Feeling proud!

[Rich Coyle]

until I got to the range. I tried my hand at some armature gunsmithing. I have a Savage action to which I installed a Criterion barrel chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. Yep. I drank the cool aid. I also purchased a used Nightforce from one of our .com friends here who gave me the opportunity to return it to him if I was not happy with it. Being twenty years old things can go wrong. I really like my Bushnell 6500 4 1/2-30X50's. But I never tried to twist them so I don't have confidence they will track.

At the range I was disappointed to the max. I was getting 1" groups with three shots. I took it to my 'smith and asked him to take a look at it. He discovered the cheap plastic stock was a mess. It was touching the bolt, the trigger and the action screws could not be tightened all the way because if he did that the sear wouldn't engage. The bedding was also gunnysack.

He asked me to load up some more ammo. He switched out the stock and fired two groups: A 1/8" and a 3/8". Then to verify the scope was not a problem he adjust the adjustable objective and fired and adjusted and fired and adjusted and fired. The group was 1". So I ordered a stock from him and will send the Nightforce in for repair.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Rich, did you ever get your 5R .300WM that you were going to buy a while back?

 

[Barrelnut]

Welcome.to the club, Rich. Now you know.

 

[Rich Coyle]

Rich, did you ever get your 5R .300WM that you were going to buy a while back?

Apparently you have me confused with someone else. I gave up .30 calibers in the 1970's. They kick too hard for what you get.

I did order a new reamer and a barrel, though. A 7 RUM with the shoulder pushed back .100" to give it a .350" neck. But Pac-Nor sent me the wrong barrel. They sent me a 6.5mm 8" twist barrel so I sent my Weatherby, along with the barrel to the gunsmith to pair them up. Pac-Nor at least got the length and the twist right for the 7mm barrel so the 'smith has to shorten it about 6" to use on the Weatherby.

 

[Buckskinner]

I had a similar situation recently. I have a 7mm-08 in Remington Mountain Rifle, actually 2 of them, one for each of my boys. The first one shot reasonably, about MOA, the second one, very poorly. I mean it was all over the place no matter what I loaded for it. Had a questionable bedding job and it seemed to be torqueing the action a bit. I ordered a Bell & Calrson for it, figured if that didn't help it would at least help when selling the p.o.s. Strapped the new stock on and it went from barely 4 MOA to .75 with first load I tried. Thinking about getting another one for the other rifle...

 

[Rich Coyle]

Buckskinner,

You reminded me I had a rifle that would not do better than 1 1/2". The stock was a McMillan. I replaced it with a Bell&Carlson and viola, instantly better. Before I replace the stock it was worked on by four gunsmiths. They just couldn't believe a McMillan could be the problem.

 

[Creedmoor shooter]

Welcome to the club! My criterion has not been any less than stellar

 

[JaoeyP]

A great way to test if a stock might negatively impact your accuracy is to put in a bore sighter and loosen and tighten the action screws. If you see your POI (laser dot) shift relative to your crosshairs, something is wrong. I recently bought my first McMillan stock and pillar bed and skim bed it; I had to remove some of the bedding material that was under the recoil lug in the stock.