Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Accuracy help

Been doing some load development with my .25-06 Vanguard,noticed something interesting..The rifle does quite well for the first 3 three shot groups..then it really drops off..any clues?? None of my others do this...

barrel getting pretty warm? touching anywhere?

Barrel is cool..let it cool between groups.Still has the factory "humps" at the forend.Under an inch gun when all is good..well over when they go sour

Free float the tube.

mmmmmm floooaaat...



yeah that would deffinately be the first thing I did.

If you want consistency off the bench after the first few groups, ya gotta float, a contact point dissipates the heat in that area & the physical changes due to thermal expansion will be un uniform.

and stuff.

Before you go changing the pressure points put some spacers under the front of the receiver until the barrel free floats. Then shoot it. If the problem is resolved then proper free floating is the way to go.
If the spacers don't eliminate the problem then all you have to do to get back to original condition is to remove them.
Just a thought before you mess around too much.

+2

yeah then there on dat, like Jim said, just shim it up in the forward part of the action till she floats up front.

That's a good point Jim.

A shim under the recoil lug may tell you something, but remember that leaving the tang area as is will induce a small amount of stress on ones action. I'd suggest equal lift shims under the lug and tang until the barrel is floated for a more valid test. 1Minute

Yeah I've done it a few times in the past and in most cases found the wood removal would be justified.
There have been one or two occasions, however, when the shimming suggested that free floating would not help. At that point I went ahead and looked at other options.
Jim

Are you cleaning the barrel between groups? In the middle of the session? When you go home?

Just trying to eliminate variables. It's hard to thing that fouling would be a problem after only 3 shots but it might have something to do with it depending on how often you clean.

Shimming to see if you need to float the barrel is good advice, I would also make sure that I cleaned the barrel on regular occasion, e.g., every five shots, to make sure that everything is consistent.

Im cleaning when I go home after a range trip..I shot 5 3shot groups...known good load,first 3 were acceptable..then it goes downhill. 53.0 IMR 4831 Hornady 100gr sp.Fed F215GM primer.

If all is done is to hunt with it, it would be OK as the first 3 are real good...

Does not seem to be a bad fouler....gonna try some shims under the lug this weekend...

Every barrel has rules known only to itself, yours might be telling you it likes to be squeeky clean. Do the groups upon up in size or does the point of impact change?

If its group size I would look at keeping it clean, if the POI is wandering I would follow the suggestions of floating.

Just my .02$. Let it get dirty and see what it does... Run like 40 rounds without cleaning. I've had more than one factory barrel that shot better (or at least more consistant) groups after 40-50 rounds. My WBY SUB-MOA (a bull barreled 308 in a B&C stock) groups real nice for the first 20 rounds (well under half MOA for 5 shots) then opens up to 3/4 MOA until its over round 50, then shoots just a little bit better than 1/2 MOA until round 100 or so. After 100 rounds, to go-rounds with Wipe-Out bore foam and its squeeky clean again. So my WBY isn't a fouler either. If I wasn't such a clean freak, I'd let it go over 100 rounds without a scrubbing, but it just bothers me

My gunsmith would pillar and glass bed,float it,plus I would recrown it and do a trigger job.He builds very accurate rifles and he tells me any rifle that has a muzzle velocity of above 3000fps. should be cleaned every 20-25 rounds after proper barrel break in.I would never run any more than that thru any of the 12 rifles I own before cleaning the barrel.He says the more copper fouling you have the harder it is to get it out.He and Karl at Kampfeld Custom have built all my rifles and all of them shoot 1/4 to 3/8ths inch groups if I do my part.
I only own 1 that is not a custom rifle,I bought a Remington Sendero 2,2 years ago in a 264Win Mag,he pillar,glass bedded it,recrown and trigger job with hand loads it shoots 3/8ths in groups all day.I do what my gunsmith recommends,I don't listen to anyone else,period.I clean them after every deer season and I might not even have 8 rounds thru them after making sure sighted in and shooting 5 deer.I never put a gun in my safe with a dirty barrel period.

I can tell you never shot a highpower match either If you have time to clean a rifle barrel in 88 rounds over the course, you're not BSing with enough people. And cleaning one right before you do your 600 yard prone work is straight up bad mojo. You'll use up your two most important sighters fouling the barrel and the first three or four you shoot for record will have you wondering what the heck just happened. When I quit shooting highpower, I turned my service rifle into a varmint rig. I just unscrewed the 1:7 twist Kreiger that was on it, and screwed that onto a flat-top with a free float tube. I figured it already had a season on it and was past its prime for competition and I already got my moneys worth. I ran 400 rounds of 69 Sierra MK's through it in a weekend of gopher shooting and I was splattin' gophers and p-dogs with it just as well at the bottom of the ammo can as I was at the top. I put it on paper when I got home before I cleaned it, it was still grouping in the .600's for 5 rounds (thats an average of 5, 5 shot groups.) It was in the .4's on a clean barrel. That barrel lived another 1200 rounds before it was retired.

I would agree though that you're going to lay down more fouling in calibers that run 3000 FPS and up. But with todays solvents, foams, and Foul-Outs I don't get too scared about laying down more fouling. It's going to take the same amount of elbow grease in the end. In all the barrels I've cooked, I'm of the opinion that getting them hot does more harm than letting them foul. My gunsmith is fond of saying "They make barrels every day."

Three shots under an inch out of a clean cold barrel is nice...

if your hunting with this you may end up going backwards by changing anything...

i agree with dan and others though.. put 50 rounds through it and go looking then..

woofer