Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Blaser R93 accuracy issues

About three or four years ago my dad bought a used .223 barrel for his Blaser R93 bolt action rifle. The gun had originally been a .30-06 but it had a very unpleasant kick.
Anyways, from the get-go we seemed to have problems with the accuracy of the thing. It didn't like the 69gr Remington match ammo, neither did it like the 55gr Norma Oryx we tried. The 40gr Vmax finally delivered acceptable accuracy.
I shot a fox at 50yds and a crow at 150yds with it but when shooting paper it always shoots 2 MOA (with fliers) or worse. I'd say out of 5 shots 3 or 4 are fine, but the rest are fliers.
Since I don't think there's a free floating issue - a sheet of paper slides between stock and barrel pretty well - and there is no visible damage to the crown I suspect a shot out bore.

Has anyone here got input on this issue?

I've never been a fan of blozzer rifles. While the idea of switch barrels may seem cool to some, it's a result of anti-gun countries that limit the number of firearms a person can own. Barrels don't count as a firearm. That being said, it sounds like the barrel was sold used for a reason. I'd save your ammo money and buy a new, as in factory new, barrel.

I have a R93 with two barrels. They are both MOA or less accurate.
I think you barrel is shot out. Probably varmint hunting.

Highly doubt it is shot out.

check your scope mount

Your post is not clear to me so I am trying to sort out what you are saying.
You said that "The 40 gr V-Max delivered acceptable accuracy" but you do not say what that accuracy was.
You then said that "it always shoots 2 MOA (with fliers) or worse".

Are you speaking of the 69 gr Rem Match ammo and 55 gr Norma Oryx when you say it always shoots 2 MOA with those two but gives acceptable (?) accuracy with the 40 gr V-Max or that the V-Max is also only shooting 2 MOA.

The reason for asking is that if the V-Max is giving acceptable accuracy then I am thinking that with the 69 gr bullet your barrel may have too slow of a twist to stabilize it. As far as the 55 gr Norma - perhaps your rifle just doesn't like it.

Check your twist rate and if it is 1-14 or 1-12 then try some 50 gr bullets and see if they give acceptable accuracy.

drover

Boomer, I hate to ask you this but did you change out the bolt head to a mini when you removed the 30-06 barrel?

I will all but guarantee you the Blaser barrel is NOT shot out.

Thank you for all the answers. Sadly the factory barrels are no longer in production, so no luck on that front.
Scope mount has been checked by putting both mount and scope on the .30-06 barrel and shooting a 5-round group which - albeit being 3" right and high - was under 1".

Drover, I can see how this caused confusion. The Vmax 40gr is the round with the best accuracy right now. The first three usually come out to 1 MOA or less, the 4th and/or 5th round will be way off around 2" or more.
The 69gr Remington was way worse, that looked like I shot the rounds out of a watering can.
From what I can gather the twist on the Blaser 223 barrels is 1:10.

I am also sure that I changed out the bolt head to Mini.

The only option I see right now is to clean the barrel chemically and see if it makes any difference. Right now the .30-06 barrel is sitting in it and shooting great with the 125gr Hornady Custom.
Would be a shame to just have a spare barrel around, though and I don't want to sucker some poor soul into buying it.

The scope mount working on the 30-06 barrel is not enough to eliminate it as the problem. You might want to carefully examine the saddle notches on the .223 barrel for crud, burrs, out of square, etc.

Boomer 454 - thanks for the clarification. A good deep cleaning certainly wouldn't hurt and would eliminate one possible cause.

I don't want to turn this into a "how to clean your rifle" thread but I will relate my experience with a particuarily bad fouling barrel that was giving me similar results as you are having.

1 - soak the barrel with Kroil, or if that is not available Hoppes, let it soak for a couple of hours then run a couple of patches through it, then soak a brush with Kroil and brush, followed by another wet patch to push out the crud, followed by a couple of clean dry patches.

2 - put some foaming bore cleaner in and let soak for a couple of hours then dry patch.

3 - In a bad fouling barrel it is unlikely to be clean the first time you do this procedure so repeat the soak and brush with Kroil as outlined in step 1, followed by another soak with the foaming bore cleaner.

4 - repeat as necessary until the first patch after the foaming bore cleaner comes, if there is still a layer of carbon the barrel may quickly copper foul again. Using this procedure I could usually get 150 rounds through it before groups would start opening up again.

5 - Order a Teslong bore scope ($49.95) from Amazon - it will clarify cleaning procedures. WARNING - it may also show you some other thing that may cause sleepless nights but if the barrel shoots good ignore those things.

drover

p.s. - I have tried most of the foaming bore cleaners and they all seem to be about the same, I generally use Gunslick because it is the less expensive and generally available in my area.

The R93 barrels in 223, I believe, were 12 or 14 twist. That could’ve why the 40s shoot so well. Check your twist with a tight patch and cleaning rod.

Petty sure this is your problem.

Most .223 rifles need 1:7 to shoot heavier bullets well.


Okie John

I looked at the scope mount and there seem to be some differences. Appearantly the front left notch on the .223 barrel has a small ding.
It also seems that the holes on the right side are flared on the .30-06 barrel and not flared on the .223 barrel. I'm going to attach some pictures of the gun to clarify.

Thanks for the cleaning tips, drover. I'll look into the bore scope. Seems like a decent investment.

And I measured the twist rate, which came out to be 1:12

Send the barrel back to San Antonio and ask Andre to look into it.

The front hole on the .223 shows what appear to be two bearing marks. In contrast the 30-06 shows only the one bearing mark. I’d send it in and have it checked. It doesn’t look as if the mount is matching and cleanly clamping on the .223. Twist may explain heavy bullet issues. A loose or inconsistent mount will explain flyers.

Yeah I think it's best this one goes back to Blaser. I might shoot a few group over iron sights before that, though.

I thought it was the scope

Next to impossible to shoot out a Blaser barrel

I agree with you cooperfan. You're not going to shoot out a Blaser barrel.