Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
Reminds me of my last Remington purchase (actually wrong as I bought another 541T).
Nice little 700VS in caliber .223. Never planed on punching paper with it much, but planed on punching coyotes and coons with it. It was a chrome moly gun, and put an
8x-32x scope on it. Shot 4.25" groups (5 shot @ 100 yds) with the best hand loads I could create. The folks I bought it from were geared up for the Big Green Crowd, but sold most of the other brands as well. The gunsmith asked me how it shot one afternoon about six weeks after I bought it. Said it's getting better as I've taken 3/4" out of the first groups! Then he asked how big? I said a little over 4". He asked to look at the rifle to let him shoot it. He called and asked me what I was shooting in it, and I said 27.0 grains of BLC2 under a 55 grain Vmax. Told him the Sierras wouldn't group at all. He calls me up and ask me to let the Fairland boys shoot it. Said go ahead, as I knew they knew what they were doing. A week later they called ask how I got 4" groups out of it. For sure it was a scatter gun!
Rather than send it back like anybody with common sense, I had to fix it. We pulled the barrel and tried to slug it. It tore up the slug so bad that it was useless. Then I read a piece by Bill Calfee on barrels. The chamber end was junk and the bore at the muzzle was over sized. Did a chamber cast, and found out the chamber was cut off center and at an angle. Then I found the bolt seating area had a .070" burr that the bolt was head spacing off of. Yet the bolt was pretty square. I did have several thread masters at work in different pitch diameters. Took the receiver and bolt to work one day, and lightly cleaned them up on a #13 grinder. Then found a thread master that halfway fit. The threads had some taper in them. Recut them on center, and straighter, but ended up with a 1.093 thread diameter. Plus I squared up the face at the same time. Took awhile to figure out a good way to do, but Ferris came to the rescue.
Then I looked over the stock and the ten cent cast metal insert it all bedded in. I then made a bar out of a piece of drill rod that was about .001" smaller in diameter than the action. Ugly! As in very UGLY. The plan was to simply lap the insert to fit the action. Wrong as in double wrong. Now I'm thinking a new aftermarket stock, but a great scheme hit me in the face while hunting up a couple ball end mills for a job. Looking around, I found an oddball six flute ball end mill that was about .020" over size. Got the guys to sharpen it and regrind it to the right diameter I wanted (.004" undersize). Then found the barrel channel part twisted, but that fix was easy.
Didn't how to redo the recoil lug, but others came to the rescue.
Back to the barrel! Cut about 2" off the big end as that part was junk. Ground the recoil lug flat (mistake). Then decided to lap the barrel per Calfee. Did nothing to the last six or seven inches. Then sawed off four inches from the muzzle. Took what was left over to the gunsmith and had him finish the barrel but leave the chamber short till I got the rest ready. Dropped everything off. That's when he told me the recoil lug area was a mess, and asked why I didn't buy a new lug from Sinclair?
After about two months we goto the range, and I shoot 3/4" groups with factory loaded Hornaday ammo. A lot better, but just lack luster. Trigger was driving me nuts! Would actually freeze up during travel. Nothing looked wrong. Doug reworked it, and set it up in a jig to get it right. Looked good, so it's off to the range with the same ammo. Shot much better but still froze up every now and then. Doug went thru it again, and it was not better. Yet it was right per the gauge. Talked with Ferris and he gave me a 1978 trigger he'd built. Broke the half inch barrier, but felt the rifle was still unsafe. Every once in awhile the firing pin would let go when the safety was let off. The last trigger didn't do it but a couple times. Ferris said it was a design flaw, and keep the trigger pull above two pounds. Next time out I brought my range loading equipment, and got into the mid fours. Yet on the table next to me was a guy shooting a Savage with a Kmart scope shooting .350" groups. The short heavy barrel gets a lot of attention, and has a near perfect balance. Fantastic off hand gun. Folks have asked me how many hundred feet per second I lost, and with a laugh I tell them 74fps.
Would I go thru this crap again? No! I'd have returned it!
gary
