Rifle not shooting straight.

purdeydog

Well-Known Member
I brought a second hand 22.250 remmy 700 varmint fluted last week. Tried zeroing it over the weekend and all is not well. Long story short it won't hold a zero. It throws bullets all over the place two to three inches apart. The only way to get it to shoot in the same place was to do a cold shot, even then it wasn't consistent and then don't shoot it till barrel cold again. Even at a zero of 25m we couldn't get a tight group and I'd expect hole in hole at 25m. I tried some other ammo, still no better.

Perhaps I've been foolish. I have now noticed after market stock and barrel are touching and I can't slide a bank note more than an inch along the barrel. The barrel has been screw cut and there is hardly any crown on the rifle. The barrel just ends really. I'm no gunsmith but guessing these two issues are a factor in the poor groupings.

For the record my other rifles shoot much straighter so hopefully it's not me.

Any suggestions, thanks.
 
sorry to hear of your troubles..

first thoughts:
a. barrel condition - is it shot out, is it pitted, etc. what does it look like when you look through it into a lamp?
b. crown, get it re-done, but if you are good with tools, you can file it down yourself and then crown with a screw head in an electric drill - various tutorials available on youtube. if you screw it up, you can always get re-done professionally. you can have an inch taken off, recrowned and rethreaded, even if the barrel throat is badly worn, taking an inch of might give it a new lease of life.
c. barrel/stock issue. is it designed to be fully floating or is it designed to have a support structure in the barrel channel? if the stock has warped a touch, you can just sand it down and re-create the floating. this could also have been caused by overtightning of the action screws, particularly the front one. having re-read your post, if it's an aftermarket stock, I'm guessing synthetic, this should definitely be a fully floated barrel then, as it might be difficult sanding out a synthetic stock barrel channel, you may need to have it properly bedded to sit right in the stock.

do you mind me asking the approx age, wear and what you paid for it?

let us know more details please mate
 
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do you know number of rounds its fired ? bit of a barrel burner that cal. look at scope mounts if all ok do yourself a favour and take it to neal mckillop he cant be to far from you im sure he will tell you whats wrong with it
 
"a second hand 22.250 remmy 700"

Unfortunately the market is full of shot out 22-250's.

If the crown is not perfectly concentric to the bore and polished it won't shoot either.

Remmy varmints are always fully floated (ok 9/10 are) so as rightly stated above this could also be an issue.

Best course of action is to take it to a gunsmith who has a borescope. He (or she) will be able to tell if the throat is damaged or erroded beyond usefulness.

You can then make a decision based on the internal facts of the matter. If you decide to rebarrel then not all is lost.

Dont be too hard on yourself, its easy to buy what looks like a cracking rifle only to find its not as it should be.......a life experience.:oops:

I might be interested in buying it as a donor rifle for a new project.

Regards

Remmy
 
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Thanks for the replies. It's a couple of years old and 'not fired many rounds' which doesn't help I know. I have checked the mounts and rings and all is well there. There's no pitting in the barrel. On my t3 and x bolt if you look at the crown you can see the rifling right to end if barrel. However on this you can't see the rifling at the end of the barrel, I don't know if that's normal or not. Trip to a gunsmith in order I'm feeling for second opinion. Cheers
 
sounds like you need to have the receiver positioned so it's floating properly, or if it's due to the aftermarket stock, open the barrel channel to re-create the floating margin. also sounds like it might be worth chopping an inch or two off and having a quality re-crowning job done.

both should be pretty straight forward and cheap to do and I imagine will get you shooting straight again.
 
I presume the action is fixed tight in the stock? A friend had a very similar situation - first shots with a secondhand rifle were all over the place and investigation revealed that it was (in his words) 'rattling in the stock'. He contacted the seller who admitted that he had dismantled it for the first time ever to give it a good pre-sale clean.
 
is the action/barrel position fixed properly in the stock or can you influence the barrel position by twisting the forestock?
bipod?

What stock is it?

I suffered an identical problem with an old rifle where the action screws had pulled the barrel closer to the stock than it was meant to be.
the combination of a lightweight stock, a non swivel bipod and poor clearance meant that from shot to shot the barrel was in a different position to the stock and touched, nearly touched and didnt touch.
 
