I have been tinkering around with doing some of my own gunsmithing. And i bought a project gun late last year. It had some weird scale on the outside of the barrel from fire damage. The gun was not in the fire and i was told that the foam got on it and destroyed the finish on the barrel. It was a savage 116 pre accutrigger so i threw a number out of 200 dollars. The owner bit on it and i was the new owner of this project gun.
It is chambered in 25-06 remington. I took it home and cleaned the bore and was surprised to see tooling marks still in the lands of the rifle. So i tore it apart down to nothing. Cleaned all the scale and rust off reoiled and mounted a nikon prostaff on it. I figured if it shot decent i would use it for deer this past year. At our range up at the cabin(65 yds) it made tiny bug holes. Which was good enough for me. No deer this year but since this is. A project gun i wanted to do some stuff this spring.
I have been reading a bunch on pillar bedding and have been wanting to try it on a cheap plastic stocked rifle. Which is what this gun is. But i wanted to do a test if bedding a rifle and pillar bedding actually works or just adds unneeded cost to a gunsmith bill. So this gun was the perfect medium.
Today i had a chance to get to the range. There was lite wind but mirage was a factor though and might be some of the reasons i got the groups i got. I was facing south. I shot 5 shot groups letting the barrel cool. I never shot anymore then three times in a string. Here is the picture of the target.
The circles are .5" in diameter. Or at least i should say they should be. I didn't measure them but you can see the diameter of the bullets. The left target is a 5 shot group 100 gr core lokt factory loadings. Center target was a sighter because i had the gun out of the stock. Take note to how far the bullet changed poi. On the right is a 5 shot group 120 gr core lokt factory loadings. Which group is better to you?
Honestly the right is the better group in my opinion but. The low flyer could have been an inconsistency in Remington's loading. The left flyer could have been mirage but you never know. This is the reason i shoot a 5 shot group. I do not know which shots were the first three shots but i have confidence that this gun likes 120 gr bullets. On the right though the group isn't terrible. Again we have more then one shot touching and one low flyer with two landing to the left. The overall group diameter is close to moa. With one flyer. Same with the other group on the right. This could have been not having a high enough power scope. The mirage might have been worse. Or i could have even placed uneven pressure on the stock. Both groups are good enough for deer however.
Which brings me to the next thing. I get asked why i reload. Well this is the reason why. In this day and age with rifles claiming guaranteed moa three shot groups. Pretty much any gun will shoot moa anymore if the shooter is capable. These groups are not what i consider good enough for ground hog hunting and long range varminting. The group on the right is awesome if i only look at the three touching. But the 4th and 5th shot is what throws it for a loop. Same for the left group.
Now i know im getting long winded but the next step for me will be machining some pillars and then pillar bed the rifle. After that i am going to re shoot the 100 gr group because i still have a half a box of them. And see how improved our groups get. Then i will work on load development. The biggest issue is i ordered 100 gr matchkings. Which might work out for this gun because the stock loadings are buried in the neck. If i can move the bullet out to the throat a bit accuracy might improve.
Thoughts or discussion please lets hear it.
