Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors shoots like a skatter gun

hello all,
i posted a little while ago about my "new 99" hitting high and running out of adj.with the scope.I shimmed the front base and lapped the rings and was able to bring it down where it needs to be,, but I'm getting 6+ in groups at 100 yrds.
the bore is like a mirror brite sharp rifling,no marks at all on the crown.i've tried 2 different 150 gr.bullets and one 165 all kinds of loads,its terrible.i messed with bullet depth every thing I could think of no help,needless to say she missed the NY opener,and now the PA opener is not looking good.Thanks for the help,ED

did you try taking the forarm off and trying 4 or 5 shots using the reciever as a rest if this works you need to shim the forearm with a small o ring around the mounting screw,,do not overtighten

So have you slugged the bore? A couple thou could mean a lot.

If the rifling and bore is good then shouldn't need to slug the bore on a 99EG in 300 Savage.

How is the bore? Is the rifling sharp? How's the crown of the muzzle?

When it was shooting high - before you lapped and shimmed - was it shooting into a group?

Did you try 180's? My main eg hates 150's but is deadly with 180's

I had one doing the same thing. I'm assuming you're shooting off the bench - I found out (and read here) 99's can be very picky about where you put the front rest. They don't like to be rested on the forearm, and usually shoot better with the rest under the action. Sometimes you can get them to shoot by putting your front hand on the forearm and then resting the back of your hand on the front rest. I also figured out they don't like cheek pressure on the buttstock. That got it from shooting a 6 inch pattern to 3 inch groups. I still thought it could do better, so I tried the o-ring trick; it didn't help. Then I tried many powders and bullets with no better, and sometimes worse, performance. This season I was getting ready to shoot, so I decided to take it along. When I got it out of the safe I noticed the forend rocked slightly from side to side. Just for grins I put about 4 layers of masking tape in the forend barrel channel about an inch back from the tip and right at the rear to get a snug fit with no rocking. First group went into 3/4 of and inch... I'm going to leave the tape in and glass the forend, then take the tape out and glass where it was.

My 300 savage like them ftx bullets with 39 gr of 4064