270 vanguard

R

RockRiverWhisper

New member
I need a little help with a weatherby vanguard in 270 win. It would not group with anything reloads or factory. I have pillow block bedded the action, glass and floated the barrel, put 8 lbs of pressure on forearm tip and work the trigger. Cleaned the bore, It shot half inch group outside diamatuer 5 shot with 150 grain boat tail. Next day it was all over the place. Has not group right again. Don't know what else to do. Thanks
 
mine shot 1/2" groups out of the box. you say after all your work that it worked well one day and not the next? i'd check the scope.
 
Sounds like something changed, so the problem is to find out what that was. Something could have slipped, loosened or changed position slightly. Did you do anything at all to the rifle after it shot those good groups? I'd guess it was the scope, but you said you tried another scope (was it a good scope?) and had the same problem. So, I'd start at zero. I'd pull the action out of the stock (and is it wood or synthetic and have you been in the rain?) and have a look at the stock and bedding points. And do you need that pressure point? Then I'd put it all back together again and tighten the action screws per the manufacturer. Then I'd clean the barrel real good again. If that didn't do the trick, I'd pull the scope and mounts off and reinstall all of that carefully. If you've been shooting reloads, I'd try some factory loads to see where and how they shoot. And if none of that helps...well...we're back to knowing that something changed but we still don't know what that was. Good luck.
 
It is a wood stock,The only thing I did was run a brush and patch through it Scopes were leopold and mounts. This has happened 2 times. First I took it apart and a flake of beading compound was on the barrel at the fore arm. The weight on the forearm was past experience with 20 in. sporter barrels. All rounds were reloads. I am going to float the tip back out and see what happens. Other than that I am lost.
 
rrw, 12/7/11

So your Vanguard was a bad shooter, then a good shooter and now a bad shooter again. I know I had a problem with a Rem. 700 .270 Winchester which had been shooting great then the groups opened up to 3 MOA. After doing a bunch of things to the rifle without any improvement I finally bought a barrel crowning tool from Brownells and recrowned the barrel by hand. Presto- it was shooting great again.

Same thing with a new Howa 30-06 (Howa makes the actions for the Vanguard rifles). It would never group better than 3 MOA brand new. The crown looked good but I recrowned the barrel and the groups dropped to 1 and 1/4 MOA. If all else fails consider recrowning your barrel, its a fairly simple procedure with the right tools.

merry Christmas- oldandslow
 
Float It

I'd be floating that barrell for sure . 20" is a pretty stiff barrel and shouldn't require any forend pressure , in fact it would probably be counter productive ! I'm not familiar with the term "pillow bedding" , could you explain how that works ?
 
machined aluminum frame the action sit on epoxied to the stock. Then glass in the first 3" of Ok, the last post for groups were with out the fore arm pressure, barrel was floated shot like ???? I really don't think the barrel shoot out that quick.
 
Could it be that the scope mounts or bases got a bit loose? And...no offense intended, but has anybody else shot the rifle for groups?
 
Remington 700 06 shot 1 ½ to 2” groups for years. Put it in new free float stock. 1” groups. Installed a muzzle brake and new scope and rings. Started shooting ????. Fiddled and fooled finally found rear mount “barely” loose. Blue LocTite, ½’ groups. Then they opened up again. Yep, mount loosened up again. Red LocTite. So far so good. “I” still throw a couple of fliers every time I shoot.
 
Don't take no offence in times like this. I thought it might be me to. let 2 others shoot it off the bench with bags got worse. scope mounts, yep I thought of that to. took and made sure I had flat surface by lapping mount and scope in then blue lock tight. The only thing changed was the first can of imr 4350 was 15 years old and ran out, got new can of powder and you see the rest. have tried powder charges from bottom to hot.
 
Seems unlikely that the barrel needs to be replaced. I've only seen that one time, and that was Dad's old Marlin 336 in 30/30 that he shot for decades and never ever cleaned. I can't say that it was ever a tack driver, but when the barrel finally went it was putting bullets all over the place. You couldn't say that it was shooting groups, since at 50 yards you might could keep most of the shots inside a washtub sized circle. Anyway...you can see that my experience in that area is somewhat limited, but it took a long period of neglect to ruin that barrel - so it seems like yours shouldn't be ruined by now unless you've been mistreating it severely in some fashion. But...on the other hand, if you can't fix the problem and your gunsmith says a new barrel is the fix, so be it.
 
Unless you have a very thrifty gunsmith nearby it would probably be cheaper to just go buy a new one. I saw several new Vanguards for quite a bit less than $400 at Whittaker's this week. For that price you not only get a new barrel but you also get a new everything else!

I can't imagine a gunsmith could buy and fit a new barrel for much less than $300 anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top