Weatherby Vanguard

[gohring3006]

The Timney is a good start. But I just remembered...... Free float the barrel. Duh..... I couldn't get my 300 Weatherby Vanguard less than one moa until I did that. I went farther and put it in a Boyds pro varmint stock and added a Witt machine brake. Then it became a half inch gun... I tried to post pics of the rifle and targets. But since I have the worst phone in American history, I can't.... It is in the Gun pic sub forum under Weatherby vanguard, Boyds and Witt machine.

 

[AKBman]

The trigger has got to go, I can and have worked the triggers in my Rugers, but don't think it is worth the effort to try and mess with this one. I will certainly free float the barrel at some point, but right now it throws 3 into an inch or less, and 1.5" for 5 provided I do my part, and as I don't envision this being a 500+ yard rifle, as long as that first shot is hitting where I want it to, I will honestly be happy. This rifle takes me back to my teen years when I thought a 30-06 was big medicine (have seen a good many elk, moose and bears fall to the '06), and my Granddad's 300 Win Mag was the hammer of God.

 

[Waynard]

The group you posted with the 180 gr. Interbonds would be good out to 500 yards if all your using your rifle for is hunting. Only thing I would change is the point of impact. I'd raise it up so its about 3.5 inches high at 100 yards and make your zero impact at 250 yards your bullet drop at 500 yards would be about 36 inches. I have all my 06's sighted this way and out to 300 yards you can hold dead on deer size game and bigger,elk & bear ect..

 

[AKBman]

Thank You!

 

[AKBman]

Relieved some of the wood and took the trigger apart and stoned it. After the initial shot, I worked to get it back to where I want it zeroed. The last 15 shots went pretty much into the one big hole, 3 different bullets (180gr Interbonds, 180gr factory seconds, and 180gr SBT) and 3 different powders (RL 17,RL 22, IMR 4451). Brought it home and used some Bore Tech to take it back to bare metal, so I know the POI will be off for the first few shots next outing, but will see how it shoots over the coming months.

 

[Scot E]

A couple suggestions. Not sure how old that gun is but some of them must have the barrel floated to shoot well. Often times the results are dramatic! I would not wait on this. You don't always have to get a new stock either. Even on their cheapo all plastic stocks before they went to the aluminum bedded ones, I could just relieve the barrel area on them and get significant improvement.

Also, I have helped fix a few poorly broken in Howa/Vanguard barrels and I would suggest the following.

First continue to remove all of the copper after each session. Clean it down to bare metal. It won't shoot as well at first but there is a reason for this process. One thing that sometimes happens on a rough barrel is that no break-in is done and when that happens there is no chance for the first few bullets to begin smoothing out the barrel. Instead the imperfections are just filled with copper which not only makes them impossible to smooth out but also creates areas where copper is extracted from each bullet making for a nasty fouling barrel and one that often times creates flyers and a quick loss of accuracy. I would personally clean every 4-5 shots just to make sure your bullets are traveling down a clean barrel. I have a strong feeling you will see the fouling and accuracy issues go away or decrease significantly after doing this.
If the above does not fix all of this to your liking I would do an HBN treatment for a few rounds. There have been consistent and very good results found by those treating a rough barrel with HBN.

Based on the good results you are sporadically getting I have a feeling you have a great shooter just waiting to be found!

To clarify, some barrels don't need as much work as I am stating because they are good from the get-go and/or were broken in properly but if there are some minor imperfections and they aren't dealt with correctly at the beginning, it does take some work to fix the issue but it is almost always fixable.

Howa/Vanguards are very accurate out of the box. One of the most consistent IMO.

Good Luck!

 

[AKBman]

The accuracy has really picked up with this rifle. It appears that someone has partially bedded it, but never relieved wood from the barrel channel. The last 15 shots went into .75"x.95" at 100 yards. I am having fun with it.