New Rifle concerns

I agree with others regarding the lead sled. I believe that rifles need to recoil, the whole every action needs an equal reaction thing. When you prevent the recoil, you force the rifle to move in other directions besides straight back (which keeps the barrel in-line with your target).

I've got the CA Mesa in 6.5 CM, it loves premium ammo. Get through the break in, get some decent ammo and fun shoot up to 100 rounds. Then start your load development off shooting bags. I think you'll find good success. (Make sure your screws are correctly torqued, and not over-torqued).
 
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btsmd said:
Just took my new Christensen MPR 6.5 Creedmore to the range and put the first 35 rounds through it. Did the recommended break in procedure. Was shooting Winchester 129gr power points. Gun was completely erradic. Shooting from lead sled. Even had friend shoot it. Scope is NF ATACR 5x25x56. Everything seems tight. Even at 100yds it was 6+ MOA or worse. Didnt bring different ammo to try. I dont have a ton of experience with rifles but the ones I have have never acted like this. Any suggestions/thoughts? Appreciate the help.
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have you had the action out of the stock check the bedding
 
Is your parallax and sight picture adjusted correctly? 6 MOA is a bunch. Given Christensen track record I wouldn't think it's the rifle. Not to offend, just saying.

btsmd said:
Just took my new Christensen MPR 6.5 Creedmore to the range and put the first 35 rounds through it. Did the recommended break in procedure. Was shooting Winchester 129gr power points. Gun was completely erradic. Shooting from lead sled. Even had friend shoot it. Scope is NF ATACR 5x25x56. Everything seems tight. Even at 100yds it was 6+ MOA or worse. Didnt bring different ammo to try. I dont have a ton of experience with rifles but the ones I have have never acted like this. Any suggestions/thoughts? Appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
 
btsmd said:
Just took my new Christensen MPR 6.5 Creedmore to the range and put the first 35 rounds through it. Did the recommended break in procedure. Was shooting Winchester 129gr power points. Gun was completely erradic. Shooting from lead sled. Even had friend shoot it. Scope is NF ATACR 5x25x56. Everything seems tight. Even at 100yds it was 6+ MOA or worse. Didnt bring different ammo to try. I dont have a ton of experience with rifles but the ones I have have never acted like this. Any suggestions/thoughts? Appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
The best cheap 6.5 creedmoor ammo is 140gr federal nontypicals, they've shot good in five different creedmoor rifles for me. 1" groups and under @100yds
 
The lead sled has always worked well for me during load development. I don't typically use any weight with it to tame the rifle's recoil, but I do like how it takes the human element out of the equation. Once you have found your load and the rifle is grouping as it should, then get off the sled and onto sand bags or a bipod and learn to shoot well with both.

As a general rule, If I have a decent rifle shooting 2-3 MOA groups, I tend to look first at the barrel and load. With 6 MOA groups , I tend to look at the scope and mounts first. You say everything appears tight, but you can't check the base when the scope is sitting in the rings. Nightforce is a great scope, but even they can have a problem. After checking all your screws/mounts - remount the scope and try it again. If the groups are still 6 MOA, then find a buddy with a 34mm scope body and swap out the scopes. This will quickly tell you if the scope was your problem.

After the scope/mount has been removed from the equation, start looking at the barrel & stock. Check the bedding, look for signs of tooling in both the crown and throat area. Snug down the action to specs. Take a closer look at your brass for addl. clues. Finally, try different ammo.

The final point I would make is not to spend too much time and ammo on trying to find a solution. Your frustration level will rise and barrel life will diminish. Plus you will spend a lot of dollars. Look for the obvious culprits that don't cost much to research. If groups don't improve, send it back to manufacturer and have them look at it.
 
Your going to need to find that rifles "Sweet Spot". It seems some rifles like this set up, some like that. Kind of like kids, one will love carrots the other peas.
First step is to go back and recheck everything. Check the torque all everything. New rifle and first time shooting can loosen things up. It needs to "settle in".
Next try different ammo. Just like reloading, you will need to find what the rifles likes. Not all rifles like the same setup, even an exact copy of the same rifle from the same builder. That's just life.
Don't disrepair and give up. This is actually the fun part (IMHO). For me their never seems to be enough range time, I always want more.
 
btsmd said:
Just took my new Christensen MPR 6.5 Creedmore to the range and put the first 35 rounds through it. Did the recommended break in procedure. Was shooting Winchester 129gr power points. Gun was completely erradic. Shooting from lead sled. Even had friend shoot it. Scope is NF ATACR 5x25x56. Everything seems tight. Even at 100yds it was 6+ MOA or worse. Didnt bring different ammo to try. I dont have a ton of experience with rifles but the ones I have have never acted like this. Any suggestions/thoughts? Appreciate the help.
Click to expand...

One more thing, you've got about $2000+ into a really nice rifle, invest about $40 into a Wheeler Fat tourque wrench and bit set. The screws on your rifle and scope will loosen up with use, it takes about a minute to recheck all of your screws while cleaning. A tube of blue loctite is good too.
 
My 2 cents worth says it's the ammo, although it could be the scope, New out of the box just does not mean it's not flawed, I've seen it happen with Leopold bausch & lomb and ziess, years ago before the 6MM faded away, a buddy came by with a Remington 700, knowing I shot almost every monday and owning two 6MM's he asked if I give it a once over for him, at the range I tried four different load combos shooting 5 shots per group proving the gun was worth holding onto, he located and purchased a case and a half of 100 gr power points, the same gun that produced inch to inch and quarter size groups with my reloads produced about 7 inch size groups with his factory loads, so don't get discouraged, and like others have said i'd ditch the lead sled.
 
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Everybody really does make superb points. I'm personally just very interested to see how this all pans out. Let us know what you did and if there have been any changes or improvements please ! Truly wish you the best of luck and hope the problem is something trivial.
 
This is a good read:

www.longrangehunting.com

It’s causing me fits....thoughts?

My 15 year old son has a left handed Browning X Bolt hunter chambered 7mm-08 with a Leupold VX3i 2.5-8x36. For the life of me I cannot get it to group all of a sudden. I have tried the following: - Took scope and Talley rings off and installed and torqued everything back down. Bases at 28 and...
www.longrangehunting.com www.longrangehunting.com

post#47 by 'sturner' is worth a look.;)
 
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