Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires I think I need sensitivity training...

As for a rifle being sensitive to the touch. I have a Remington 504 that I fought with for years regarding sensitivity. I would get mad put it away for anywhere from a month to over a year at a time. I tried a lot of different stuff. Even ended up adding a third action screw and a Lilja barrel that was used in a Precision Shooting article just so that I would have a barrel of known quality. I've never saw a rifle this sensitive. To me, it was useless for much of anything. It took very little to turn three shot groups in the .3's into 5 shots in the 1 1/2" or larger range.

One day while playing around with action screw torque I decided to really crank down hard on the middle screw. As it came from the factory this would have been the rear screw. I had always left it just snug because that is what I've always read regarding middle screws. Lo and behold, the sensitivity is almost gone out of it. Enough so that it is one of my favorite squirrel killers. Not my most accurate .22 but then again I haven't tried any of the true quality ammo in it since discovering it's secret. CCI SS will stay in the 1/2" area pretty easily and sometimes 5 will go a lot smaller. Like I said, all of the sensitivity isn't gone so a better shooter than I could probably make it sing a pretty tune. This same rifle also likes a pressure point out near the end of the barrel.

Regarding the Rem 504 sporters in general. I have a sneaky suspicion that a lot of there accuracy problems is/were/are related to a stock problem. What that problem is I don't have a clue but I have read about a few that no matter how they were bedded or what was done to them didn't become good shooters until the stock was changed. I mention that because you say the problem exist with other 455 thumbholes. The barrel I bought was a very good shooter in a 504 Varmint stock. That article is where I got the idea for the third action screw, the bedding and a couple other ideas. Food for thought.

As others said, don't jump to any fast hard conclusions until you have shot it in better conditions. Preferably several times just to be sure of consistency.