Have you ever gotten an inaccurate rifle?

B

BumbleBug

New member
The catch all to this question is the definition of "inaccurate". Thinking back, I don't remember ever having gotten a rifle that with a little tinkering wouldn't at least shoot 2" to 3" at 100yds. Some would say that is plenty good enough for hunting. I'll say most of my experience has been with bolt guns.

Way back before '64 when Win model 70's didn't have the "Pre-64" adverb in front, my brother bought a feather weight .30-06. We shot strictly factory ammo back then. That gun didn't group, it patterned. Even so he killed a few deer with it before getting it rebarreled. With a Shilen screwed on, it shoots clover leaves, even today.

Have anyone else ever gotten any true lemons?

:confused:
 
A No4 Mk1 (T) lee enfield.
It was shooting about a foot low & 18" right when I finally got it on paper. The groups were horrible about 9~11" for a benched 100 yd group.

After many bore cleanings it shot very well it was utterly filthy & full of so much jacket metal I actually got little spiral swarfs out of the bore at one point.
:eek:
 
With the caveat that I've never owned nor had any interest in any of the various military surplus type weapons (I know! The horror!:eek:)... no, I have not. I have yet to see a rifle that I couldn't get to shoot an inch or less with 3 shots at 100 yards. Yes, my sample size is limited, but it's not "2" either.
 
When I was 16 I bought a 7mm Mauser for $28 at the Coast to Coast hardware store. After firing 1 shot at 50 yards, the paper had a hole in it that was 7mm wide and about an inch long, where the bullet had gone through sideways. The fact that it had even hit the paper was pure luck, it didn't do that more than half the time. I suspected that it somehow had an 8mm barrel on it......
 
I have had quite a few inaccurate rifles over the years. Most were bedding issues that I fixed. Two were cruddy factory barrels that I swapped. One was a new Ruger 77 that had the action bent so badly that there was no hope for that piece of junk. I sold it.
 
I had a Remington 740 "Woodsmaster" that would struggle to keep 16" at 100 yards. I've seen others that were bolt action accurate.
 
I have a Rossi 22lr/410 combo break action and at 20 yards it was near impossible to hit consistently with 22lr. It shot groups like a large paper plate with the factory sights. I put a red dot on it and things got better but I still judged it unfairly. Then I put a cheap take off scope that had been sitting in a drawer on it and then it shot dime size groups.
 
A fella I knew walked into my repair shop carrying a M1A claiming it was a 600 yard gun. I bought it. I could get 5" @ 100 with crummy cheap military ammo. I could get 2" with careful handloads.

So the fella was right, I could maybe hit a Jeep @ 600 yards, but not the hubap.

David
 
I bought a 6.5 Carcano many years ago. The crown was wallowed out pretty good. With the long bullets, they'd fly all over the place. I also had a Ruger 77/44 that would give me 4 inch groups with pretty much everything I fed it.
 
Many years back a friend of mine purchased a new Ruger 77 in 270 caliber, the gun had a laminated stock, beautiful gun.
He brought it to the shop for me to mount the scope and sight the rifle in.

After getting everything set up I went out to my rifle range to shoot the rifle; I was lucky if I could keep 3 shots on a target the size of a paper plate.
Took the rifle back in the shop to make sure I had tightened everything, I had.
Went back to the range and had the same results.

I started looking at the gun and the stock was rubbing on one side of the barrel, so I called my friend.
After discussing it with him, it was decided instead of me investing my time to free float the barrel he would ship the rifle back to Ruger to be fixed.

I typed a letter, sent a test target with the rifle and off to Ruger the rifle went.
Ruger sent the rifle back stating the crown was the problem, however I knew that was not the case.
I mounted the scope again, my friend and I went back to my range and the rifle shot the same as before.

Once again it was decided to have Ruger fix the problem, so I typed a letter explaining the barrel was in contact with the left side of the stock and I thought free floating the stock would fix the problem.
Ruger put a new barrel on the rifle, this did help some however the barrel was still touching the stock but with not as much pressure on the opposite side, the rifle would now shoot a 6 inch group.

