dad's gun shoots weird

[biff's reloading]

dad\'s gun shoots weird

this may be something basic that i need to fix, but i dont know what it is, so im asking for help from you guys. its a savage 110 243 that used to shoot very well. he could usually cover 5 shots with a 50cent piece at 200 yards. he changed to a different scope for shooting groundhogs a couple years ago, and things have gone south since then. going back to the original 4x scope didnt seem to make it any better.

yesterday i went to the range with it to see what it would do. the lighter the bullet, the farther left it shoots. or the heavier, the further right it shoots. 55gr noslers with 45gr varget shoot a 3" group roughly 1.5" left and 1" high. 70grbt's shoot down the center, 87gr vmax's shoot 2" right and 1" low, and the 95gr partitions shoot a full 6" to the right in a 3.5" group. i dont quite understand whats going on. is my action loose? the barrel is floated, and the trigger has been lightened, but thats it. everythings tight. i did scrub about a pound of copper out of it before i did this and it improved, and now im waiting on the bore-scrubber as i type this. it holds alot of copper. is that bad? ive never had a rifle use so many rags.

those groups were at 200 yards. is it maybe time for a new barrel? its an older gun that has had a ton of pills down the tube, and rarely cleaned (inside). im the first to ever put any ammonia in the tube. maybe a trip to the gunsmith for a borescope?

 

[James Jones]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

I have seen Savages's accuracy go to hell after a new "BASE" was installed allowing the rear screw in the front base to come down a little to far and touch the bolt head , and in this case simply shorting the offending screw about .020" cured the problem.

Now assuming that you have checked the all the scope base and ring screws and they are all tight , then checked the action screws and they are all tight and the barrel nut hasen't gotten loose and re adjusted the head space for you.

The first thing I would do is clean the hell out of the barrel with a good copper remover then scrubb the chamber end of the barrel with some JB Bore paste that will get all the copper out of the throat and clean up some of the throat errosion. If this doesen't help the next thing I would check is the crown. Alot of guys are baffeled that their accuracy goes to hell from one season to the next and all their gun has done is sit in the closet or under the bed where the wife has beat the hell out of it with the vacuum cleaner , when actualy they got a tiny little ding on the crown.

Hell it sounds to me like a good reason to get a new barrel

 

[biff's reloading]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

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Hell it sounds to me like a good reason to get a new barrel

[/ QUOTE ]

i might. he's been jealous of the 243AI for a while now.....

would the crown make progressively heavier bullets shoot progressively farther right?

 

[royinidaho]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

[ QUOTE ]

would the crown make progressively heavier bullets shoot progressively farther right?

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I wouldn't think so but one never knows.

It would seem more like a bedding problem. Does the problem appear with the same bullet at increasing velocities? That would be a good indicator also.

It would be the pits to change the barrel and get similar results. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[biff's reloading]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

ill know in a bit here. im finally getting almost no blue on the rag after a soak. ive never had to use a whole pile of rags on one barrel before. i hope this helps the accuracy. we'll see

 

[HRstretch]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

I had an old Remington Mdl 721 that was a tack driver. It set in a closet fro 26 years and when i started shooting it again I could not get it to hold zereo. I finally bedded the action and I am driving tacks again. The old stock may have dried up enough to let the action move and this will drive you absoluly nuts.
Some of my "friends" just told me my gun was shot out. I new that that gun had very few rounds through it. I also did a good deep cleaning (It had never been cleaned of the copper and not all of the carbon before). If you bed the action and tighten everything up and scrub the barrel and still won't group, then you may have shot the barrel out.

There are some bullets with abrasives on them that you can shoot that might clean up the bore if you have a spot that corrode. It might help?

 

[biff's reloading]

Re: dad\'s gun shoots weird

i went to the range. it doesnt move to the right as u go up in powder. i used about 200 rags and almost 1/4 bottle of bore scrubber, and it still turns a rag blue..... i got out the ol copper bristle brush and really dug at it between 3 shot groups. this helped alot to get the junk out. rags are still showing a touch of blue every time, but they come out fairly clean after 3 or 4 now.

it shot to the right with the heavier bullets still. its always the same. its grouping much much better now (1.1" at 200yards just off a single sand bag), but the 87gr vmax's with magpro are still a few inches to the right. maybe take the whole thing apart and put it back together cleaned and tight?

 

[RBrowning]

Biff,
Do you happen to be a left handed shooter? I see this regularly with light weight rifles, especially with larger calibers and heavier bullets. You may be seeing the effects of increasing recoil and slower bullets. The heavier bullet causes more reaction in your shoulder and, being slower getting going, it is exposed to more movement. If you happen to be a lefty, heavier bullets tend to move farther to the left and sometime they tend to hit higher than lighter bullets. If you have access to a fixed rest, like a lead sled, see if you find the same reaction when the gun is not allowed to reciol at all. That can eleminate one potential source of your frustration.

Best of luck sorting it out.

Rick

 

[biff's reloading]

so since im right handed, it might make sense that the hevier bullets go to the right? thats what they do. im gonna get a rest like the lead sled soon. im just shooting prone on a single bag.