Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 1899 accuracy

i have been playing with front sights on my 303 for the past 3 weeks trying to get my poi down at 100 yards. started at 8" high at 40 yards. ended up with a williams sight .538" high which allowed me to raise the rear a couple of notches. anyhow, now im pretty close. how small of a group is realistic?
here is todays test. i also took my 99 250 for a little fun.
my first 4 shots with the 250 are next to the quarter, while the 2nd 4 are at the bullseye with 1 flyer directly above
all the rest are the 303. you can see how scattered they are. i was trying some reloads that i bought, but after 2 split necks i stopped. this is at 96 yards.
what do you guys think?

Get rid of the 303.

Get rid of the 250 also...I'll take it off your hands. LOL

303's will shoot way better than that! Try some different ammo, but if it is no better take Jed's advice!

That's what , about an 8" group @ 96yds ? so @ 50yds it oughta go 4-5". Looks like you got a 50yd deer rifle or a rifle to shoot treed bears with

Mike

sweaty, are you using a scope on the .250? I can some how manage groups like that with my .250's with peep sights on a good day. I can do the same with my .303's with a little luck. With practice, you should be able to shoot groups with the .303 of around 2 inches from a rest with open sights.

Try different loads in the .303. I generally don't trust anybody else's reloads.

If that doesn't work, it might be the rifle. How worn is it? Often old 99's (and other old rifles ) will still shoot quite well with worn/pitted bores, but not with worn muzzle crowns.

And if it's century old rifle that has seen use, you can bet there's probably a little muzzle wear from cleaning rod usage. Not all people are as carefull about that as we are!

If you haven't done it, might start with a REALLY good bore cleaning. Then, as JB said, get rid of the reloads and do up some of your own. And, last, what sights do you have on the rifle? If just open sights, how good of a sight picture are you getting? Might be worthwhile trying at 50 yards to make sure it's not you and the sights. Speaking from experience there, I hate open sights and suck at them.

Good luck!

I had a fellow on another forum come to me for advice re: poor grouping of his .22HP TD. 5-10" groups at 50 yds.! After going through the obvious Q&A's concerning the state of the gun, I had him slug the bore. He is reporting .265" and he sounds like he did it right. (Buckshot pushed through the bore and then mic'ed across the OS dia.) Only conclusion I can draw is that someone along the way had it wildcatted to someting like a 6.5mm High Power, and didn't re-stamp the barrel. Weird, but kind of neat. Not suggesting that is the case here by any means. I too would follow JB's advice concerning trying other ammunition.

Iron sights can give good accuracy if one is willing to persevere a bit. I use a diopter on my shooting glasses to sharpen the sight picture. (Ah, to be 20 again, or 30, or even 40!) Makes a big difference. Staying sharp with iron sights (ok, tang sights) is a challenge to me that I try to keep up with. Kind of like chasing after 30 year old women (I'm 56). Not too succesful, sometimes look foolish, but Lord what fun!! (And sometimes succesful, if one perseveres!)