Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What was your worst rifle buy/build?

Ruger M77 Ultralight in 308.
The trigger was horrible so I had a trigger job done, the recoil was absolutely miserable and 2MOA.

Ruger 77 Target in 22 Hornet. Biggest POS I’ve ever seen. I never could get it to shoot decent and I tried hard.Buddy of mine bought a Regular M77 at the same time and wouldn’t take no for an answer and ended up sending it back to Ruger 6 times before they got it to shoot good.

Every Remington M7 I ever bought, thinking: this will be the one I’ll keep.....I still like to look at them when others have to shoot them.

Weatherby Vanguard LW carbine in 30-06...the old ones, back in the ‘90s.....20” skinny barrel and crap stock was where they saved weight. Thing was hell from the bench, on shoulder, face, eyes, and ears....it hurt with muffs......haven’t had much issue with other short ‘06s, but that was a bad combo and had a distinct fireball.


No custom horrors.....helped make them for people that could afford them, back when I couldn’t. Might do one for myself one day, but it’ll be KISS or for an heirloom.....not too eccentric.

Two Vanguards in the space of 3 years--both of them in 25-06. No matter what I did they would shoot 4 in groups. I now it's unfair but to this day I wont touch a Vanguard..........

Rem 700XCR in 300WM. Out of the box it would shoot 1 inch groups...at 25 yards. Trip back to the factory had it shooting better but still struggled to shoot MOA and took a lot of load tinkering to get there. Then got a letter saying not to use it due to trigger and Remington would be in touch. Almost 3 years later the trigger was done and I sent it down the road.

Ruger M77/44 times 2, 2 years apart. Tried everything in and out of the book to get them to shoot better than 2 and a half inches at 100 yds, consistiently. Either one would not. Down the road they went. I considered a 44 Mag barrel for a Contender, but after having the "experiences" with the Ruger carbines, I decided to get a .357 mag barrel from MGM for my Contender Carbine. It shot several of my hand loads sub MOA consistiently. RJ

I took a perfectly accurate Remington LTR and decided I could make it shoot better by having a Krieger barrel installed in .308 as well as having the HS precision stock milled using solid modeling to perfectly fit the action. The action was also trued as well as some other items. The results are a less than stellar rifle that shoots around 1 MOA.

Wanted a LH Rem 700 chambered in .243. Instead, bought a Ruger Ranch rifle chambered .223 in an effort to save $40 back when $40 would still buy something. The Ruger was "Minute of paper plate" at best. And "which paper plate?" changed every time I took it out. Burnt 2x the price difference trying to find ammo that it would shoot accurately. Never did. Finally tripped it.

Traded a Winchester 94/22 mag for a "cool" 10/22 with a heavy barrel on it. Three months later they quite making 94/22's and the price of them nearly doubled.

Was looking for a cheap coyote/truck gun and found a M700 223 on GB for $400 including scope. Was in CA at the time which meant unleaded so loaded up some Barnes and shot it. No holes on the target. Moved to 25 yards. No holes on the target. Moved closer. No holes on the target. Finally moved to 20ft and had perfect bullet silhouette holes in about a 6 inch pattern. It had a 1 in 14 twist and wouldn't stabilize any Barnes except 40gr Varmint Grenades. 2 barrels, a new stock and bedding, etc.and my cheap $1000 rifle shoots 1/2 MOA..

A beautiful Browning Citori that I nicknamed Tyson after 2 rounds of skeet. Even light loads hurt bad, I decided I liked my ugly of Winchester pump more and sent that pretty girl down the road.

I bought a used Rem 721 .264 win mag at a gun show once. It had a custom barrel (seller couldn't remember the make) but the rifling looked good, and it was in a B&C Ti stock, and looked well put together. I overlooked the fact that the barrel was only 22'' long with the muzzlebreak! I think I only put 8 rounds through the rifle, ear plugs and muffs together were not enough, the concussion was unreal!! It wears a new barrel now.

Kimber 84m 7mm-08 . Terrible inletting, Warped Stock and as a result horrible accuracy. I sent the rifle in and got back a new stock and bottom metal . They did turn it around quick

I have a long list of rifles that were almost as Bad

I had one in early 90s or so. Absolutely no problems. Killed WT with it. Fantastic woods rifle.

? ? ? ? Some do, Some don't.


Jerry

My only horror story was also a 303 B......(fill in the blank) !
In the mid 70s, my early Loony years, a nice looking sporterized stock and was accurate. Could ONLY shoot ammo 1 time.
XESS headspace !! I'd guess it probably had the bolt swapped by someone earlier.

In a diff vein, a R 77 O G, red pad 338 WM ---- HURT every time I shot it. Nothing wrong with the rifle EXCEPT lack of a real recoil pad.


Jerry

Worst purchase was one of these two:

1. A Noble pump action .22 that might have been a Model 33 or 33A. You know that you've got a real winner when the plastic buttplate is attached to the stock with brads instead of with screws.

2. An EAA IZH-94 in 12 over 6.5x55 Russian combination gun. I never could get the rifle barrel to shoot worth a damn and the guy who bought it from me claims to have tried dozens of different loads in it and he couldn't get it to shoot worth a damn either.

Worst build was a Ruger #1 in 257 ROY. I never could get it to shoot and moved on to other projects.

Win 94 Ranger 30-30. Trigger was about twice as heavy as the rifle and 5” groups scoped were about the best I ever found with factory or handloads. It went down the road

Salvage Model 16 lightweight Hunter.... Biggest POS I ever owned.. Shot 4 inch groups with its pet load!! Much worse with most others. Looked down the barrel with a borescope and it looked like the rifling was serrated. It flew better than the boolits it shot when I got mad and flung it one day! One good thing came out of that disaster though. A gun shop owner liked it and made me a great trade in on a T3 Lite Stainless. That's what I shoulda bought in the first place.

1916 Erfurt small ring Mauser modified by Mike Palazzo of Covington, WA. What a turd! I found corrosion creeping out from under the scope mounts and front iron sight almost immediately. His DuraCoat finish fell off in sheets, revealing hammer marks, the caliber marking appeared to have been applied by a child. The scope mounts were machined with a .080 error, which would have bent the scope tube. He brazed a crack in the rear receiver ring and never told me about it. It still won't feed cartridges from the magazine.

Scheisse verk!

I just looked at the list of the 160 some odd firearms I've owned through the years and decided on one that I bought almost a year ago. It was a Rossi 92 in 357 magnum and it shot all magnum loads too high even with the rear sight all the way down. It shot 38's to the point of aim buy it wouldn't feed those.