Working on a Remington 700 ADL .223

T

TacticalJackal

Inactive
About a year ago I bought myself the cheapo Remington 700 ADL .223 with a 24" 1:12 barrel. Put a Redfield Revenge 3-9X42 optic and bipod on it. Also tuned the trigger down to about 2 3/4 lbs.

As of last weekend, with handloads, I am at .25 MOA from a prone position using the bipod and a rear shooting bag.

Now for my actual question: Can I expect to do any better? I know it's a cheap gun, but is there anything I can do, within reason, to start cloverleafing these rounds? Or is it not worth it for the money spent?
 
I don't understand what you want.

1/4" groups from prone? At what distance?
Do you really expect better than a possible quarter m.o.a.?
What are you using the rifle for? Vamints, targets?
You could spend a lot of bucks tying to get smaller groups but why?
By the way. There is a recall on recent manufactured M-700 by the factory due to malfunctioning safeties. Very dangerous condition.
 
What is your reloading process? Maybe you can improve it and that would help. How much are you willing to spend to get better groups? I would start with a good stock and bedding job, then a good trigger. After that I would look at blue printing the action and a new match grade barrel. To tell the truth though I've got a stock rifle that has shot some .25 MOA groups, I'm very happy with it and don't plan on changing a thing.
 
1/4" groups at 100 yards. It's not truly that I expect much better, I just want to make sure there wasn't something simple or obvious that I could have done to improve accuracy that I'm not thinking about. I don't have much experience with bolt guns, so I was curious if there was old Remington 700 trick I don't know about.
 
Sounds like you have done what the rifle will do besides any add on's you may want . ( butt stock pouch ) I'm wanting to get one of the cheap synthetic 700's in .223 and cot it down for a short compact bolt action carbine .
 
Ummm...from a basic factory rifle I'm not sure what more you would want, or expect. That's an awesome group size.
 
.25in group with a factory rifle??!!??!?

It must be defective :p, I recommend sending it back to the manufacturer immediately.;)

In all seriousness, that's amazingly good. Can you do better? Of course, always. Will you do better? Unlikely, and irrelevant. You have a special kind of factory rifle; it's what they call 'a good one'. With assembly line production, every part is made within a range of tolerances. So sometimes you get a product (we'll use cars as an example since I'm a mechanic) that were built on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon with parts that all happen to be on the loose side of the allowable tolerances (these are your lemons). Conversely, sometimes you get a product that was built on a Tuesday afternoon that just happens to be made with parts that are all on the tight side of the allowable tolerances (these are the ford escorts that inexplicably run for 400k miles, or the ADL's that shoot like yours.) It's just the consumer lottery they call assembly line production.

With a rifle shooting that well, why change anything?

As they say, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
 
Sorry for the back to back reply, but I just reread the OP, and I'm confused. How are you measuring group size? Because I measure from the outside edges of the farthest spread holes, as such my best group @100yds with my 308 stands at .4in (measured with calipers); 1 ragged hole. How could .22in diameter bullets make a .25in group and not be in 1 ragged hole.

This threw me:
is there anything I can do, within reason, to start cloverleafing these rounds?
Click to expand...

Wouldn't 223 'clover leafs' be more like .4 or .5in? I'm lost.

Edit-I did have a witness for that awesome group, then followed it up with a .6in group (3in one ragged hole, the other 2 touching the side of the 3shot hole), the next week my buddy with me went out and bought a 308 similar to mine, LOL.
 
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when you say "I am at .25 MOA" what do you mean? are these 3 shot groups? 5 shot? 10 shot? is this your one best group? your avarage? below average but repeatable?

.25 is darn good, but if you are going this every 1 in 20 groups, there is probably room for improvement in your loads and maybe the rifle. if you are pulling .25 all day long, your cost v. reward will probably not be worth the improvement.
 
Sierra I am retired from Ford and I believe your garage would more likely be a problem with your simplicity. I'm not being sarcastic at all. The amount of precision that goes into engines alone would bog YOUR mind.

nemesis ? I think you are right on target.
 
Sierra I believe you have the group size wrong. You measure center to center by taking the widest part of the group and subtracting the bull it diameter in this case .224". Perhaps someone can verify that? TacJac Remington 700 in my book is the standard for accuracy. If the loading... Is tuned to the gun I can believe you can get .25" groups. If you can repeat them I would like to know a few things about your case preparation.
 
Longshot: Measuring outside-to-outside then, subtracting the diameter of a bullet isn't precise because the diameter of the average bullet hole should be measured and used. That's still not as accurate as putting bullets in the most widely separated holes, measuring the outside diameters of the bullets and subtracting the diameter of one bullet.

Benchresters have much better gauges to measure groups, but I find that I can get excellent results by estimating hole centers and measuring between them.
 
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