I had the same problem a few years ago. New rifle and new scope and poor groups. It was the scope, but I wasted a lot of reloads finding out. When everything is new, it’s hard to decide where the problem is. Personally, I’d try a known good scope and see if that fixes the problem.
As for Leupold VX3 4.5-14, I have two and have had no problems. One of them is pretty new and one has had a lot of gun time.
