Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Weatherby Vanguard Accuracy Repeatability

I have two Weatherby Vanguard S2 rifles. One, a .270, is standard and the other, a .300 Win Mag, is an RC. With my handloads, both of these started out as extremely accurate, with 3 shot groups at 100 yards varying between 1/4" and 5/8". I shot many groups like this with each. Then, I got greedy and replaced the factory triggers with Timney triggers. After that I got mediocre to poor accuracy with both of them. It never occurred to me that the triggers were causing this, but rather something about removing the rifles from their stocks and then replacing them.

The primary thing I thought about was the action screws. There are 3 variables here, whether and when the rifle is bumped on the floor before tightening the screws, the order of tightening, and the torque setting. In both cases I used the factory recommendation of 35 inch pounds. However, on the .270, I experimented at the range and got the best accuracy (but still not quite what it was before) with a torque setting of 10 inch pounds front and 20 rear.

So, how can I get these rifles shooting as well as they did before -- or can I?

It occurs to me that Weatherby may have some "process" that gets the best accuracy out of a rifle, and once disturbed there's no way to get that level of accuracy back.

Or, it could be even worse, perhaps even the factory can't get things back to best accuracy once the stock has been removed.

Have you gun writers experienced anything like this with Vanguards?

Please, no drive-bys from non gun-writers suggesting barrel cleaning or problems with scopes.

I put a Timney in mine also. I ended up getting more consistency from my 7mm08 after floating the barrel. My brother has one in 308 and his groups aren't as consistent and he hasn't floated his barrel.

I am not a gunwriter but I am a long time competition shooter and through the years have noticed a few things, so bear with me on this.

Are the Timneys set at quite a bit lighter pull weight than the factory triggers were?
The reason for asking is that when using a heavier trigger one will often hold the rifle differently and more importantly focus on trigger control, where with the lighter trigger they often do not focus as much on the hold and trigger release, so it may be more of doing things differently than the action screw torque.

I would install the factory trigger in one of them, tighten the action screws down to factory recommendations and try the rifles like that. If it does shoot better with the factory trigger then you need to rethink the pull weight setting on the Timney.
Another possibility may be that the Timney trigger is hitting against the stock - that is just a guess since I really have no idea how much the dimensions of the Timney trigger mirrors the factory one.

There is an old trouble-shooting technique that works quite well - "Go back to the last thing that was changed before the problem occurred".

I really doubt that the factory has some "secret" torque setting that only they know.

drover

The bedding on the Vanguard RC is quite sophisticated and I'm not changing it.

As far as the trigger pull is concerned, yes, I did go from 3 3/4 to 2 1/4 but I can't see that making my shooting technique change so much as to change groups from 1/2 inch to 2 1/2 inch.

Since I posted, I took my torque wrench to the range and was able to get groups down to 1 1/2 inch by lightening the torque to 10 front and 25 rear, similar to what I did on the other Vanguard. Still not satisfied with it, but at least I can hunt with it now.

One thing I didn't mention is on the .270, when I removed the stock to install the new trigger, the torque on the front screw was finger tight -- I'd estimate 5 inch pounds. So Weatherby employees aren't following there own guide lines.

Boy it would be great if there was something about the trigger that was causing this. I'll reinstall the factory trigger and test this out.

I'm curious about Vanguard bedding being "sophisticate"...

If it was mine, I'd glass the action free float the barrel.

DF

+1 . If there is a more easy to bed action in the entire rifle Kingdom I would like to see it.

I felt the factory bedding was piss poor!

Probably is. At that price point they can’t get too carried away, spend too much time on that.

Bedding is one thing I can do well, so don’t mind reworking factory bedding.

They NEVER shoot worse. Most always better..

DF

Have you, by any chance, cleaned the barrels with a good, copper solvent?

I've only followed the Howa break-in process on one rifle, but do run some copper cleaner through my rifles periodically to check for buildup. Might only be one part of your puzzle, but stuff adds up. Have you checked the mount screws and tried swapping out a scope with a known good one? A .300 in particular can be hard on scopes and mounts, one reason our resident expert uses one for testing.

Have experienced some quirks with the Vanguard synthetic stocks over the years, even after "bedding" the action and free-floating the barrel. This may be heresy, but haven't experienced the same thing with bedded/floated walnut stocks. In fact by far the most accurate Vanguard I've ever owned was a .257 Weatherby Sporter, with a traditional Weatherby-style stock. Put three shots into 1-1/2"--at 300 yards.

The trigger change may have something to do with it. Often Timneys do take up more room, and the trigger might be bumping the stock, as Drover suggested.

I have never been able to install a Timney without grinding the stock a little bit. I have as well seen a walnut stocked Vanguard in 257 and another in 300 wby shoot tiny little groups with factory ammo.

I consider the bedding system to be sophisticated because the barrel lug cavity is glass bedded, there are two slanted raised areas at the front of the stock (something similar to the Ruger American) and there is a pressure point placed a little bit back from that.

I re-installed the factory trigger this afternoon and, weather permitting, will be back at the range tomorrow.

What was wrong with the factory triggers? Unless you really hate two stage triggers I can't see where the timney would be an upgrade.

That's a fact! My Vanguard in 30-06 absolutely shot better free floated.

About a decade ago one of the Weatherby people told me they hadn't been able to find any difference in accuracy between free-floating the barrels, and pressure-pointing the barrels (AKA tip-hump or speed-bump). In my experience that has not been the case.

The most accurate straight out of the box rifle with factory ammo that I've yet to own is a V2 IN 6.5 Creedmoor. I believe that this rifle is from a special/limited run that Weatherby made up for Cabela's before they cataloged the V2 in 6.5 Creedmoor. I have since bedded that V2 into a McM Hunter and that made a good rifle even better, but it doubled the cost of the package, so the cost effectiveness could be called into question.

Storming all day today, so no testing.

I've only owned two Vanguard S2 rifles. Both shot 1/2" groups, and I'm not that great a shot. I'd say that was pretty good. Triggers would only lighten to 3 3/4 pounds. As I said, I wanted "more" and put the Timneys in set to 2 1/4 pounds.

If it was that accurate, why would you mess with it? If it ain't broke.......

Tinkers have to tinker, no matter how good the pre-tinkered item in question was.

Sounds terrible....

sent it to me for disposal and start over...

I'll somehow live with it...