Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Two shot groups?

Eleven + years back, I had my mom's inheritance and was able to buy a rifle I could only dream off. It has been posted here on the CF numerous times. As the seller put it, "The wood to metal fit is ungodly tight!". So very true..... Any way, I was out working on a new Barnes Bullets 101 gr LRX load and it consistently puts the first two shots close together and the 3rd approximately 3.5 times larger. It does this with other bullets as well. As the barrel heats up, the 3rd shot opens the group. I let the barrel cool all the way to out door temps between groups. Today....45 F. Thursday, 25 F. Same thing. The load it liked today will put the first two shots .5" to .6" apart with the 3rd shot going out to 2.2" to 2.4". Someone mentioned I should free float the barrel. Here I am, asking the Custom Rifle members your opinions on such an undertaking; do it....don't do it......run the simple business card trick under the front action screw?.......Live with it as a 2-shot rifle? Who would be a great candidate to take on such a potential task? Am I missing anything? Am I not asking the right questions?

Your thoughtful comments and opinions would be appreciated!

Alan

Leave that beautiful rifle as it is. Buy a different rifle that will group well.

Do you plan to hunt with it?
If so when do you recall that when hunting you needed a 3rd shot?
If you needed a 3rd shot would it have made a difference?

If it were me just to satisfy my curiousity I would try the business card free-float, if it shot good 3-shot groups then hunt it that way, if not send it to someone who cares more about eye-candy then accuracy. But I would not mess with it other than that, it is a beautiful rifle and anything you do to that is not reversible will devalue it.

drover

MNR Custom. Matt will free float and make sure it shoots the way it should.

Beautiful rifle Alan. Good luck with your search. I'm sure if you find the right person to do the work, it will not change the appearance too much. Except for a proper freefloat. If the rifle needs to be glass bedded at that time, you may want to have that work done as well... A custom rifle like that should be shooting 1/2 moa groups. But you already know that...

A beautiful rifle is only beautiful if it shoots good. Have a good ‘smith bed it.

ETA….it IS a beautiful rifle btw. 👍

Start low, go slow. Don’t start anything you don’t have the tools or skills to finish.

Couldn't tell from your OP; if you fire two, let it cool completely, then fire two more, does the second pair stay tight with the first? If that was the case, I could live with it.

I have a very nice FN sporter by Paul Morton, the one-handed of San Antonio, TX, with pretty much all the goodies. I sorted out the funky scope bases, mounted a nice M8 4X, and dialed it in with some random handloads. Shoots pretty well, and while I plan to load up a small batch just for it, I’m not going down the rabbit hole trying to make it a bench gun. If it was one I’d had built myself, I’d look at it differently.

That’s a very nice rifle you have there, BTW.

Thank you for the responses, so far. I'm heavily leaning towards leaving it as is. I have hunted with it. It's a fair weather gun; pleasant or snowing but never in the rain. I, my son and step son have taken mule deer. I also took a cow elk. All the deer were single rounds kills. The cow, as long as she was on her feet, I kept putting 115 BT's into her. All 3 bullets killed her, breaking humerus and ribs, complete pass throughs, but I didn't want a Faux Pas on my hands. She only went 20'. She was 220 yds distant. Some years back I had Charley Santoni, who has worked on several guns for me, look it over. IIRC, he said it was the most beautiful rifle he'd ever laid hands on. Understandably, he does not want me to touch it. Maybe someday, if he's willing, i'll have D'Arcy Echols look at it.

I will keep playing with it. It quite enjoyable to look at, handle and shoot. Maybe just learn to make sure I never need more than 2 shots!

Alan

This guy might be able to help if you change your mind- A.M. Little Bespoke Gunmakers, LLC...
He has one of mine and I'll be sending him another soon. Absolutely beautiful work.

There was some famous gun writer that claimed he favored one shot groups on hunting rifles. On successive days he would shoot one or two shots at the same target, in just a few days, he had some idea of what the rifle capable of in real world hunting situation. I think there is some merit to his reasoning. I personally tried it with a pre-war custom German 9.3 that recoiled enough to make me doubt my bench ability. Sure enough, my week long group was a little better than my one session group. Which is not a valid qualifier, but, it gave me the confidence to hunt with a fine old rifle, tight bedded, as made in 1927. And, I don't know if I've just been lucky, but in over a half century of hunting I can only remember of two instances that required more than one shot.

Having killed 3 and four deer at once, I can say a 3" shooter would have done as well. I wouldn't mess with it.

What did the builder say? Passed on?

Good decision IMO. It seems to work just fine as is.

drover

I’d have to try a different scope on there. Maybe you already did.

GSSP, I have a Model 70 Classic that I bought new in the 90's (New Haven gun) and it would do similar to what yours is doing. Well, I posted this on the Gunwriters forum few days. A guy on You Tube has a video I found some time back...."Floating a Rifle Barrel-Synthetic Stock" He took a detergent jug and cut a piece to fit under the front and rear action screws and then was able to slide a dollar bill up to the action. It tightened up my groups and now will shoot half inch group every session. Could not believe it. Pull it up and look at how he does it...might help.

How many different bullets have you tried with your rifle?

I have a Ruger #1V in .25-06 (not near the pedigree of your rifle) that I worked up a load in using the 100gr SGK. This rifle would regularly shoot this load about 0.75" @ 100yds.

A season later, I decided to swap bullets (110gr Sierra TGK) and I also upgraded scopes. At the range, I struggled with a similar issue as you describe...the first two shots were touching, or nearly so, and the third was 3-3.5" left. More shots carried on with the same theme.

I was assuming I had a loose screw somewhere and went over the entire rifle...everything was snug. I started suspecting the new scope. By chance, I had some of the old ammo onhand. With a hot barrel, it put my previous 100gr SGK load into a triangular group just under an inch @ 100yds.

By design, this rifle has some significant contact between the forearm and barrel.

I don't think I would start removing wood on that rifle. Maybe you just haven't found "THE" bullet yet?

Have not talked to Glen. This post was me "kicking tires".

Alan

Thank you for that. Last I talked to him was probably 10 yrs back.

Alan

Correct. I have.

I've run 100 gr E-Tips. After about 400 with different powders, cases, COAL, etc. I gave up. Charley Santoni called this rifle a "Temperamental Whore", when he had his hands on it. 100 gr BT. 115 gr and 120 PT. It likes the 120. Carried it with me on a Utah spike elk hunt. No joy! Hated the 110 Accubond....except for one IMR 4350 powder charge. 100 Sierra SPT BT; 4"-6" groups. Did some initial work ups on the 100 gr Hornady SP but never finished the project. Charley turned me onto the 115 BT with IMR 4831 and BINGO! It really likes that bullet and powder. I finally killed a few deer as did my son and step son's who took their first deer with it. I even put those 3 into that cow at 220 yds. Great bullet performance. I've also played a bit with the 115 Berger and Barnes, 80 TTSX, 110 ELD-X. I wish Hornady made the 87 gr SP still. The rifle loves that bullet with Varget or H4350.

Alas, I really want/need to get the 100 TTSX or 101 LRX to work. Barnes is my employer. Ran a primer test today and the Fed 210 showed great promise with the 2nd shot inside the 1st shot and the 3rd 1.25" off to the right. Single digit ES for the 3 shots. Jury is still out.

Alan