Custome Build Concern?

[Willys46]

I am looking for advice from others on a problem that I have with a rifle I had rebarreld. Here is the story. I will not name the barrel manufacture because I have not contacted them yet, I wanted your opinions first to make sure I am not being a Pain in the A@@. It is was chambered in 7 rem mag throated to accept a 160 accubond seated to the neck junction. Rings and bases are Ken farrel 20moa base with is rings. Scope is 6.5-20-40 with M1 knobs.

I sent my Weatherby MKV off to re-barreled after 14 years of abuse from hunting and shooting when the barrel was way too hot. I sent it to one of the Barrel manufactures to have them true the action, lap lugs, and fit and chamber new barrel. This particular outfit does not offer bedding and so forth. I had a local gunsmith do the rest of the bedding.

The break in period lasted for ever and it always seemed to be copper fouling a lot more than I thought a hand lapped barrel should. To this day it still copper fouls quickly. Accuracy has been spotty at best. Before it went in it was a 1 moa gun and I am struggling to get that out of it now. I have tried multiple loads with different bullets and it still doesn't shoot that good.
I am having trouble keeping 1.25 moa at 300yrd and 2 moa at 600 yrd. This is just unacceptable in my book. I have fussed with it up to 350 rounds and kept thinking it would get better, no luck.

Here is what I am looking for, Do you think it could be a barrel problem, bedding issue, scope,reloads, and of course shooter (its never the shooter). The reason I am getting so disgusted is out of the box rem are shooting .5 moa for me and I spent ¼ what I have into this gun. Would you ask the barrel manufacture to look at it? Send it to another gunsmith to look at?

I am losing confidence in my hunting gun that I bought for my self when I was 14. I do not want to make it a safe queen and have too much money wrapped up in it.

Any advice would help---just not what I expected out of my first build.
Willys46

 

[Wild_Bill]

Contact the barrel fitter

hi contact thw barrel fitter andbsupplier of the barrel. is it a button rifled barrel?

Also try some lighter projectiles in case to slow a twist was fitted and also try another scope.

check the bedding if you can loosen the front takedown screw and the barrel does not lift from the barrel channel. it should at least shoot moa.

I had a New Zealand made button rifled 7mm barrel it was softer than their advertised hardness but they said I wore it out. in a 284win the barrel was missing 6" of lands in 482 rounds. the barrel cost $600 Australian another $220 Australian for fitting then 300 cases that had to be trashed and bergers primers powder nomination at competitions in all just under $2000 Australian in the piece of **** and no come back of warrentie.

I hope you have better luck than I did.

Cheers Bill
Australia

 

[James Jones]

If both the barrel maker and bedding smith are both in question then I'd send the whole gun to a good reputable smith (several here) and have them check it out , both the bedding , the barrel and so on.

It could be somthing as simple as a over tourqued action thats in a bind , a loose scope base , and out of square crown , it can be alot of things and its better for one man that knows what hes looking for to inspect the whole package ,

you get to many men fondeling your lady and you'll never find out what here issues are !!!

 

[Willys46]

Thanks

JJ,
That is what I was think as well. Just send it to some one and let them look at the whole package. Live and learn I guess. Man I hate wasting that much money!

Thanks guy and have a Merry Christmas and a Better New Year.

Willys46

 

[Mikecr]

Pull that *** barrel and drop it in a can.

 

[Fiftydriver]

It could be several factors and please do not take any offense to any of what I have to say, just letting you know what COULD be the problem.

There are a wide variaty of ideas what it means to accurize a rifle. First off, whenever I hear someone say they full accurised a Wby MkV receiver it raises a red flag in my mind. The reason is because of the 9 recoil lugs on three different planes.

Its simply not practical to accurately recut the bolt lug contact areas or the receiver lug recess areas which must be done to be able to say you truely accurized the receiver.

Not doing this is only partially accurizing the receiver. I have seen in many cases where 3 of the 9 lugs on the receivers were completely floating and even after hours of lapping, could not be brought into contact.

In most cases, there will be at least one lug not contacting the receiver.

This is a problem as far as consistancy goes. You always hear that there are nine lugs, even if half of them are contacting it will be stronger then any other receiver, that simply is BUNK.

Anyway, I have found working with Many Wby MkV rifles and rebuilding them from the ground up, that you will find there are roughly 10% that will be extremely finicky to load for. I have not yet worked on one that I could not find at least one load that would shoot 1/2 moa after being rebuilt but it is a rare thing to have a Rem 700 be finicky at all. It happens but rarely compared to the Wby.

Now onto the barrel, It certainly could be the problem. If its a quality barrel it should not have a fouling problem if it was broken in properly. If it was and it still fouls, something is wrong with the bore finish and the maker should correct this.

Unfortunately, if you have as many rounds down the barrel as you say, you may have a hard time getting them to replace the barrel. If they are a stand up company they should still replace the barrel but it may not happen?

Final point, if your Wby shot well with the old barrel, it should shoot as well or better with a top end barrel that is machined properly so that would make me lean toward the barrel in this case but I am always suspicious of Wby MkV receivers.

Good luck, keep us posted.

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[Varmint Hunter]

When I first got into rifle shooting, I thought the Weatherby Mark V's were the end-all in high quality rifles. I bought a few of them before realizing that they shot no better than ordinary rifles that cost half as much. They LOOKED pretty but shot ho-hum.

After a few years of hunting and shooting I really got the accuracy bug. My opinion of a beautiful rifle changed dramatically. High luster wooden stocks and curvey barreled actions no longer attracted me. Give me a butt-ugly rifle that would put a bullet hole exactly where I wanted it, time after time, and I've got a beautiful rifle that is going to be well taken care of.

I tried to have my Mark V's accurized, bedded and the whole works but was never satisfied. I dumped all the Weatherby's and bought a few Remintons. I shot the crap out of them and then began looking for a quality gunsmith to do all the usual enhancements. The basic Remingtons can easily be made to SHOOT. From my 40X based heavy varmint rigs on down to my light-weight .221 Rem Model 7, they all shoot great and have been giving me years of good times in the fields.

You've already got some money tied up in your Mark V so I'd suggest that you let a competent smith look it over before giving up. If you can't remedy the problem at a reasonable price than I'd dump the rifle, count my losses and move on to a rifle format with a loooong history of being a good platform for a semi-custom rebuild. That's what I did and I never regretted it.

Good luck either way.

 

[alexkeyser]

I also dumped my weatherby's for good 'ol rem's. have never looked back also. Your problems sound all to familiar. I was laughed at on this site for stating that a rifle that is half the cost of a weatherby would shoot as good or better than the weatherby the majority of the time. So, where are the weatherby guys now? sounds like one more un-satisfied weatherby customer here. Just for arguments sake I am not saying that they don't shoot at all, or, that they can't shoot 1/2 MOA. I have seen them do it before. Just not as easily as a rem. IMHO.