If at first you don't succeed

Try, try again.

Picked up a 1991 Browning A-bolt several months back in 30-06 just because it was what should be a good gun, and at a real fair price for what it was. Has a Bell & Carlson stock on it.


Could tell it had some stress in the action but tried it...didn't shoot horrible at about 1.250"-1.4" but strung shots at an angle left to right and down to up.

Bedded it and soon as I got it all back together and backed off the front action screw I knew I didn't do something right.......could still feel it relaxing when I loosened the screw.

Tried to pretend I didn't feel what I felt and that the bedding would take care of it. Nope. Still strung shots.....maybe a tad worse.

LOT of work to redo one, but if it isn't right, it isn't right.

Second job turned out good and didn't feel any relaxing or flexing when tightening or loosening the action screw up front.





Didn't have a scope for it so I threw on a Leupold 12X a guy gave me in exchange for a good bit of work I did on a couple of his rifles.




Not there yet but better results with the same load I shot out of it before. Shot right at an inch. 1.045 to be exact. Should be able to pull in that flier messing with seating depth.

You do appear to be on the right path. Good work. The ol' gun will soon come around with that sort of attention.

I think so Dr Mike. Starting out at an inch with a generic load isn't too bad. I've no idea what the gun likes because it strung shots before.

The A-bolts are a little difficult to bed right, (or was for me) which is what I think got me in trouble the first time. Unless I'm being a dummy, I see no reasonable way to bed the rear tang area.

Also there's a metal shim sits under the tang and it has a crease and bend in it. So the tang doesn't sit in the stock the way it will end up sitting in the stock when the trigger guard screw is tightened down.

Little bit of a mind game with me to figure out how to make it end up being a stress free bedding job. But maybe I'm a slow thinker.

ST,
Nice work. I would think that you should get that rifle shooting we'll under MOA by tweaking the load. I wonder how those 180 gr RN bullets would shoot?

JD338

Hodgdon's Data Center shows charges from 54.5 - 59 grains of IMR 4350, with the 165 gr Sierra.

Been a while since I used IMR 4350, but my 30-06 & 165's got better and better with higher charges of H4350. I stopped at the book max, but by then it was doing great with velocity, accuracy, and had nice low SD figures as well.

It's possible that upping the powder charge will tighten things up as well. I like where your project is right now. Looks like a winner already!

Guy

JD, I most definitely will try them. 56-56.5 gr of IMR 4350 with 180gr cup & core bullets has got me in the ball park in every 06 I tried that combo in. Sometimes darn near a home run right from the get go depending on how it likes the seating depth chosen.

Guy, I usually try higher charges with this bullet/powder combo if it's not quite there, so I likely will with this rifle as well. 57 gr with IMR 4350 and a 165 gr bullet is an old standby that I've had good success with in the past, but in some rifles around 58-58.5 does better. I'll see.