Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles When to change ammo

I have a Remington 700 in 300 win mag sitting in a hs precision stock,DNZ bases and a nikon monarch3 3-12 scope. This particular rifle is giving me fits! Im shooting factory ammo (no time to reload) Currently running 150gr Winchester Powerpoints which have been great for me in other guns. At 100 yards the other day i shot 3 rounds giving about 3-4mins between shots. Had 2 touching dead on and one that hit 2in high 3in left. So i took it home, checked stock torq and went back to the range today and shot it again but couldn’t get a good group at all. It did about a 2-2.5in group at 100yards. So I don’t know what I should do.
Should i try different ammo or should i have sombody bed the stock? Any other ideas? Im at a loss and if i dont figure out something i wont be using this rifle this deer season i dont have alot of time to mess with it, may make it to the range 2 more times before deer season. Any advice is appreciated

Couldn't hurt to try different ammo and/or a different scope.

The groups you're talking about will kill deer all day long out to about 200 yards, so you're OK unless you're looking at shooting farther than that.

As for this specific problem, I'd probably switch up your ammo, and I'd start with 180-grain bullets.


Okie John

I'd check the scope fasteners, make sure the mag box can move up down and isn't pinched, and make sure the stock is fully floated with no barrel contact. Clean the barrel well and fire one of the Powerpoints to re-foul it. Then I'd grab two other kinds of ammo and go to the range. Check your parallax at 100yds and make sure your scope is not giving you the issues at that range. See if your head movement results in the crosshairs wandering on target while the gun is stationary.

Clean it first, check that everything is torqued properly and switch the scope. None of those will cost you anything (assuming you have an extra scope) and you can do them in an hour or two.
If that doesn't improve your groups you can dig deeper.

try a different riflescope. would not be surprised it yours was trashed. rifles that give fits usually are scope problems.

i had the same thing happen last week when I was zeroing a friends 7mm rum. the rifle would put 2 very close to each other and 1 about 4 inches away. i torqued rings and bases but didn't help. told him to replace the scope which he did a couple days late. i shot it yesterday and now the rifle is printing great groups. he sent the first scope back to the manufacturer for a check-up and/or repair.

What kind of scope and mounts are you using? I used to have the Redfield- Leupold mounts with windage screws. I switched to the Talley split rings. My flyer issues have gone away. Talley’s are great!!

That's alright to not say it was a Leupold scope..

Hopefully you know whether you DNZ is loctited and torqued properly. Scope rings properly torqued? Check parallax? I also wouldn't own/shoot a rifle that is NOT glass bedded... How's the freefloat on your barrel?? Factory ammo is not going to be as consistent in your rifle as a good tuned handload, but you should still be able to shoot 1.5 moa with good factory ammo and good rifle...

If I didn't shoot unbedded rifles, I wouldn't be shooting much at all. Not that I'd suffer much - my heavy barrel 6.5-06AI is bedded, as a .30-06. They should do anything I need to do.

Maybe when I retire I'll bed the rest of them.

I would try different ammo before I went to balistic (no pun intended). 165 gr. is the lightest I would shoot in a 300 win mag. I would get a box each of boat tail ammo loaded ammo in 165 and 180 gr. I would wager you would find that your rifle likes one of them.

If all is cool try Rem. 150’s.. Killed a pile of deer with those when I was traveling and factory ammo was easier to use than handloads.

Well, if it were me- and I was certified as a gunsmith (for what that is worth, and practised it for 5 years) almost 40 years ago, I would first glass-bed the action and free float the barrel. If that didn't work, change to a known scope. Or vise-versa. But do both. Only then start blowing money on different ammos if needed. Different brands, different bullet weights. For the .300 Mag- the 165 , 180, or 200 gr will likely achieve best results. I personally favor the 180 in .30n cal.

As said, your present groups are perfectly aceptable out to 200 yards, but we all like tighter...

I have a .260 that doesn't like (so far used) anything but 140 gr., brand doesn't seem to matter - POI differs a bit, but all so far tested (factory) go MOA or better. No other bullet weight (so far) does. I can live with that.

I have a .243 that requires a bit of fore-end pressure, contrary to my firm belief that free-float is best. It shoots a couple different plain jane 100 gr factory loads well - does NOT like 95 gr. Barnes Vor-Tex at all!

Headed to Colorado in a few days. Will be taking a .270Win and .300H&H. Both shooting Nosler factory ammo into MOA or better groups.

Have been busy of late. Not enough time to do load develop as I would prefer. Have found Nosler Custom and Trophy Grade loadings to be accurate in several rifles chambered .270 (3x), .300H&H, and 7x57. Nosler factory ammo is not cheap. However, if you are still having accuracy issues after you go thru the clean/tight/torque processes mentioned above, might be worth a few extra dollars to try Nosler. JMO...

And once you find that Nosler factory ammo, buy a chit load when it’s on the shooters pro shop and go kill stuff for 10 years...

Shhh... Basically what I did... Bought a Dillon press off SPS. Since Dillon does not allow price discount, SPS sent a 40% off discount code for Nosler.com. Made the max purchase of a single lot of .270Win loaded with 130gr NAB's. ...

Well played, my friend.

First of all, I suggest you shoot 4 shot groups. Or multiple 3 shot groups. If the zero stays the same, that 2-2.5 inch ammo will work a lot better than you might think. Unless you plan to shoot from prone at ranges beyond 300 yds., it will work quite well. How do I know ? Because I've practice with 1-1.5 MOA ammo and 2.5 MOA plus ammo from field positions. Even from sitting with a good shooting sling, I can see very little difference in my 300 yd. groups. Yes, I've done some serious hinting with such ammo. And killed some nice animals with it, BTW.
Factory ammo, even the same load can vary a good bit. When you buy it, make sure it's the same lot. That way it will all shoot the same.
Yes, look for loose screws, etc. on everything. Even rifles I've had a long time can loosen up.
Try different makes of ammo. You don't have much time, so these things are the easiest. E

I tried a different lot# of same ammo and my groupings shrank dow to 1.5in. Scope is a proven scope, used last year on a different rifle and it held zero perfectly all season. Screws are all tight and barrel is definitely free floated, maybe too open. I did try one 180gr load today but it only did 2in groups. I really feel like it needs bedded but notime for that this season.