Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters First Shot Goes High

I am sure this has been discussed before but I can't get any useful results from the search feature so here goes again.

I have a 264 Win Mag with a fairly new barrel. The first round from a cold barrel always goes an inch or more above the rest of the group. It is aggravating for a new barrel to behave this way. Is there any wisdom out there on why a rifle does this? Is it related to the throat? Type of powder? Primers? Weight of barrel? My current load is a 120 TTSX over Magnum with a Federal 215.

Is that a clean barrel with maybe some oil in it or is it a cold barrel that has had some use or fouling shots previously? Many rifles do this.
First thing I do at the range, is take two fouling shots into the berm before I set up. The rifle has cooled down by the time I am set up and begin to shoot.Then I do not clean until after hunting season has ended

Bedding?

Does this occur with a clean, cold barrel or the first cold shot from the barrel clean or fouled? My 338 Win Mag puts the first 2 shots 2" high and left from a clean barrel but it's fine after that. My 7x57 won't group worth a damn until it's been fouled by at least 10 shots. These are the 2 most extreme examples in my gun collection. My M70 classic 300 wby mag shoots perfectly from a clean barrel with no shift in POI or degradation in accuracy.

What have you tried to eliminate the problem?

Yeah the first lesson here is to never clean a bore. It's not needed and counterproductive.

If you're getting POI shift between the 1st and 2nd round on a rifle where no unnecessary cleaning has been done, then the culprit is likely the effect of temperature on the action to barrel interface, because one or more surfaces are not trued. So as the rifle heats, it bends. Such a rifle will also have POI shifts with the weather, and should generally be fixed (by truing the action), relegated to short range use, or sent down the road.

It is also possible the bedding is at fault or the action screws are loose, but those are less common causes. It's worth checking the screws with a torque driver though and inspecting the stock to see what the rifle is sitting on. A "sprung" action that is sitting on a high spot between the action screws can exhibit temperature instability. Similarly a rifle that is shifting in the stock may be inconsistent.

Got a 25.06 that when the barrel is cold and clean first shot goes 1” low and left, 2nd and following shots are on the money. It’s repeatable and predictable. Cold and fouled it never happens. Never found a cure so I just don’t clean it until I am done for the year.

If the barrel is already fouled, I'd be thinking it's a bedding issue where something is under stress or not secured correctly.

A properly constructed and bedded rifle will not have significant changes in zero between a cold shot, and it’s 2nd round. “Fouling shots” are important for benchrest or smallbore competitors, but the concept, adopted many outside of those accuracy demands, hides what is usually a bedding problem.

Some rifles will shoot better (smaller groups) with some degree of a dirty bore, but they will shoot to the same zero (if properly bedded).

If bore is fouled, try changing your action screw tension - perhaps 10-15in/lbs tighter if not already over 65in/lbs. If this changes the nature of your result, it's likely in your bedding as others have mentioned.

The rifle is bedded in a synthetic stock. The stock looks like a Brown. It behaves the same in the old wood stock. Also tried different scopes. This is from a cold dirty bore but it does it from a clean bore too. I don't clean barrels unless they need it.

The rifle has been a safe queen for several years because of this problem. I just got it out the other day to see if I could solve this problem. I don't remember what all I tried when I was working with it before.

The original barrel shot good. The first three would go into .75" or so. Then they would start climbing and five would go into 1-1/4" or 1-1/2". The throat went and it quit shooting. This use to be my deer rifle. Killed a lot of deer with the old barrel.

The barrel receiver interface sounds logical. Worth a look.

It's more than just bedding. Most factory rifles, especially older ones that predate CNC, are not true. When the action & barrel heat, the non-true action pushes on one side of the barrel shank more than the other, and the rifle literally bends.

If you really think you’re going to see the effects of that in a hunting rifle with a factory chamber, fired off of anything less than a machine rest, with “run of the mill” ammunition . . . You are truly an optimist

Interesting that is does the same when in two different stocks.

I don't think it, I know it.

Because as already stated the issue is most likely a non-true action/barrel rather than the bedding. Bedding is a possible culprit, but if it happens in two stocks that's unlikely.

I had a RU77V in 25-06 that did that. First shot through a clean barrel went 4" or so, 45 degrees high and left. Anything after the first fouling round was MOA, where intended. The rifle was factory standard, completely unmodified. Factory loads (Rem) went about 5 MOA, my reloads via a $19.95 Lee Loader were MOA after the first fouling shot.

I just never hunted with a clean bore. If I did not swab out the bore between trips, it was fine. And no, there wasn't oil in the bore on that first clean-bore shot. 70 above to 20 below made no difference as to that first clean-bore shot placement in relation to following shots.

It was what it was. Never should have sold that rifle. The stock was fiddleback end to end. You don't find many factory stocks like that.

I’ve seen the same thing from rifles that are fouled but haven’t been fired in a while. Almost as a if the fouling “cures” or hardens and causes a rifle to toss a shot.
I’ve found with some that running a patch with Kroil on it through the bore after cleaning works if I follow that with several dry patches to essentially dry it. Try different things to see what works.

I tested this on several of my hunting rifles and found that none of them shot the first shot out of a cold , clean barrel to a different point of impact at 100 yds to succeeding shots. However, each first shot had a lower velocity than succeeding shots. This lower velocity was not enough to cause a difference in point of impact at 100 yds on my rifles. My conclusion was the high shot or flyer sometimes experienced was often the result of not holding the rifle in exactly the same way as on succeeding shots and the first shot resulting in more of a "shock" to the brain, resulting in not holding through the shot the same. Now this might not apply to all rifles and hunters, and probably not the reason your .264 Mag does this, but I believe it is the cause at least some of the time.

This is a strong contributor as well.

Repeatability on the bench, even with higher end rests is MUCH more difficult than most people appreciate. Ask any IBS competitor.