About eight years ago, I bought my now-16-yr-old son what they used to call a Vanguard Youth Model .243 with a shortened LOP and a 20" bbl. It was fairly cheap, but shoots most ammo under a MOA. A couple of years ago, I bought him a full-sized low-end Vanguard for about $300 at Sir Walton's Mart so that my younger son could use the Youth model. It is not as accurate, but good enough for deer/black bear hunting. I have a friend who has an old S&W Howa 1500 in 7mm RM. It is built with a #3 contour bbl, like the Accuguard and shoots under 1/2 MOA with certain ammo. I'm hoping my new VG AG will shoot somewhat like that. My .340 Wby Accumark (which has the same barrel) is the most accurate rifle I ever have shot, and it does so with a variety of loads.
Maybe I will try to free-float or bed the full-sized .243 someday. But my older son wants to move up to a bigger caliber, and he has been shooting 1/2" groups out of my 7mm MkV Ultra Lightweight 7mm Wby. It's pretty finicky with ammo, but it shoots really tight groups with discontinued 160gr CorBon TSX loads (3,240 fps MV, per Labradar). When they were on sale and about to be discontinued, I bought 800 of them. So, my son should be good for a couple of decades or so. I probably wouldn’t have bought that rifle if I had noticed that it has a 1-10” twist on it. Except for those CB loads, it only shoots well with 140gr or lighter bullets, which is not my preference. I shot some 160gr Fed. TB-Tipped, super-hot rounds (about the same as the CB), and the bullets were yawing and making oval holes at 100 yds. If it had a faster twist, I likely would have kept that for myself, given my old 700 BDL .300 WM to my son, and not bought the 6.5-300.
I’m hoping that I can get some Wby 130gr Scenar 6.5-300 loads someday, and they work well in the new rifle. I’d like to use the 142gr ABLR, but I’m not optimistic, given some reviewer’s alleged bad experiences with them out of the VG AM.
