Help me improve the accuracy of my Remington 798

My sloppy grouping was tighter during my first 30 minutes, where it held about 3.5 inches then it just kept spreading out to 5-6 inches. My spotter who's been going to the range with me for a year now was disturbed because I never shoot that poorly. I can usually even call my shots when I pull one, but this was just complete randomness and didn't make any sense to me.

I made sure it was wide enough to slip 2 business cards through since some mentioned the forearm slapping against the barrel if the stock is not firm enough.

Here are some pictures just to give an idea. My 1/8th inch is more like 1/8th inch from the compound supporting the action. Not sure if that's glass or not. I did sand this area down where it is discolored but not aggressively. I'm not that upset since I expected this to be a journey, and I'll get there eventually even if I have a new rifle by the end of it. Just thought I could get more out of the 798.
 

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Your 798 is a commercial 98 Mauser.A lot of really fine rifles have been made on Mauser actions.That is not your problem.

First impression on your pictures of the stock:
That gob of epoxy was done wrong.

That little ,irregular pad under the barrel shank helps nothing.I prefer to not have the barrel shank touch anything,I like the barrel fully free floated.

What you want to achieve ,in the long run,is having your receiver supported.Now,Glass bedding will conform to the steel OK,but there is one more important point.The reveiver must be relaxed...not under strain.From what I see,that gob of epoxy is about as useful as a pebble in your shoe.Its a shim,a high spot.

When you tighten the guard screws,you are distorting the action.

The web of wood behind the recoil lug looks unusually thin.Ordinarily ,a glass bed job would reinforce the wood behind the recoil lug and give 100 % bearing under the receiver ring,behind the recoil lug,and under the flat floor of the receiver.I also prefer a glass pad under the tang at the rear guard screw.You want clearance behind the rear tang.That wood is unsupported,and will not take recoil.

One more thing I learned from an old Gun Digest article on stocks for heavy recoil rifles: the front face of the mag box should support the wood behind the recoil lug.From there,the recoil should be transmitted to the wood behind the lower tang..I'm afraid you are well set up to split the web of wood behind your recoil lug.

I understand a DYI spirit and a desire to gain experience.Getting it right must be based upon a thourough understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

Even then,learning about all the things that can go wrong with your first glass job as the resin is kicking over and beginning to gel can be a disaster.

It may be best to let your gunsmith do a good glass job on a relatively virgin rifle rather than making a mess for him to clean up .

Unless something else were wrong,like a bad barrel,I have a pretty high level of confidence your rifle,properly glass bedded and free floated,with good ammo,will do 6 inches at 300 yards or better.Thats not too wild of a claim.

4 inches at 300 yds would not surprise me.I think that may be the zone of reasonable expectation.It may do better,sometimes you get lucky.

Square the receiver face,a premium barrel,tune the ammo some,and you might get 2 in to 3 in at 300 yds.Maybe better,but not much better.

Wild speculation,I know,but probably not too far wrong.
 
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Thanks for the info.

I'm not going to take the epoxy off (so that's what that is? I hoped for something more specific for bedding ) just yet since the rifle came with it. It seems to be the cornerstone supporting the barrel from the shank, what I was previously considering part of the action. It seems this would put a lot of stress on the bolts and wood.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am going to have a gunsmith look at it. I agree, while bedding doesn't sound difficult, I have ruined enough practice circuit boards attempting to solder fets in the past, and seeing I don't have a practice stock, I have no desire to mess my rifle up when it comes to the bedding.

I will give the local gunsmith a call this week, and get a second opinion from another that specializes in precision rifles. Thanks for the replies, and all the great info. I'm learning a lot as I go.
 
Good idea, he'll grind that crap out, pillarbed the action and bed it properly.
The best thing you can do is to hand it to him and tell him to make it a shooter, ..wished you lived closer..I lime a challenge but I love mauser actions man
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Mauser 98s are a special case. Because they don't have a lot of engagement between the barrel and the receiver, a bit of support for the first inch or so of the barrel is a good thing. The rest of the barrel should be free floating.

