A-Bolt tips?

[wisconsinteacher]

The past few weeks I have been working with my 7mmRM Browning A-Bolt and it is not shooting the best. I am wondering if you know of any tricks that these rifles tend to like. It is free floated and the action screws are set to 30 in/lbs. The crown passes the q-tip test and is smooth. Anything different I should try with this rifle like adding pressure to the stock or anything else that A-Bolts might like?

 

[Oldtrader3]

My A-Bolts (3 of them) seemed to shoot best with some pressure on the forend tip of the stock? I bedded in a small (.030 thick) stripe of bedding material about 1/8th inch wide at the forend tip and they all shot well. A-Bolts have been accurate in my experience? I had a .280 Rem and .300 WSM which my family still have and a .243 which I sold.

 

[STW]

My buddy installed a Jard trigger and claims it much better than the factory one.

 

[ksubuck]

What kind of stock do you have on it?

I found with my rifle, the synthetic stock was a little flexible. It was causing me to chase my tail. At first I fully bedded the action and barrel. That seemed okay for cold barrel shots, but would walk the POI around with a warm barrel. Then I aggressively floated the barrel from about 2 inches ahead of the lug. I can pass a stack of business cards between the barrel and stock now. Seemed to fix a lot of problems.

With another Abolt, I picked up a laminated stock from Stockys to replace the synthetic stock. Free floated the barrel on this gun too.

 

[Darkhorse]

I've got an Abolt Stainless Stalker in .300 Win. Mag W/BOSS. It took me several hundred rounds over the course of 2 years to finally nail down a 165 gr. load for deer and a 180 for elk. When I called it good both loads shot into 1/2 inch or less.
I did no stock work but will admit the forend is really flexible.
I kept all my targets (lost them with a move) and at almost exactly 100 rounds the rifle started shooting much tighter groups.
With my best load I could shoot 3 shots into .250 or less, but the 4th shot was just outside the group left. And the 5th was much farther left as the barrel heated up. So my rule when shooting the fast magnums is to shoot 3 shot groups and let the barrel completely cool before shooting another group. I don't consider the barrel steel in these rifles to be the best in the world. I checked the barrel to stock and the barrel was still free floating so I believe all this movement was in the barrel itself.
The Abolt clip really restricted my seating depth. I mean to get rounds in the clip the bullets were seated about .100 from the rifling. With the BOSS I was able to tune the barrel to achieve accuracy after much shooting. Without the BOSS I would think you need to start working with seating your bullets deeper in incremental amounts and recording your results.
FWIW my loads were with IMR 4350, Hornady Softpoints in 165 and 180, and WW cases.
Putting in the extra effort to assure your reload is concentric can pay big dividends.