Sorry to tell you but Remington produced some real lemons a few years back. My localish dealer got one in in .223 fro a customer who soon brought it back as it made patterns not groups and was useless fro any serious vermin shooting past about 20 feet.

So they checked it out and found even at fifty paces groups were over 6". So back tot eh shop check the usual with no improvement. Fitted a new scope and still no better to they retired tot eh lease with at least one box of every type of ammo they had in stock and it shot none any better so it was returned to EB. A replacement was eventually shipped which prooved no better. After the third one prooved almost as bad they sold him a Tikka or Sako at a reduced price to keep the customer happy.

After this they told EB to shove their Remingtons.

We can only hope it's a simple fix four you but bear what i said in mind that it may just be a lemon.
 
I had the same problem with a heavy barreled Rem 700 in .222. I had it bedded but still no improvement. The dealer checked the barrel, crown etc but could find nothing wrong with it. I tried 3 different scopes and numerous brands of ammunition but could not get it to group better than an inch and a half. It was returned to the dealer and I have now taken delivery of a new semi weight barrel for my R93. I am hoping to break it in, in two weeks.
 
I've used sako 55g and remmington 50g. The remmington is slightly better but still nowhere acceptable. Unfortunately I don't know the barrel twist. Again don't know the stock, can only think its a decent one otherwise why change it. I feel it's something to do with the bedding and the crown. The stock does seem steady, but to be honest its above my still set. I took it to a gunsmith and he said the crown is basically not there after whoever screw cut it. I should of noticed. It was previously shot with a mod on it, if that makes and difference. I will
Take it back to where I got it at weekend. Cheers
 
hi there ,i bought a sako which wouldn't group at all ,tried all the obvious stuff then like you say checked the free floating barrel ,it was touching the stock alot ,so much so it was shinny on the point of contact ,i put a washer between the stock and the gun and hey presto it shot like a dream and still dus ,it may be worth a try ,good luck.
 
Hi.

I had a Howa that did exactly the same.

Opened up the barrel channel and hey presto, it grouped fairly well.

Try that first, broom handle and glass paper costs nowt.:D
 
hi there ,i bought a sako which wouldn't group at all ,tried all the obvious stuff then like you say checked the free floating barrel ,it was touching the stock alot ,so much so it was shinny on the point of contact ,i put a washer between the stock and the gun and hey presto it shot like a dream and still dus ,it may be worth a try ,good luck.

May I suggest you get the bedding and barrel channel sorted out properly. As what you have done is a very poor bodge and in time it will return to bite you.

If you don't understand the principles of proper stess free bedding then I suggest you contact Redmist or Edi off the forums as both do stellar work in this area. There are others whoms names escape me right now.
 
May I suggest you get the bedding and barrel channel sorted out properly. As what you have done is a very poor bodge and in time it will return to bite you.

If you don't understand the principles of proper stess free bedding then I suggest you contact Redmist or Edi off the forums as both do stellar work in this area. There are others whoms names escape me right now.

to be fare to Arron, this is exactly what I did to my BSA (albeit my description is a bit more complex). It works perfectly well.

The contact point in the wood of the stock where the base of the recoil lug sat was so compressed with years of unscrewing and tightening of the action screw the position of the barrel on tightening was significantly lower in the barrel channel given the arc it was travelling.
By cutting a matched "spacer (of thin sheet metal) the same shape as the base of the recoil lug and using it to recover the lost height of the wood I returned the barrel position to normal without having to go down the route of filling the rifle with resin or drilling it out to fit pillars.
 
Ahhh the bottom of the recoil lug should have space under it and not contact the wood, It is NOT the load bedding area, This is what some twit did with the .243 Majestic I acquired did and went a bit further totally wrecking the bedding and barrel channel. The recoil lug should only contact at the rear to transmit and spread the recoil load in the appropriate area.

Sorry chaps but there it is. As i say Redmist and Edi can describe it much better than I can.
 
thanks for the good advise ,i didnt explain it clearly enough ,unlike bewsher,i should have been a bit better at explaining,i got a carpenter to take a good lump off the barrel recese but it was still touching ,so i lifted the lug via a washer ,but yes i would be a wise thing to get it looked at profesionaly ,thanks brihunter and bewsher for the input , regards arron.
 
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