Cold gun issues

Danny Butler said:

It's been my experience that when your groups are stringing 12 to 6 or vertical.. that's indicative of a light powder load for the rifle.

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Interesting, never heard this one before.

KiwiKeith said:

Agree with Azrael that the barrel is the likely cause. After all, it was the barrel change that started this whole episode. One thought I had is whether the bore is actually centre of the barrel. With unequal material on one side of the bore as opposed to the other there's likely to be an uneven amount of material expansion causing the barrel to bend when it is heated up after the first shot. This will shift the POI. Wondering whether you need to talk with the barrel manufacturer, explaining all the problems you have had, and the measures you've taken to try to mitigate the issue.

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Not a bad theory except for one problem. The first shot does very little heating. Barrels only heat up significantly after three to four shots with of course the exception being thin, whippy barrels that will heat up after just a couple or three.

This is why most decent rifles will shot a good 3 shot group but may start throwing fliers with five shot or larger groups.

A botched threading job can make a barrel do all sorts of wonky things, like shifting POI or grouping better hot than cold.

I agree it has to be the barrel. I decided to call Mcgowen, see what they say about it. The first guy I talked to was more then helpful, but really wasn't that knowledgeable and you could tell most of what I was saying wasn't being understood. He talked to gun smith and smith said it was likely the barrel, as he had seen a similar issue like this before and simply had to get new barrel. They said I needed to call back and talk to Dan the manager.

I bought 4 barrels from them in the past year and would think they would take care of a repeat customer. Dan didn't even want to listen to me or what i have tried and kept saying "I'd have to blame the shooter, but you need to send it in for us to inspect." Finally after getting no where and him constantly cutting me off saying the same thing, I asked him what happens when I send the gun in and it is indeed the barrel. (because I have proven the issues is 100% repeatable) Same saying again. I asked how long it would take and he said they would look at it immediately. Reason being is I had a 6.5 PRC barrel made which shows ejector swipes and high pressure on every round of factory ammo fired. They wanted me to send it in and said it would take a week to look out to verify chamber, barrel, freebore etc.. I just got it back after being there for 3 months for their "1 week" job.....

I have gone over and above trying to track down the issue before I blame the barrel, but he wanted to hear nothing about it. Unfortunate as I will never buy a barrel from them again, nor recommend them due to the terrible customer service.