However the rest of the action isn't supported. It needs epoxy bedding on the BACK of the recoil lug (not below, in front or on the sides) and on the rest of the action and tang.
 
Thanks again for the tips and info. I have a suspicion that my sudden loss of precision was attributed to something else, just not sure what. Possibly poor parallax adjustments, or bouncing benches picking up other's recoil.

Took the rifle to a couple gunsmiths to get some opinions and both said the sanding looked fine, however one believes being a light sporter barrel, it may benefit from a pressure point. Both doubt bedding the stock will help much since it already has some stock pillars and I should focus on more important things like ammo, trigger pull, and shooting.

One smith adjusted my trigger creep for me which I had already adjusted once, to the max I believe, but he was able to reduce the weight too. The Remington epoxy made it somewhat of a pain, and he told me if I wanted to continue to go home and scrape the epoxy off or leave it with him for a week, but he was kind enough to tell me how to do it.

I took it home and found a sweet spot around 2.5 pounds, but noticed I could no longer engage the safety. I then adjusted the sear until the safety would engage, however the creep was back. I took out as much creep as possible with the original screw as I had it before, but there's still more than my liking. Seems the only way I could minimize the remaining creep was to engage safety then adjust the sear engagement till it quit twisting, then take safety off which reduced the creep a little more while allowing me to engage the safety.

This leaves me to ask... Is this safe? I really like the trigger pull with this set up, and I did bang the rifle around and slam the butt stock down and it held fine, but it's sensitive and given that the safety can "barely" engage (it does still fully snap in and out of place), I'd like to know what you guys think. I did apply loctite on the bolts for extra measure.

I await the most logical answer to take it back to the smith, or give him a call, but sometimes it's easier to explain in text, than to keep running across town. I know they are also very busy with work, and I really don't feel like waiting a week for a simple trigger job.
 
I do not know what trigger Rem put in the 798 ,but I will suggest you explore the history of the Remington 700 trigger,and a certain amount of scandal,litigation,accidental discharges,a few deaths....something about going off when taken off safe after being "adjusted"

There is a difference between gunsmithing and tampering.No offense intended,but you don't know what you are doing.Give the gunsmith his week,and let him adjust your trigger using a step by step procedure,then leave it alone.

A "best guess" on trigger adjustment can get someone killed.
 
I did quite a lot of research on various bolt action triggers, as well as this one. To my understanding what I have done is correct. The weight isn't at a dangerous threshold, the sear engagement can be used to reduce creep and the safety is locking in place. I agree with the smith that my trigger was not optimal since there was still quite a lot of creep. As far as I know he must have tinkered with the sear engagement screw since the safety would not engage, and I hadn't touched it. I'll bug him for some more free advice since it was his doing, and if he wants to see it... I guess I will drop it off. I expected a week or more for a bedding job, but not a trigger job. I understand I would never get a recommendation on here to tamper with the trigger, I just didn't know if anyone has tampered with theirs or not. Thanks.

I certainly don't want to know just enough to get myself or another in trouble.

Just to contribute to the subject here are a couple links and docs I came across.

another similar thread

http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/FIREARMS/interarms_mkx.pdf, INTERARMS X MANUAL
I did not host this file, only found it while researching.

-- updated --
I see now, that it's not the safety "barely" engaging, but rather the sear minimizing its contact, without the safety screw jamming its own lever. I take it if I were to remove the epoxy off the safety screw and back it out, this would allow the safety lever to snap into place with the setting the smith had the sear at, but if not careful, permit the trigger to drop the sear if it were taken too far out. I don't wish to mess with the safety, so I will just leave it as it is since the creep isn't that bad. The trigger assembly is pretty simple once you understand all of the parts.
 
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but I will suggest you explore the history of the Remington 700 trigger,and a certain amount of scandal,litigation,accidental discharges,a few deaths....something about going off when taken off safe after being "adjusted"
Click to expand...

Your concern about the Remington 700 is well founded, but this is an entirely different rifle with an entirely different trigger. It's a Mauser 98 clone made by Zastava which was at one time marketed by Remington.
 
