Jeff, locating the reason for inaccuracy in a rifle can be a painful and sometimes expensive experience, there are a bucketful of possible causes and many times it will be a combination of things. I have found more often than not scopes, rings and how they are set-up are causing the chaos. I have mounted some high end scopes with high end bases and rings and still have trouble. One brand of rings I use must be lapped before they will work with a USO scope because the rings are a little tight and the scope dont bottom out. You can actually see daylight between the scope and the bottom of the ring body, I always lap the rings then bed the scope in them. Base to ring fit can drive you crazy, I have posted about this problem before, also if you are using adjustable bases I feel sorry for you. If this is not the problem it can be a bad barrel, bad bedding, ammo and who knows what else. To illustrate what you are up against, I just finished chasing out a problem on my pet 308. This rifle was built by a very well known smithy, Mcmillian A3, Rock barrel, Jewell trigger, Badger rings and bases topped with a USO sn3. From day one this rifle would sure enough shoot. I have taken several dollars from my buddies shooting at aspirins at 100 yds on a cold bore. From a good solid rest on a still day it was money in the bank. It shot this way for about a year. One day I was shooting at 800 yds and it was shooting a little high, all the #s in the puter was right so I checked the 100yd zero, IT HAD MOVED, not only that but it kept moving. It would shoot 3 or 4 in one raged hole then jump high left about 1 in and shoot a couple there then go back to the first hole. Needless to say I checked the usual culprits, Loose action screws, scope mounts. It wasnt those so I cast my suspiciuos eye at the 2500.00 USO scope. I happened to have another at the house on another rifle so I switched them out and that didnt help. I thought then it must be a fouling problem so I cleaned and shot for 2 days. This did not help, it was still doing the same thing. By this time I decided the barrel had gave up the ghost even though the round count was way to low for this to happen. I took it out of the stock and there was the prettiest bed job you ever seen except there was a little pool of bore solvent around the front aluminum pillar. The action had a little shinny spot just in front of the action screw. The recoil lug was not bedded on the sides or front. To make a long story short I skin bedded it and bedded the recoil lug all the way around except on the bottom. I shot 10 shots in one ragged hole on the first test after the bed job and I have since added a few more dollars to my mad money from the aspirin shoots. I have shot it alot since the makeover and it hasnt moved. The moral of the story is if you dont have componants to switch around and a ton of experience to draw from you are in for a trip. My suggestion would be to befriend someone that has the experience and resources to help you sort this out. If I can help you I certianly will,there are others here that will do the same. Good Luck.
