Remington Model 700 accuracy issue

[Teri Anne]

Teri Anne's post was very detailed and absolutely excellent!
I recently had DPMS AR in 5.56 NATO that I had trouble getting any kind of accuracy with it. Three inch groups at 100 yards was common even after adding a Timney aftermarket trigger and trying a number of different handloads and bullets. I'd gotten a Teslong borescope for the prior Christmas & found the bore to have a lot of copper fouling in it! I finally scrubbed the bore with JB paste & Kroil down to bare metal and put a lot of effort and sweat into it! The first trip to the range gave me 3/4 inch groups with several loads!
I'm a hunter and also a handloader but I often put my deer rifle away for 9 or 10 months between shooting it! I once had a deer hunting rifle that had previously given me 1 inch 3 shot groups at 100 yards with it's favorite loads! I cleaned it as best I knew at the time after hunting season, put it in the safe and after about 10 monrths, took it to the range to make sure it was still sighted in! I couldn't get groups under about 2 or 2 1/2 inches!
It was a Featherweight M-70 Winchester in 270 Win. and really liked the rifle but I eventually sold it because of the accuracy issues! Now I wonder if that barrel simply needed scrubbed down to bare metal?

Back in the 70s I had a Winchester M70 in 30-06 that I used only for Silhouette shooting. As I approached 1000 rounds, I noticed misses were becoming more common than they should have, especially beyond 200 meters. Took the rifle to the range. The groups had opened up to 3 inches or more. This resulted to 15 inches at 500 meters. Gunsmith determined that the barrel was shot out. I contacted Winchester and was advised that this rifle was a sporter designed for hunting. Their response was that 1000 rounds was more than the barrel was designed to shoot and would have been sufficient for several decades of normal hunting. Had a 26 inch stainless bull barrel screwed on by my gunsmith and chambered for 308. Took the rifle to exactly 10 pounds, which was 2 ounces below minimum. The extra length and weight of the barrel helped with the offhand stability and recoil. When I quit shooting silhouettes I sold it to another shooter. At that point the barrel had over 4000 rounds through it and was still grouping sub MOA.