Cold bore flier problem - help me get rid of it

To the guys suggesting bedding and free floating, the action is bedded and I checked again tonight and the tang is free floated - almost excessively so. The barrel is also free floated.

Just to be clear , When you say bedded you mean glass bedded correct ? Not just the factory piller bedding.

Mike
 
Think velocity.... I know my first fouler is always different from the group. POI always seams to move with different velocities and not always veritical. Might have to do with barrel harmonics. I think the oil or the cleanliness throws it off.
Put it under a chrony and I bet you see your fouler is off?....change cleaning process and maybe you will find a winner? Or, hunt with it fouled maybe?
 
Several thoughts

1) You can't really tell what a rifle/load will do when you shoot it from a sled. I know that repeated battering by a magnum is no fun so I suggest a brake. Not right before/during the season but after. You may have to retune your loads but that's OK. Jim See has some really good brakes and the Shrewd Brake in the Brownells catalog is very inexpensive and the 7 degree forward ports really move the sound away from you. I prefer 11 degree ports but that's a whole different discussion. I use a Harris bipod and a rear bag under the back of the stock that I drive with my left hand. I can easily shoot sub .25 MOA with our hunting rifles with this method. No bipod - use sand bags up front. Master your bench discipline. Don't raise your head off your cheek weld between shots. Just reposition your sight picture with your left hand and rear bag. Make the way you hug your rifle exactly the same shot to shot. Follow thru - stay in your glass with eyes on target and call your shots to yourself. Part of follow thru is remembering the sight picture just as the shot broke.

2) All bedding jobs are not equal. What you are looking for is "Stress Free" bedding. To check your rifle, grab the barrel in a bench vise (padded jaws please) with the stock upside down. Lightly touch the front of the stock and barrel simultaneously with one hand while loosening the front action screw with the other hand. If you feel any movement between the barrel and the front of the stock, you have too much stress in the action to stock interface. If not, your good to go. Use a torque wrench to reset the actions screws the same every time. We use 65 in-lbs (not ft-lbs) with properly bedded rifles. This is too much without pillars.

3) Optimally, what you want is a rifle that shoots into the same group in all conditions of clean, dirty, cold and hot. Try cleaning your barrel thoroughly. Remove all copper. Foul it with 5 shots and then clean with 5 wet patches, 10 strokes of a wet brush, 5 wet patches and 5 dry patches. I prefer Butch's Bore Shine. Now shoot and clean the exact same method every 20 -30 rounds. What your doing is leaving the bore in the same exact condition after every cleaning and NOT striping it down to a no copper state every time.

4) Play with seating depth. This is most likely your culprit assuming your powder charge is close. Start with touching the lands (don't go into the lands with any type of field rifle, hunting or tactical) and then back off in .005 increments. When your group shape becomes mostly triangular - stop. Then play a little with powder charge to tighten up the group. Watch for pressure signs on your primers. It's better to reduce load than to push too hot.

5) Finally, try some premium factory ammo. Start with Federal Match with 168 Sierra MK bullets. Also try Hornady Match with the 168 grain AMax (excellent hunting bullet too). This should be the benchmark for that rifle. If you can't get your handloads to perform any better, then it's time for a custom barrel. If you're still getting that flyer with factory ammo, then it's not the load.

Hope all this helps. Savages have the best barrels of any of the factory offerings, so you should be able to get it to shoot.

Best wishes for a productive hunting season.
 
Almost impossible to do on a factory rifle... Even with bedding being perfect the stress relieving on factory tubes is very suspect.
 
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