Well, I'm not giving up on the 243 barrel yet. Based on my experience with my other 77s I don't think the bedding is causing it to shoot so wildly. I found some Hoppe's #9 Bench Rest Copper Solvent, a new Rod and some Brass Jags and the right sized patches I had squirreled away and I've been running wet patches down the bore and letting the bore sit for 30 minutes to a few hours doing other things between working patches down the bore. Been getting bright green patches out after giving the copper solvent time to work so I know there is plenty of copper in the barrel. I also ran some copper solvent down my 97 vintage Mark II in 223 and it's 1:12 barrel is not nearly as copper fouled as the 243 with much lighter green patches coming out of that gun. It's possible the previous owner was shooting some of those light loads near 4000fps down the bore and really fouled it up and I've just added to the problem not being agressive enough cleaning out the bore! My fingers are crossed that some patience cleaning it out in more than just a cursory manner to remove fouling will pay off with a gun that shoots well under 2 inches at 130 yards with anything load I feed it! I will also know that copper solvent will be a must for cleaning the gun after every 50 to 100 rounds from now on.
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