but I took a .308win baby recently and groupings are leaving something to be desired. They are barely 1.25 MOA. The rifle is stainless, has an excellent safety system and only 20" each piece when taken down. I stalk hunting a lot, so I really want it to work better as much as possible. Because my Sauer s100 XT in 6.5 Creed delivers result holes touching each other at 250 yds. It is to say that I'm a bit spoiled and disappointed in the same time with the BLR test shooting results.
Some people say that one of ways to improve groups for BLR is to remove the barrel band.
I.e. you can check this vid for reference
- but the guy in that vid says nothing if it helped to improve accuracy or not.
Yesterday I removed the forend, also done a very light sanding inside. I can see that the laminate forearm has some generous tolerances out of factory which remedied by adding some epoxy putty pads here and there. I've removed two little spots in the front of it, just trying to make it "floating barrel". Then added some plumbing putty right in front of the anchor point, as I imagine that the forend can be stressed in this area while not having those front putty pads touching the barrel - once again, I removed those two as already said above... Inserted couple of ~0.3mm flex plastic strips in between the forend bed and barrell to make sure the barrel doesn't touch the walls, then get it seated and assembled back. Tomorrow when the putty get cured I will pull the strips out which will leave the barrelt "floating" then tighten the bolt up to 1/4 ... 1/2 turn more.
Ok, to put it short, could anyone please share his/her own experience making BLR shooting better groups?
I'm kinda itchy to find time to go to the range this week.
Hopefully these my efforts won't be like wasted time.

 

[Tiny Tim]

Following

 

[VinceMule]

A cousin has one. The gun has some recoil, this is an issue because the bullet is still in the barrel for .200 of an inch, while the gun is under recoil. How you handle that recoil for that .200 of an inch is critical.

We found a load with Varget and the 130g Barnes TTSX that shot 3/4", he has been shooting that load for around 6 years.

I would bed from the front of the action to the front of the anchor point, including the anchor point, and freefloat the rest of the barrel.

Tinkering will pay off if you can hang in there. Keep the copper out of the barrel.

There are guys that can do a trigger job on these BLR's.

 

[choprzrul]

I've often wondered if fully bedding a lever action would improve things. Melvin Forbes did full length bedding to include the barrel on his Ultralight Arms bolt actions....so why not on a lever action?

VinceMule brings up an interesting point about the bullet still being in the barrel during the recoil event. A light weight bullet will help this in 2 ways: A) lighter bullet=less recoil, and B) lighter bullets are faster and spend less time in the barrel. A 124gr Hammer Hunter should get you to 3200 fps using TAC, H335, or CFE223. On game terminal performance has been stellar for me using Hammer bullets.

 

[akdad]

Following as well. The blr is a handy little rifle. I just wish you could have multiple barrels for them!

 

[nord-partizanen]

I wanted to love this little rifle. I think it happened today )

 

[nord-partizanen]

A cousin has one. The gun has some recoil, this is an issue because the bullet is still in the barrel for .200 of an inch, while the gun is under recoil. How you handle that recoil for that .200 of an inch is critical.

We found a load with Varget and the 130g Barnes TTSX that shot 3/4", he has been shooting that load for around 6 years.

I would bed from the front of the action to the front of the anchor point, including the anchor point, and freefloat the rest of the barrel.

Tinkering will pay off if you can hang in there. Keep the copper out of the barrel.

There are guys that can do a trigger job on these BLR's.

The TTSX are copper bullets. I imagine these are of longer body which takes to insert them deeper into cartridge...
If those work for your cousin - great.
I tried Winchester Copper Impact and it was like nothing special. It doesn't necessarily mean that all copper bullets are like this one. But my rifle probably doesn't like them.
What I want now is to find a 150grain ammo which would group as good or close to those 180g Feds. I want my scope (Vortex Venom 1-6x24) to be zeroed at 100yds using 150grain bullet. I use Strelok application which lets you appoint master cartridge for your rifle/scope setup. The rest of bullets can be associated to the rifle profile in reference to the master one. Then you don't touch turrets, shooting each bullet and see what is +/- difference vs the master. You enter that difference data into the app. After this you can generate image of your reticle with distance marks per each bullet, ballistic tables and more. For more info check http://www.strelokpro.online/StrelokPro/android/cartridges.htm
Ideally I want to run just two properly selected bullets: 150 and 180 grain. I can memorize reticle values for those or simply attach a note to the rifle stock then be happy forever.

 

[VinceMule]

The 130g TTSX is about the same length as a 150g Hornady btsp, what ever that is worth.

