Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles DIY bedding M77 (pic heavy)

I'm saying that a lucky five shot group is not statisically signicant, and does not an accurate rifle make. A ten shot group is a better indication of what your rifle will do than 2 five shot groups. It used to be that acceptable acccuracy for military rifles was 3" at 100 yards. But that was with iron sights. When I talked to Ruger about my M77, they told me that it was within accuracy standard, even though it was scoped. I felt they set the bar too low.

My point is that, given reasonable loads, a good rifle will shoot. I bought a Remington 700V used once, and it came with some ammo. I was alarmed at first, because it shot 3" groups. Then I shot some of my own loads. With almost no load development, it shot most loads under 0.5", with a few in the .3's, just using 50-52 grain bullets. It just didn't stabilize the other loads. That's an unusual case, though.

Anymore, if a rifle won't shoot under 2", there's something wrong with it. It may be a bedding problem, but I think it's usually a more fundamental issue of poor manufacture. Of course, gunmakers would have you believe accuracy is a mystery, that if you glass bed, free float it, and do extensive load work up, you might find the Holy Grail load that prints down near an inch. I don't buy it. Good barrels make good rifles, and proper machine work guarantees accuracy. Why else do you think Cooper is able to guarantee .5" groups? Given, they are talking 3 shot groups, but a lot of those groups are one ragged hole.