She's consistently holding sub-moa at 100 with factory 150 grain Winchester. It was a parallax issue last time. Unnerving my cheek weld was so poor, but it was an off day to begin with, with a lot of distractions while shooting. Next step is to reload and head back out to the thousand.

To cut back on ramblings and questions, the parallax issue was due to me misusing the focus and rushing it.
 
Been building Mausers for a lotta years. Get the receiver correctly bedded into the stock, don't worry about "pillar" bedding because of the front and rear steel tubes for the action screws. The gob of bedding material in your stock doesn't do a thing. In my experience the bipod doesn't help much, either. Shoot off of sandbags.
 
Wish I could have kept the thread more concise, but so far it's looking good.
Current modifications:
1. floated barrel
2. adjusted trigger
3. changed grain

If I can meet my goal without bedding then great. The gunsmiths agreed the epoxy isn't ideal and only raising the barrel, but it seems to be a shared opinion that this should be one of the last modifications made based off of their first impressions.

I have put apx. 2,000 rounds through the rifle with 2 different scopes and have never been able to shoot sub-moa with it. Yet another thing I did differently, was utilize a raised board which I could wedge my bipod into and lean into the rifle. I really wish I could find angled spikes or fixed spurs to put on the ends for when I don't have such an ideal surface. I will also test sitting position to ensure the stock is not distributing various pressures, affecting accuracy.

If further accuracy is desired, priorities will be:
1. experiment with loads
2. bed rifle
3. new barrel

I will not further convolute the thread with loads, but if I can determine which variables seem to affect accuracy the most, I will be happy to share.

I know the bedding will probably irritate gunsmiths since it's crude, but it's not a priority right now. I do hope to get it properly bedded eventually even if my goal is met.
 
Haven't given up on this.
Just having one rough time gathering reloading supplies.
When is this ammo shortage going to go away? Good grief.
Gunpowder was by far the hardest to get a hold of since I refused to have it mailed
and now I'm just waiting on my bullets to come in from ableammo.com but wondering
if they didn't actually have them in stock when I placed the order since it's taking some time.

I did come close with factory ammo to meeting my goal last trip. Hopefully reloading
will reap better results. I certainly hope so since it's so difficult.
 
2000 rounds is near the end of accurate barrel life for .270's.

If a factory barrel's groove diameter is larger than that of the bullets shot in it, rarely do they shoot under 1 MOA at 100 yards all the time.

Get brave and let someone else shoot it. If they shoot under 1 MOA at 100 yards, you'll know where the issue is.
 
I'm probably only a little over 1,000 rounds since I took a long hiatus.
Looking back at my range logs definitely under 2, but might be approaching soon, so a new barrel isn't off my future wishlist.

I'm currently shooting submoa at 100, but can't get a good moa reading at 1,000 since I can't hit my target every time. I think I'm getting close to my goal of 2 moa at 1,000 though. Just waiting to test different loads, then will look at bedding and barrel if I can't get there.
 
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Sierra Bullets' .270 Win test barrels shooting 27 caliber bullets for quality control lasted about 2300 rounds. It's quite overbore so its barrel life will be less than that of a .30-06.

You'll need about 1/2 MOA accuracy at 100 to get 2 MOA at 1000 yards. While Mauser 98 actioned rifles with match barrels can be made to shoot 1/2 MOA at 1000 yards when clamped in accuracy cradles, hand-held is a different story. Using a titanium speed-locked firing pin and a custom trigger helps. I doubt few, if any factory 798 barrels are capable of 2 MOA at 1000.
 
It's quite overbore so its barrel life will be less than that of a .30-06.
Click to expand...

you mean the 270 design has a barrel slightly overbore to the bullet meaning there's more space causing a shorter life?

I'll look into that firing pin option too.

almost a year and no goal met but the accuracy is certainly better. I've been in slow motion due to personal stuff, new bills, new jobs, sorting new cards etc. Far as the range goes, a couple more loads to test then I'll have to start saving up.

Reloading has revealed there are charges that group pretty poorly compared to factory, and then there's some that are a tiny bit better. I'm only at 3/4 submoa but plan to try some spitzer boat tails soon which I assume will only help the moa at longer ranges.
 
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