Really happy with this rifle since I done the final step of bedding it after a 2 yr process off and on, of doing other little things to slowly improve accuracy.
It was a cheap rifle I picked up at a flea market so I haven't been afraid to experiment working on it trying different things, learned a lot actually of things that work, and things that don't, and things to look for.
It has a heavy barrel so along with bedding the lug and tang, I bedded it in kind of an unorthodox way by bedding the barrel a full 4.5" ahead of the recoil lug to help support the heavy barrel and take stress off the action. Free floated from there front. Figured if I didn't like it, I could easy enough take some of the barrel bedding out.
It has really made a previous load with 55gr V-max's come alive and be consistent. Several consecutive testings have resulted in 4 shot groups hanging down in the low 4's.
Shot it again the other day and it printed a 3 shot cold bore group of .286 on the right side of the dot. At that point I was done, load is working very well, no need to keep on testing. Went onto other things.
When I was done with some other shooting I decided to try something. The rifle before was fussy in the bags if you wanted a chance at shooting good groups. I put the same target back up and intentionally slid the front support bag well forwards under the forearm. Point of impact changed to the left side of the dot, but group size remained stellar. It's clicking with this setup.
It was a cheap rifle I picked up at a flea market so I haven't been afraid to experiment working on it trying different things, learned a lot actually of things that work, and things that don't, and things to look for.
It has a heavy barrel so along with bedding the lug and tang, I bedded it in kind of an unorthodox way by bedding the barrel a full 4.5" ahead of the recoil lug to help support the heavy barrel and take stress off the action. Free floated from there front. Figured if I didn't like it, I could easy enough take some of the barrel bedding out.
It has really made a previous load with 55gr V-max's come alive and be consistent. Several consecutive testings have resulted in 4 shot groups hanging down in the low 4's.
Shot it again the other day and it printed a 3 shot cold bore group of .286 on the right side of the dot. At that point I was done, load is working very well, no need to keep on testing. Went onto other things.
When I was done with some other shooting I decided to try something. The rifle before was fussy in the bags if you wanted a chance at shooting good groups. I put the same target back up and intentionally slid the front support bag well forwards under the forearm. Point of impact changed to the left side of the dot, but group size remained stellar. It's clicking with this setup.