 

[P7M13]

I do not think of any lever rifle as being a candidate for LRH, and I have five. With none of mine do I expect better than 2moa at 200 yards, though my Savage 99 consistently hits 1moa from a bench. Offhand is another story, but that's me.
For first shots, the BLRs are fantastic rifles. But for grouping, being a takedown, it likely has the aluminum receiver and a lighter barrel -- and those quickly wowie from heat.

 

[nord-partizanen]

The 130g TTSX is about the same length as a 150g Hornady btsp, what ever that is worth.

good to know. Then being all copper such a bullet must be stable and uniform, assuming the factory does quality job when inserting that plastic tip.

 

[nord-partizanen]

I do not think of any lever rifle as being a candidate for LRH, and I have five. With none of mine do I expect better than 2moa at 200 yards, though my Savage 99 consistently hits 1moa from a bench. Offhand is another story, but that's me.
For first shots, the BLRs are fantastic rifles. But for grouping, being a takedown, it likely has the aluminum receiver and a lighter barrel -- and those quickly wowie from heat.

I don't expect BLR to be right tool for LRH. But having groups wider than 1 ... 1.25 MOA while shooting from bipod or bench rest indicates poor accuracy of a combination rifle + ammo. Then when it happens to shoot the same rifle off hands or similar then the problem gets amplified even more. One can live with that. But I want something to rely on when it happens to take a longer shot out to 300 yds.
And I've never been using more than two shots while hunting. The .308 BLR does three shots with no problem. In colder weather it can be even four - full magasine. I don't need more than that. But I need at least 1 MOA accuracy which I seem to have achieved.

 

[P7M13]

I went down that path with a 7/08 Ruger 77, 20" where factory ammo was 2moa at best, and my reloads 1-1/2. I tried Varget, 4064, 4166, MR2000 and RL15 powders, Hornady, Speer, Berger and Nosler bullets -- all with lousy accuracy. Frustrated as heck with it, I loaded up a counter-intuitive load test of a Lehigh mono over a slow powder (IMR 4350). It now produces < 1/2 moa and only ~100fps MV loss compared to what I would expect using normal powders.
My point being, when nothing makes any sense, try doing something that doesn't make sense.

 

[med358-boise]

hi fellows,
as I imaging, the BLR take down is not the best choice for LR hunting, but I took a .308win baby recently and groupings are leaving something to be desired. They are barely 1.25 MOA. The rifle is stainless, has an excellent safety system and only 20" each piece when taken down. I stalk hunting a lot, so I really want it to work better as much as possible. Because my Sauer s100 XT in 6.5 Creed delivers result holes touching each other at 250 yds. It is to say that I'm a bit spoiled and disappointed in the same time with the BLR test shooting results.
Some people say that one of ways to improve groups for BLR is to remove the barrel band.
I.e. you can check this vid for reference
- but the guy in that vid says nothing if it helped to improve accuracy or not.
Yesterday I removed the forend, also done a very light sanding inside. I can see that the laminate forearm has some generous tolerances out of factory which remedied by adding some epoxy putty pads here and there. I've removed two little spots in the front of it, just trying to make it "floating barrel". Then added some plumbing putty right in front of the anchor point, as I imagine that the forend can be stressed in this area while not having those front putty pads touching the barrel - once again, I removed those two as already said above... Inserted couple of ~0.3mm flex plastic strips in between the forend bed and barrell to make sure the barrel doesn't touch the walls, then get it seated and assembled back. Tomorrow when the putty get cured I will pull the strips out which will leave the barrelt "floating" then tighten the bolt up to 1/4 ... 1/2 turn more.
Ok, to put it short, could anyone please share his/her own experience making BLR shooting better groups?
I'm kinda itchy to find time to go to the range this week.
Hopefully these my efforts won't be like wasted time.

Are you reloading or factory? If reloading, what kind of load development process are you using? If factory, what ammo.

I have loaded for 2 takedown 30-06 BLRs and both shot sub 3/4 MOA.

 

[nord-partizanen]

Are you reloading or factory? If reloading, what kind of load development process are you using? If factory, what ammo.

I have loaded for 2 takedown 30-06 BLRs and both shot sub 3/4 MOA.

Given my low volume shooting and lack of spare time I can't justify getting into reloading. As you can see from my message from Aug 24, 2024 I managed to obtain 1moa accuracy from my TD SS .308.
The ammo was Fed ELD-X 178gn.
Another good ammo which lets me obtain about same results is Norma Whitetail 150gn.
Also, I was shooting these tests using bipod while sitting on the ground or laying down on my belly, no table, pillows, sand bags etc... On a wild range. It is to say not very comfortable or relaxing way.
So, 1moa is already good enough for me. On this I call it "done".
Thanks