I wouldn't knock off your shooting skills just yet. I'm not a trophy target shooter by any means, but I'm 53, shot NRA .22 competitively as a kid, signed up for the big Green Machine and shot competitively for my unit and been shooting all my life. The key is consistent breathing, trigger control and repeat ability. Even with a crappy M-16 A1 variety circa Vietnam I scored expert in boot. My hold was always nose on the charging handle front post only. I did well. It was repeatable, consistent and worked to the range required.
Dismiss your skill set doubts if you've shot before and get factory ammo. Good stuff.
You're trying to see if this puppy will print. For a .30-06 you should get groups that fall within that square I posted on my target. Try good, match grade ammo designed to work well with your twist rate.
I just worked up a .308 in less than 30 rounds putting 5 shots on a dime. Federal GMM 168 Sierra's were my 'benchmark'. I exceeded that in 15 rounds.
My advice is don't chase your tail on something you can't find. These are production rifles, spit out for mass purchase. Sometimes they screw up and their claims of 'MOA' accuracy don't come true. Most of the time- yes, but sometimes no.
I had one. I moved on. In fact I have a 5-R .308 and a 6.5 Creedmoor that I just bought that are 'sub moa'. And they were cheaper than that Tikka laminated SS 7mm-mag I bought. Not dissing Tikka- but the time and effort to get it where I wanted it was BS for the price I paid.
Just food for thought.
Sounds like you've done a fair bit!! I grew up slug hunting deer and occasionally squirrel hunting with a 22. Most of my hunting was archery. I never actually tried shooting my slugs for groups because they were $1.50/shot and it wasn't exactly a joy to shoot more than 3 or so at a time! I always squirrel hunted with an old abused marlin semi-auto 22 with open sights, so I never shot that for groups either. So, I don't have any marksmanship training at all. I'll have to find someone around here to help me out for a day or two.
In all honesty, that most recent target is from a new gun, identical to the one in my original post, that I bought about a week and a half ago. I have somewhat of an obsessive compulsive problem and that's a bit embarrassing to admit on here. After using the JB's paste and twisting a brush in the throat, I was convinced I may have screwed up my barrel seeing as how it shot worse and collected so much more copper. Since I really liked that rifle, I decided I would just get the same one and sell the first one or hang on to it for a someday custom gun. I thought about going with something like an xbolt hells canyon, but I didn't want spend even more money for a gun that doesn't necessarily have any better chance of shooting well, since they're both factory rifles. I figured for how much I liked my tikka rifle and how much it cost, I don't think I could find anything else in that price range that I would like more. So, anyway, I'm a bit of a nutter and maybe a glutton for punishment. Oh well.
On this new version, I DIDN'T cut the ribs out. I degreased and cleaned all scope mounting surfaces with 70% isopropyl, torqued all of that stuff to spec, and torqued my stock to about 38-40in/lbs, where tikka says up to 45in/lbs for the plastic stock. A lot of people only torque to 35in/lbs based on that aussie guy Nathan Foster's recommendation. Adjusted the trigger down to 2-2.5lbs. Cleaned the bore extremely well before shooting.
I used a factory box of winchester 165gr power points to do the break in procedure; shot one and clean, shoot one and clean, etc. I don't know if I believe that does anything, but I figured I'd do it just to be safe. After I got through that box of 20, I cleaned to white again with foaming cleaner. I planned to not put a brush through this bore unless I have to at some point.
So, after that box of 20 factory rounds, I loaded the test loads with the staball powder. After shooting those, I cleaned with the wipe out and accelerator, letting it sit over night and had almost no copper pick up from those 20. So, that's promising. I may have to see if I can find some of the federal match ammo to get a baseline, but I worry about the possibility of my gun not liking them. So, I'm not sure if I want to do that or try 10-20 rounds of my best group from the last target.
