Couple of years ago I bought a new rifle (Ruger Hawkeye). Put a Bushnell scope on it and started working up loads. Shot pretty well, but I wanted a higher power variable, so I bought one. Rifle accuracy started out good, but started to get worse. Thought it was the loads. Went through several powders and bullets and it just got worse. Cleaned it to within an inch of its life and it still shot poorly. Lord knows how many reloads I put through it until I was shuffling stuff on the workbench and found an old target (back when the Bushnell was on there). Great group, so I loaded up some more of that and it shot poorly. Hmmm. Swapped the scope out. It was the darn scope. Took me forever and a couple pounds of powder and bullets to figure that out. So yes, try swapping the scope out if you haven't already.
That's the problem with a new rifle. There's no basic load that you know works good. If I'd had that, I'd have known quickly that the scope was the problem and not the rifle.
