Zero in problems at 100 yards

[manels1111]

Hi guys not sure if this is the right forum,

I've gathered a lot of information from this forum but never posted before and in need of some help. My father and I were looking recently to build a longer range rifle and decided on a Remington 700 xcr II 300 rum. The xcr II is a very light about 7.25 pounds or at least seems very light to us. We decided on the nightforce shv 4x16x56. We ended up getting the Talley light weight 1 peice rings that take no base but aren't connected to each other if that makes sense.

We have literally shot 100 rounds through the gun and can't get it sighted in. My dad 50 shots and then me 50 shots thinking my father was shooting bad. But the best grouping we've gotten is 3 shots within 2inch's of each other at 100 yards, but most times were 4 inch groupings. About 75 shots have been on a lead sled to try to figure out whats going on but to no avail.

We've torqued the scope rings to factory spec with a torque wrench with blue locktite. Checked them after shooting. We also broke in the gun properly.

We are starting to think that the heavier shv scope on the light weight xcr II that the talley light weight rings are not handeling the kick is the only thing we can think of.

We are not expert marksman but we have zero'd in a few rifles including just recently 1917 remington with no problems as we are encountering at the moment.

Does anyone have any idea's or recommendations for us? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Josh

 

[WildRose]

Float it. Pillar bed it. Put a good brake on it, and try again.

I'll guarantee you that with that many rounds though it you are both flinching badly by now even if you don't realize it.

That's a whopper of a recoil in a light rig like that.

You both need a break, and doing the above will give you one and when you get it back you'll have a hell of a lot more confidence in your ability to shoot it and shoot it well.

Then we can talk about finding a load that works.

BTW did you follow any particular barrel break in plan? How often are you cleaning it?

 

[FearNoWind]

Float it. Pillar bed it. Put a good brake on it, and try again.

Torque action screws securely and evenly
"Float" with more clearance than you might think you need (I like to use two thicknesses of 3x5 card stock)
Agreed ..... you need a break in the routine and a "brake" on the muzzle.

 

[WildRose]

Torque action screws securely and evenly
"Float" with more clearance than you might think you need (I like to use two thicknesses of 3x5 card stock)
Agreed ..... you need a break in the routine and a "brake" on the muzzle.

The XCR's if I'm not mistaken come with a pretty black and green kind of nice looking stock but it's cheap plastic. Without pillars it's impossible to get any consistency out of such a stock.

Even torquing is essential but of course with a plastic stock you really can't do a decent job of torquing them.

With a heavy recoiling caliber like the 300 Rum that stock is going to have a tremendous amount of flex to it.

We're both on the same track though, I'm just trying to save them time and aggravation because before they are done it's going to require all of what I suggested and likely a better stock to really get it to shoot well.

Been where they are, done that, had the bruises to show for it HA!

 

[manels1111]

Hey guys thanks for the responses.

BTW did you follow any particular barrel break in plan? How often are you cleaning it?

First 5 shots we cleaned after every shot. Then cleaned every 5 shots after for the next 50 shots and then cleaned to after 20.

The XCR's if I'm not mistaken come with a pretty black and green kind of nice looking stock but it's cheap plastic. Without pillars it's impossible to get any consistency out of such a stock.

Yep thats the the stock. We have never done pillar bed or float the barrel before. After checking it the stock is all over the barrel can't even get a thin piece of paper between the stock and barrel. We are going to try to take it into a gunsmith to do bedding and float. My dad is going on a hunting trip in 2 weeks so we are hoping to at least get it some what accurate for the trip and then when he gets back work on getting things more dialed in.

Torque action screws securely and evenly

We just checked those and they appeared to be sort of loose. We had to turn them a bit to torque them to 40 lbs.

 

[WildRose]

If you're a handy guy you can do the pillars and bedding yourself.

Check Youtube for "How to pillar bed a rifle". There are a number of good videos on the subject.

Preparation and cleanup are the hard parts. Don't take any shortcuts. Use GOOD release agent and plenty of it. Brownell's spray release agent is the best I've used so far.

 

[manels1111]

I don't know if it matters also but we are shooting a friend's loaded bullets he made for us. Nosler 180 grain ballistic tip, 3432 velocity, .507 coefficient.

 

[WildRose]

I don't know if it matters also but we are shooting a friend's loaded bullets he made for us. Nosler 180 grain ballistic tip, 3432 velocity, .507 coefficient.

Till you get the bedding and floating done there's not much point in talking about loads. As wild as it was shooting for you it wasn't the ammo.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Hi guys not sure if this is the right forum,

I've gathered a lot of information from this forum but never posted before and in need of some help. My father and I were looking recently to build a longer range rifle and decided on a Remington 700 xcr II 300 rum. The xcr II is a very light about 7.25 pounds or at least seems very light to us. We decided on the nightforce shv 4x16x56. We ended up getting the Talley light weight 1 peice rings that take no base but aren't connected to each other if that makes sense.

We have literally shot 100 rounds through the gun and can't get it sighted in. My dad 50 shots and then me 50 shots thinking my father was shooting bad. But the best grouping we've gotten is 3 shots within 2inch's of each other at 100 yards, but most times were 4 inch groupings. About 75 shots have been on a lead sled to try to figure out whats going on but to no avail.

