Johnny Dollar thanks for the advice on those bullets I think it will work out fine.
Think SamO may be onto something with the bipod to settle things down a bit.....anyway results were so....uuhhh.....bad
at 100 off the bags I figured there was nothing to be lost by just taking it to 300 yards. I had rough zero so knew I'd stay on paper.
I grabbed the front rest,flopped prone at 300 yards with my left hand supporting the rifle and no rear bags,and fired a 3 shot group with the 117 SST that went about 3" ... based on what it did the day before....over bags,this caught me off guard. (I sent a picture to 6.5x54).
I am used to seeing this sort of thing from my other rifles, but fearful it was a fluke, I grabbed 3 120 NPT's and did about the same thing with the group only slightly larger.
From there I played with the scope and dialed for windage and getting POI where I wanted it...through this shooting the rifle kept doing pretty much the same thing. I then went to 200 yards and it did fine with the 120 NPT.toward the end started string vertically and it occurred to me I was at around 30-40 rounds without cleaning,so i stopped there.
I have seen this before where a rifle just sucked off bags and 100 yard groups,but did much better once you got it in your hands, but it has been awhile since I experienced it,and it caught me off guard even as I watched it happen. To be sure I wasn't crazy, I asked 6.5 who is an experienced match shooter and he said "yes" it certainly does happen and especially with light hunting rifles.
I will pop some more caps later this week. Handloading will not be done till after hunting season. But for the time being it seems if I miss a buck with this rig out to 300 yards, I bet it's my fault. I expect things will get better with the hand loads and hope I don't have to spend a bunch of money like RickF said....
For those interested,feeding/extraction/ejection and function were completely flawless,not a bauble through several magazines full and I did not baby it. The trigger is great and I have no plans to mess with it. The rifle is slick and easy to shoot.
