Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Remington 5R accuracy issues.

Recently traded for a bone stock 24" 5r in 308. I've tried 5 different kinds of match grade factory ammo that came with the rifle. Hornady, Remington and black hills168-175gr bullets. I've shot a 1/2lb of varget behind various sierra bullets from 165-180gr. Every powder charge and coal imaginable. Action screw tourqe from 45-65lbs. Swapped scope and mounts. Barrel is not touching a thing all the way down. Muzzle crown looks good to my untrained eye. The rifle will not shoot less than 1.25 groups at 100yds. What else could it be besides a bedding issue? I own several light weight model 7s that will greatly outshoot this thing.

Why not glass bed it?

Could be a copper mine. Tried cleaning the bore?

I have one, 300 Win mag, 3/4 groups on the first load I tried. 168 Barnes

Could be full of copper like posted above.

Son in law has a 308. He gets 1/2 with his. He would probably get that with mine too, ain’t as good as I once was.

I have a couple of 5Rs in the heavy barrel mil-spec version; one's a .308 and the other a .300 Winchester. Both shoot accurately, but .308 loads must be seated to full magazine length, about 2.84" with some bullets for best accuracy. Looks like it has a freebore-type throat. I've had good results with Varget in .308s, but have generally found that H4895 often makes slightly more accurate loads even if you have to give up a little velocity.

Although I like Varget in the 308, I'd try other powders. I've found that it pays to try different components in looking for an accurate load in any rifle.

I shot a similar rifle with a 20" barrel. Twist rate was on the barrel at 11.25. Throat was quite long, which I didn't like. However, it shot well with Federal Match ammo, 168 grain Sierras. The best load I found was 44 grains of Varget under the same bullet. The owner wanted to shoot 125 grain Ballistic Tips for less recoil, but they were too short for consistent accuracy. Sometimes a rifle needs a barrel bump in the stock's barrel channel to shoot accurately. I have one rifle like that now. I used two layers of silicone tape near the end of the barrel channel and it worked.

Varget is the popular choice, but for whatever reason I've done the best with H4895 and lately, RL15, about 41-42gr of that under 165-168gr bullets. F210M primers when I can get them, or CCI BR2.

I'd JB the bore and make sure the barrel and stock can't be squeezed together with firm pressure. Mag box clearance. Check that base screws aren't bottomed out.

Still, if those groups are 5-shot, 1 1/4" ain't awful, just not wonderful, or even 3-shot for most uses. Maybe that's why it was traded.

Bingo

That would be my guess if it doesn’t have a barrel full of copper.

Make sure the magazine box is not binding and glass bed behind the lug. Try Federal Gold Medal Match , if you cannot get sub 1" with that get rid of it.

Some rifles can be down right picky and finding the right load can be a challenge.What is the charge weight of your loads?Brass can make a big difference too due to different case capacities and also hardness.I like to start with once fired brass when doing load work up.I find I get more run out after brass gets harder and that also can affect your accuracy.Some rifles also hate a particular bullet.Seating depth another factor,bedding and the list can go on and on.Some barrels are not going to shoot well no matter what you do.I've fire lapped a few and helped some.Welcome to the world of every rifle is different.Some are easy and some are not.Powders I've had really good luck with are TAC,Varget and Accurate 4064.I use Winchester brass,WLR or WLRM primers.I started using the magnum primers and really didn't see much difference between those two primers.Here are a few of my loads that work well in my rifle.

I totally agree with the comment re: FGMM, if it does not shoot great groups with that loading rebarrel or sell it.

Yep, just look how many of our members happily "send down the road" just such a rifle for the next unsuspecting sucker to suffer.

Yeah, thats the chitty thing to do. I'd pull the barrel and use it for a tomato stake before I sold a poor shooting rifle. My buddy has a rem 700 stainless 5R barrel and that rifle loves FGMM, so the guys suggesting that ammo are spot on. However, id be on the other suggestions first, starting with a good glass bedding job. Id check to make sure its mechanically sound. IE: good crown, clean chamber, good sharp riflings, full freefloat, no binding mag box, loctited bases with proper length screws, fine tuned trigger. Then after all of that, if it didnt shoot the FGMM then, id pull the barrel. The 5R barrels are some of the least finicky barrels ive seen. Use a good "proven" scope, and not a leupold for x sake!!

If that gun won’t shoot lights out with good bulllets in the 165-178 range with Varget, then something is wrong. Mine will cut one ragged hole with an assortment of loads, and I’ve never read about one that wouldn’t shoot.

I agree with the binding mag box suggestion, and I certainly agree with bedding the stock. I skim bedded mine even though the HSP stock and its bedding block.

Is your scope known to be good?

Hes probably running a leupold

I got burned by a rifle that actually shot well when it chambered and fed correctly which was next to never. There is no way this person did not know of that issue , no plucking way.

Scope/mounts is the first thing I suspect.

I would try another scope also, before it went down the road