We've torqued the scope rings to factory spec with a torque wrench with blue locktite. Checked them after shooting. We also broke in the gun properly.

We are starting to think that the heavier shv scope on the light weight xcr II that the talley light weight rings are not handeling the kick is the only thing we can think of.

We are not expert marksman but we have zero'd in a few rifles including just recently 1917 remington with no problems as we are encountering at the moment.

Does anyone have any idea's or recommendations for us? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Josh

Could be some things other people stated but I will add this, what ammo have you tried other than these loads? I kind of disagree with the above poster. You may simply have a picky rifle when it comes to ammo. My brothers 7mm rem mag was shooting 2-3 inch groups at a 100 yards and we thought exactly the same things as you. We checked all screw torque and free floating barrel...etc with no result. We then spent 150 dollars on 4 different types of ammo...including different bullet weights and wouldnt you know it...it shot .75 Inch groups with remington core lokts. The next best group was 1.25 inches with Nosler premium ammo...and the other two were back to the 2-3 inch groups we saw earlier.

Bedding the rifle sure wont hurt accuracy...and will most likely improve it...but you may simply have a picky rifle.

 

[FearNoWind]

The XCR's if I'm not mistaken come with a pretty black and green kind of nice looking stock but it's cheap plastic. Without pillars it's impossible to get any consistency out of such a stock.

Thanks for that insight.
My list of suggestions were simply general in nature. I see by what you wrote here that you have a better understanding of the specifics. Perhaps the best recommendation we can make is to donate the factory stock to charity and replace it with a sturdy custom model, including the bedding etc. steps previously listed.
Thanks again for the insight. I always try to learn something on this forum.

 

[shooterpete]

Could be some things other people stated but I will add this, what ammo have you tried other than these loads? I kind of disagree with the above poster. You may simply have a picky rifle when it comes to ammo. My brothers 7mm rem mag was shooting 2-3 inch groups at a 100 yards and we thought exactly the same things as you. We checked all screw torque and free floating barrel...etc with no result. We then spent 150 dollars on 4 different types of ammo...including different bullet weights and wouldnt you know it...it shot .75 Inch groups with remington core lokts. The next best group was 1.25 inches with Nosler premium ammo...and the other two were back to the 2-3 inch groups we saw earlier.

Bedding the rifle sure wont hurt accuracy...and will most likely improve it...but you may simply have a picky rifle.

+1 it could very well be the ammo....

 

[WildRose]

Thanks for that insight.
My list of suggestions were simply general in nature. I see by what you wrote here that you have a better understanding of the specifics. Perhaps the best recommendation we can make is to donate the factory stock to charity and replace it with a sturdy custom model, including the bedding etc. steps previously listed.
Thanks again for the insight. I always try to learn something on this forum.

The most attractive thing to me about this forum is that it's one of the few places I can go to learn something related to this subject.

If he had 2 months instead of two weeks to get dad's rifle shootable before the hunt I'd be all in with you but the wait time to get a new stock in plus time to get it bedded and set up right would really be crowding his schedule.

 

[ShootnMathews]

Yep thats the the stock. We have never done pillar bed or float the barrel before. After checking it the stock is all over the barrel can't even get a thin piece of paper between the stock and barrel. We are going to try to take it into a gunsmith to do bedding and float. My dad is going on a hunting trip in 2 weeks so we are hoping to at least get it some what accurate for the trip and then when he gets back work on getting things more dialed in.

Floating it a lone will probably help a ton. My dad bought a 7-08 last year that had two 1/4" x 1/4" pads at the end of the forearm that the barrel sat on. I could not get the rifle to put consecutive shots on a pie plate at 100 yards. ( I knew it would need to be floated but decided to try it before floating since it was obviously designed that way). I took it back home and ground the pads off to float the barrel. Took it back out and with the same box of shells it went from a 9" + group to 1" groups.

 

[manels1111]

If he had 2 months instead of two weeks to get dad's rifle shootable before the hunt I'd be all in with you but the wait time to get a new stock in plus time to get it bedded and set up right would really be crowding his schedule.

This is exactly what we are up against. A little update. We took it to a nice local gun shop and the guy sent a video scope down the barrel and noticed a lot of copper fouling. He thought it was significant enough to throw errand shots. We ended up getting some good copper cleaner and cleaned out the barrel.

In addition the guy said as you guys have said the stock sucks and showed us where we could already see where the muzzle side of the stock was rubbing fairly hard on the barrel. We concluded yesterday with that many shots and a hot barrel with stock pressure pushing up on the barrel along with copper fouling we were just getting a combination of errand shots. Along with we were both probably mentally/physically drained from shooting.

We also last night as I mentioned had somewhat loose action screws and those were tightened.

Pleased to announce our groupings are 1 inch or less. Best being a little under 3/4 inch grouping. However we would only shoot 3 shots clean the gun and let it cool so we didn't get issues with hot barrel getting pressure from the stock.

When my dad gets back from colorado we are going to get a replacement stock, and have it bedded/floated or we might try to do it ourselves. We are both fairly handy and I'm more technically inclined for finding videos.

Anyhow thanks so much for the input and help.

Any ideas on where to start with a replacement stock for the 300 rum? We are probably looking at something in the $300 to $400 range max if thats even possible?