Any last ditch effort advice on this 338 Edge?

[J E Custom]

If you haven't dine so already inwoiod start with the obvious . Check your bedding and or free floating ; barrel torque action screw torque, are your rings lapped too much ? Is your scope spring in the lapped rings ? Try other bullets pwder and pimers , check the consistency of your ammo. Are both your lugs making good contact ? If all this s eliminated re barrel.

+1 =A lot of good advice by all.

Also remove one bedding screw at a time and look in the hole to see if the action threads are centered in the pillar and the screw it not touching the pillars. If they are, drill them out just a
little where they are only touching the action and the floor metal (If they touch they will become
recoil lugs and realy screw up the groups.

Next clean the barrel back to bare metal with a strong solvent and do a mini. break in (5 rounds
of shoot and clean) if it still fouls it is the bullets or the barrel. some barrels just foul worse than
others and must be replaced.

Hopefully it is one of the other things mentioned and you won't have to replace the barrel but
every now and then you get a bad barrel.

Good luck

J E CUSTOM

 

[groper]

well my action take down screws are not in the center of the holes in the stock... so theres one problem i will fix now....

Another issue, my stock is a HS precision with aluminium bedding block. The contact is not even. Have many people had issues with the bedding system of these stocks? i was under the impression you just screw them up and they are good to go due to the aluminium being soft and simply beds itself under the torque of the action screws.... i have read some reports on the net that some people say this system isnt worth a pinch of **** so im gonna go ahead and skim bed all the aluminium surfaces with devcon and drill out the stock for the take down screws.

Ill shoot the rifle tomorrow and see if things improve...

What are your experiences with the HS precision Stocks?

 

[Topshot]

Groper,
Sounds like you are on the right track. Drill out the holes to clear the action screws.
Bed the action and rear of recoil lug.

When you bed the action, do it stress free. i.e. don't screw down the action tight into wet bedding compound. just let it sit in the mud until it is set overnight then remove it and clean up any bedding contact points near trigger, magazine well, action screws etc.

Then let it set for a few days to get real hard. Don't shoot it within 24 hours as it might not be set properly.

Once the bedding compound is properly set, torque the action into the stock. I have mine set this way at 47in-lb.

 

[J E Custom]

Groper,
Sounds like you are on the right track. Drill out the holes to clear the action screws.
Bed the action and rear of recoil lug.

When you bed the action, do it stress free. i.e. don't screw down the action tight into wet bedding compound. just let it sit in the mud until it is set overnight then remove it and clean up any bedding contact points near trigger, magazine well, action screws etc.

Then let it set for a few days to get real hard. Don't shoot it within 24 hours as it might not be set properly.

Once the bedding compound is properly set, torque the action into the stock. I have mine set this way at 47in-lb.

+1

You can use a piece of surgical tubing wrapped around the action to hold it in place without
placing any stress on the action.

J E CUSTOM

 

[3006savage]

The action screws and bedding may help but the fouling sounded like major problem that is unrelated to the action screws.

I would check for tooling marks left from the chambering reamer since it is fouling bad the full length of the barrel. I am not a smith but perhaps the chamber/throat area could need cleaned up a bit.

 

[buckbrush]

New barrel is on the way at no charge. The fouling is the full length of the barrel and will not go away and the bore scope did not reveal any tooling marks at the throat or anywhere else in the barrel.

 

[Coyboy]

I think the guys who said it's a bad tube hit the nail.

You've screwed with it for a year and it's not shooting, thats a long time to mess with a custom barrel, I think you gave it it's all. Not to mention the time and money of components used up in futility.

The fact of life is every barrel maker is at the mercy of the steel mill that makes the steel. The mill will provide the maker all the factual data about the bar stock but bad stuff still gets in the hands of the barrel makers. It's then on the barrel makers inspection and testing process, if they have one.

If the steel machines poorly or warps when contouring it is obvious there is a problem to the barrel maker, now it's up to him to scrap it return it or try and pass off some barrels from it. In that case the smith then gets shanked as well because he's going to be redoing a rifle for little to nothing in replacing the bad tube.

In a perfect world some one would make perfect barrels and every one would use only that barrel. I think this is the reason some barrel makers fall in and out of favor with the shooting market. A very large run of steel takes a while to use up. if it's medioker steel that may be just how the barrels perform.

I have had a couple barrels from different makers shoot in the 1- 1 1/2 moa range. They get replaced, chambered on the same reamer and put on the same action and then shoot sub 1/2 moa with the new barrel.

I have also noticed that the poor shooters tend to foul bad compared to the good tubes. This could be caused my hardness issues or a multitude of other metalurgical issues that I am not versed in. In every case I played with the rifles and the results were similar to the customers.

I have only had 2 barrels actually turn around and shoot one was my my personal 7 rum. I pulled the barrel and relapped it, cut and crown ect. and it helped some. It shot 3/4 moa so I figured I would keep it on till it shot out. Well after about 200 rounds the gun turned around and started shooting really well, just too bad it was nearing it's half life in longjevity.

My suggestion(barring all the litle thing already mentioned about box bind, bedding amunition quality and scope issues) is if it's fouling baddly after 50-60 rounds with a half dozen good cleanings under it's belt, or after trying a half dozen known accuracy loads for the cartrige and still no luck it's time to let the smith now the problem. You could be helping him out as well if he has a few more barrels from the same lot to instal on others guns. likwise if the gun is a hammer he would like to know so may-be he can order some more barrels from the same manf. and lot number.

After 100 rounds most likly if the results are poor they are unlikly to turn around.

 

[buckbrush]

Everything above is pretty much an echo of what the barrel maker said. They claimed to have one guy years back that was very stubborn and after 500 rounds finally had a shooter. They told me to quit frustrating myself, send it back and wondered why I didn't call sooner.

 

[Autorotate19]

500 rounds! Man talk about stubborn, thats nuts!

 

[Top Cat]

Sounds like the barrel maker stepped up to the plate and stands behind their product... that deserves a mention.

We need to know who the good guys are.

TC

 

[Autorotate19]

+1 who is it? Thanks