Having hell with my new 300win

[manitou]

Man I feel for ya. I built a custom 280ai and have been trying to work up a load for it the past 2-3 weeks. Without looking in my logs I can't tell you how many loads and seating depths I tried with ABLRs, Accubonds and ELD-Xs using H4831sc and IMR 7828 ssc. I finally got some Berger VLDH in and it proved to be a shooter with those... getting .36-.45 three shot groups. Yesterday I shot a .6 six shot group in about 90 seconds and took it out to 708 yards with good results, so it will make a hunting rifle for me now. I still need to take it to 1000, but it looks like it will do me fine. The ABLRs are starting to come around also. This is after 200 rounds fired! I did switch out my bag on my front adjustable rest also since it was very hard and kind of "wiggly". I will also add that my house I moved from I had built a nice range with a very good, stable bench in my back yard. At my new place I have resorted to shooting off a Wal Mart folding table and can actually see my crosshairs move with each heartbeat at 18x! I have to really, realy concentrate and have everything perfect when shooting off this thing. Sadly, I believe if I would have driven to the range with stable benches I could have had this task accomplished much earlier... but I HATE public ranges!
I was really pulling my hair out since I have a Bartlein barrel chambered by a top name smith, I bedded it in a Mesa Precision carbon stock, great trigger and Lone Peak action. I will say the chamber and barrel are the tightest of any 7mm/.284 I have worked with.
It likes very little jump, even with the Bergers at .004".
I would review your system... your stock/bedding, shooting table, rest, etc once you have ruled out optics and mounts.
The painful part nowadays is shooting all those rounds and knowing how hard componants are to come up with.
Good luck to you.

 

[manitou]

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[dfanonymous]

Sorry forgot I've shot off bench, and laying down. I 7 magnum rifles I shoot quite often. I'm not recoil sensitive.

I haven't tried any factory ammo. I haven't purchased any factory ammo in 15 years. I hand load everything. I've considered buy a couple boxes to try.

Ok. Thanks.

The factory ammo would be a good and quick way to isolate a reloading issue to a rifle issue.

However, it sounds like it's less likely a problem

I saw you said you had a 500y range, but did you mention what distance you were shooting your groups at?

Also, which torque specs did you use for the action screws of the rifle?

 

[Bob Wright]

Does it have the factory plastic stock?

 

[lancetkenyon]

Berger 190, 200, 200.20, 205, 208, 210 or 215s.
H1000 or Retumbo

Done.

 

[manitou]

I have always set my action screws at 45 lbs in all my rifles, front and back. All my centerfires will shoot .5 @ 100 or better. Does it really make a difference, or does that pertain to rifles with uneven action/bottom metal pressure? I never experimented with action screw torque. Honest question.

 

[choprzrul]

I have a Ruger M77 in 257 Robert's that shot 4-6" groups no matter what I did.

I bought a 1:9" Bartlein and had Randy Selby screw it on.

Local bedding job and load development with 115gr Partitions gives me 1/2-3/4" groups now. Good enough for whitetail all day long

.

 

[Bob Wright]

I have always set my action screws at 45 lbs in all my rifles, front and back. All my centerfires will shoot .5 @ 100 or better. Does it really make a difference, or does that pertain to rifles with uneven action/bottom metal pressure? I never experimented with

A properly performed pillar bed job and bottom metal bedding will never hurt accuracy. It can improve accuracy a little or a lot depending on how bad the fits and clearances were.

 

[SouthLoganCountyShooter]

Maybe a stupid "captain obvious" question but y'all didn't ding up the crown of the muzzle did ya?

Nope

 

[SouthLoganCountyShooter]

Another question…your dies good? Do these dies produce more accurate ammo in other rifles of this chambering or is this the only rifle you've used them to make ammo for? If so, perhaps a concentricity issue from faulty dies?

I have 2 Tikkas 300win and my brother's savage 110 All shoot 1/2moa with these dies.

 

[S96743]

How many rounds down the barrel? I had some Barrels that wouldn't print until I was broken in.

 

[SouthLoganCountyShooter]

How many rounds down the barrel? I had some Barrels that wouldn't print until I was broken in.

Just under 100 I did clean it after every shot for 10 rounds and cleaned it every 5 rounds for 20 rounds. I did that with the 155g pills. Used book spec trigger time rounds I made for my wife. So she could get trigger time behind her t3x superlite. I haven't cleaned it since I started working up loads for it.

 

[dok7mm]

It's a given that you should be cleaning barrel completely when you change powders & bullets on load development.
If you have a borescope, check for copper/carbon build up.

 

[windypants]

I had a factory rifle that wouldn't shoot anything and eventually discovered that the barrel was loose. It apparently had never been torqued at the factory.