It was decided that I would free float the barrel rather then sending the rifle back to Ruger, so I did.
After doing so I put everything back together, went out to my range, the rifle shot 1 MOA.
I told my friend that was plenty good enough for a light barrel hunting rifle, he was happy.
I never have figured out why Ruger did not take my suggestion of free floating the barrel.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
Hunter, in my experience with shooters I have learned they can be some very set in their ways kind of people. I suspect the Ruger tech had it set in his mind that the stock wasn't an issue and that no "regular joe gunsmith" was going to convince him otherwise. I enjoy quietly walking about shops and listening to some of the conversations that take place. What I hear from the "experts" behind the counter can be downright alarming sometimes. Good luck changing their minds though.
 
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I have one gun that will just not shoot well. It is a Savage in 308. No matter what I feed it, it refuses to do better than 2"-3" at 100 yards. I have tried 6 different bullets in varying weight classes from varying manufacturers along with 4 different powders, and about 5-6 factory loads. Nothing I do will get it to shoot any better, some are even worse. It just refuses to group well.

I have gone so far as to pillar and glass bed it, with no improvement what so ever. It is wearing a nice, reliable, known-good scope and all screws (action, base to receiver, rings to base, rings) are tight. I finally came to the conclusion that this dog just won't hunt. I will be rebarrelling in the future rather than waste any more time/components trying to get it to shoot.

I own 6 Savage rifles, and this is the only one that refuses to shoot well. All of the others are right around 1 MOA guns with factory ammo, and do much better with handloads. Guess I can't complain that 1 out of 6 isn't a tack driver.
 
"My mind is made up; don't try to confuse me with facts." :)

I've never had to deal with a bad rifle, but I've had occasional "No good!" factory ammo.

My pet '06 always grouped inside of one MOA with handloads. I once bought a box of Winchester white box for $5 from WalMart. Heh. Five shots in a six-inch "group". Yuck. What the heck; the brass was usable. :)
 
I once bought a sporterized 98 Mauser that was really bad, I felt lucky if I managed to hit the paper with it.

A rifle is like a puppy... If it won't 'do it on the paper' then you are going to need to work with it a bit.

It was a 30-06. I checked the bore with a borescope and it looked like a sewer in there - and that was after hours of rubbing and scrubbing the bore. It had big old pits everywhere, apparently somebody had decided to save money by purchasing corrosive military surplus ammo for it.

Or maybe they were using battery acid instead of Hoppes#9 to clean it with.

In any case, I pulled the barrel off, but have not gotten around to replacing it yet.

That's the worst-shooting rifle that I've run across - so far.
 
I bought a Win 670 .30-06 in rough shape & I was even told it had a rough spot in the barrel & I had to keep it clean, but it shot "good". Well for $150 I figured it was worth it for just the action. Once I cleaned the barrel I discovered that the "rough spot" in the barrel was really where the barrel was badly "ringed" probably from shooting a full load behind a stuck bullet. With close examination I could even feel it on the outside of the barrel. The cleaning rod with a patch pushed tightly on through until it reached the spot then it instantly slipped forward about an inch or so until it got tight again. The muzzle looked like someone had beat it with a hammer. But believe it or not, that rifle shot 2" groups at 100yds with any of the junk '06 factory & reload ammo I had sitting around.

Eventually, it became a great project gun & is a .270 deer killer now!
 
My grandpa use to tell me a story about a guy who had a 30-06 of some sort. He would get in a bind and need money and sell it. He would shoot a 5 shot group on paper with the buyer watching. Then the happy buyer would go off and eventually shoot it themselves and not be able to hit anything.

Eventually they would become frustrated and want a more accurate gun so they would sell it and the original seller would buy it back at a reduced rate.

Hard times would come again and the original seller would go through the same process of shooting a tight 5 shot group for a new buyer and by the next deer season he was buying the gun back again.

In the end it turned out the guy was reloading his own ammo and the bore wasn't as good as people thought. So instead of using .308 bullets he was using .311 and always kept a good supply of reloaded ammo on hand.
 
I had a rossi set with three barrels, the 22 would hardly stay on paper a 10yds...

The best load out of the 243 shot into 8"

I've had lots of surplus rifles, some of the really rough one shot dam good, some of the nice ones wouldnt. You can never tell
 
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