Couple of pictures of my very first load workup yesterday afternoon. Two bullets, four charge levels each from 46 to 49 grains of H4350. This rifle has a long throat so instead of chasing lands I just seated the bullets .284" deep, that left them approx. .230" off of the lands. Miles and miles away by looney standards. shocked

These are the third through sixth shots from this brand new rifle, the first two were getting on paper. Hornady 139 BTSP, 46.0 H4350, just over 2700 fps. One shot out at 11:00, then the other three are in the cluster measuring 9/16", i.e. just over a half inch.

[Linked Image]

The very best group of the day is at top here and measures 3/8" (I'm using a ruler, haven't dug out the calipers to get down to three decimal places yet.) Hornady 139 Spire Point, 47.0 H4350, just over 2750 fps. It did shoot some groups like the one below, that's another 139 SP with 49.0 H4350 avg. 2828 fps, but even that group is 1 1/8" which ain't horrible for a hunting rifle.

[Linked Image]

You can see the groups all trended toward 2 close together and then one shot out. The light barrel does heat up fairly quickly in this Idaho summer heat and it is not free floating, it is bearing on the bottom of the channel for sure and there may be some side pressure.

But enough excuses, this rifle does not need to apoligize for not shooting 1/4" groups all day long out of the box. It definitely wants to shoot, now to get down to seeing what it likes to shoot its very best.

Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery.
Hit the target, all else is twaddle!