Hi all. I'm new here. I've been a long time lurker but this is my first post. I'm from MN. Just started hunting deer last year and bought my first centerfire rifle about 6 months ago. It's a Winchester M70 Featherweight with a stainless barrel chambered in .308. I did a bedding job on it by following a guide by GunBlue490 on youtube because I was getting decent groups with several types of ammo, but not great (nothing sub MOA). The bedding job went well as far as I could tell. I work with epoxies professionally, so I felt confident that I could do the work in a competent manner, and the results look great.

My issue now, though, is that I'm experiencing strange groups at the range, where I'll put two shots very close together and the third will be 2-3 inches away. I have several groups where that "flyer" is in the same direction about the same distance, but sometimes it goes back and forth, 2 here and 2 there, but there is a definite disconnect between what I'm seeing in the scope and what I'm seeing on the target. I'm a lifelong shooter and I have pretty solid trigger control, and I've shot enough with this setup to confidently say there is a pattern here that exists independently of my human error. Now the other relevant bit of info is that I'm shooting primarily solid copper bullets. The ammo that I'm seeing these groups with is Barnes VOR-TX 150g TTSX. I've shot a lot of this, as well as the 130g ammo of the same variety.

My question is this: should I suspect my bedding job is the culprit, or is it more likely to be copper fouling that I need to use a copper solvent on? Until now I've only used standard mineral spirit based cleaners like no.9 (as per the advice of GunBlue490 again, who claims solvents are a bad idea and that the copper only smooths the bore and doesn't require solvent removal).

Thanks for your input. Let me know if I've left out any necessary info.


WW


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