Assuming, of course, the rifle/scope platform is mechanically sound...
One of the first recommendations whenever a gun is behaving behaving wonky is to check the scope. It's easy to see there is a problem if your gun is printing 6+ inch groups. But if a gun shoots 2-3 inch groups, people seem to blame the load most often.
There was an interesting comparison by formidilosus (here or another forum, don't remember) where he shot his match gun with a test scope. Then he repeated the test with a known good scope and the groups were half the size of the original. The first groups weren't bad. Without a side by side comparison I think most people would have thought they needed to fiddle with loads. Opened my eyes a bit.
