Actually that was more of a tongue in cheek comment about how loonies - which definitely includes me - obsess over every little detail that isn't absolutely perfect with a rifle, like not being able to get the bullets up .010" from the lands.
That said, it isn't all that hot as modern rifles go, most loads running in the 1.25" to 1.5" range for four shots. An occasional group will go down into the .9's but those seem more random chance that a repeatable trend. I've only used three Hornady bullets in it so far from 100 to 129 grains and the longest one, the 129 Interlock, is 3.14" OAL or .04" longer than the magazine when touching the lands and there isn't much shank in the neck at that length. I have to seat it about .2" (200 thousandths) off the lands to have any sort of reasonable amount of shank inside the neck. The others, 123 and 100 grain A-Max's are even further off with the 100 A-M sitting several hundredths outside the case mouth to hit the lands, that's using my old Stoney Point gauge to measure.
What's a real kick in the pants is that I have a 1915 vintage M96 Swedish Mauser that also requires bullets to be seated way off the lands and with that long 29" barrel sight radius and a little adjustable iris doohicky on my eyeglasses that 102 year old rifle with iron sights can shoot groups that just about equal this MRC when it's wearing a trusted 12X load development scope.
That's why I was thinking of a) rebarreling to a different caliber or b) turning it into an iron sighted rifle with a peep sight where my eyes would be happy enough holding 1.5 to 2" at 100 yards.
Obviously it shoots well enough for a hunting rifle as is but my MRC .243 from a recent Whittaker's group buy allows a choice of seating depths right up to the lands and is much more accurate than the 6.5x55.
Oh well, first world problems to be sure...
