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541-T shoots Federal Gold Medal Target better than I can but I am constantly get the first shot high left and the rest lay right together. Pretty much a ragged hole. Let the gun set 20 minutes and does it again. Continue to shoot and groups stay tight. Let it set. First shot left. Any suggestions? Thanks Ken

not uncommon for the coldbore shot to be a little off

I’ve had my CZ in .17 for over 20 years. First shot when I take it out goes right in the ditch bank. After that she will shoot lights out. Always been that way...

You wouldn’t think a .22 would generate enough heat to affect the barrel temperature. I was wondering if a full magazine would have a different feed angle marking the bullet compared to half full magazine?? Thanks Ken

loaded with one less and give it a try.

Try single feeding them

Typical cold bore performance. It takes three shots for my CZ to settle in. Now a 10/22 is a different story. First shot out of the magazine is hinkey. Shoot 9 and reload, it helps.

Many of my .22's have a cold bore shift. If it is significant could check your chamber/bore with a borescope and see if you have a carbon ring. .22LR is notoriously dirty to shoot and can build up a carbon ring which will effect accuracy initially but the ring will heat up and the bullets will conform to the shape to it as the barrel heats up. A larger buildup up of carbon can effect accuracy the more it develops. Many products out there to clean it up.

If it's not that, well then you know to shoot a few rounds through it first to get it warmed up a bit.

I’ll check that. Thank you

We shoot a cold bore match every weekend with full custom benchrest 22s at 25 yards. Some of these guns once warmed up will shoot a perfect score in a 25 shot match but I’m cold bore match sometimes we can’t even hit the dot. Nature of the beast

I attribute the cold bore flyer to the lube on the ammo. I have noticed that with some brands of ammo it occurs and with others it either doesn't occur or if it occurs it may not be as wide.

drover

2500HD - it’s funny I have three 541-s rifles and there are three others in our shooting club……ALL of them shoot the first shot to the left……then they settle in and just like you observed after a sufficient cooling period it will do the same thing again. We all shoot a shot just prior to our first shot for the match and then proceed. It is certainly not just a Remington 541 phenomenon but I have yet to have one or be around one that doesn’t do it (again sample size is pretty small). While I have others that do it to some degree I have not had the issue with various other .22s (includes numerous makes and models). I never really investigated too much and we all laugh about it but some of the suggestions here make sense. I’m anxious to hear some other thoughts/explanations?!

PennDog

I’m glad I’m not the only one and sad I’m not the only one at the same time.

What Cam said. My CZ 455 Varmint would do that. Take a brush to the portion right after the chamber and it does well for some time. Even cold

I will have to try that - I rarely clean my rimfires unless accuracy degrades and interestingly enough it’s those 541s that require cleaning more often than others. If it is a rough bore that would explain both. Will also have to examine with a bore scope to see what going on?!

PennDog

PennDog,

I've had a few rimfires with cold bore flyers, but none of them were Remingtons. One was a Kimber HS and the other was a Browning T Bolt. I am still not sure what causes it, could be carbon ring but I would not bet on it.
One of the most accurate sporter rimfires I own is a custom Remington that started out as a 581S. Brian Voelker slugged a 541T barrel, threaded it, chambered it to a Win. 52D, and put an 11% crown on it. The action was trued, lugs lapped, and a 3 screw 541 trigger installed and set at 9oz. Added a second action screw of course. This rifle shoots better than I can and has zero cold bore flyers and it a 541T barrel.
I have a KDF, a Kimber Classic, and a Sako Quad that will hang with the Remington and none of them have the issue, so, many will disagree but I've come to the conclusion that the cold bore flyer could be a mount or scope issue. A slight one of course, but still one of them of which I lean more towards the scope and here's why.
Back in the late 70's or maybe it was early 80's I had bought my first KDF K22 from Kleinguenther well aware of their guarantee of 1/2" groups at 50yds with Win. Super X ammo. That rifle shot little bitty groups with RWS Subsonics, but it would shoot the first round out of the group if the barrel was cold. I called Kleinguenther's and told them my dilemma and they had me send it to them. I got it back about 2 wks later with a target shot at 50yds. and a note that said...... install a better scope. LOL! I had a Leupold 4X rimfire scope on originally, so I bought a Burris 6X Mini AO scope and installed Leupold Low rimfire rings. No more first shot flyer. That combo is still on that rifle.

Target from KDF. It is the upper left hand corner. The other targets I shot with the same rifle after I got it back.




Targets from Remington Custom. I call it my wannabe, a 541 wannabe.

I changed the zero after shooting the first target group because I couldn't see the center of the bullseye anymore. Didn't seem to help much, as the group was close to the same. Shooter error no doubt.

"Install a better scope". Now that is funny. Cool that switching to the Burris fixed it. Nice shooting!

K22,

Very interesting information……I too have had others that had the first shot issue. To be honest it never bothered me much (and hence didn’t put too much thought into it) because I never did any formal competitive shooting where I couldn’t somehow manage a shot just prior to the competition or squirrel hunting where, if I had a rifle with known issues, I would just fire a shot into a stump prior to shooting at game (typically I carried rifles that did not do this). This thread has made me rethink the reasons why the issue exists and am very interested in hearing experiences like yours and what others have had.

I often thought that the cold bore flyer was likely due to the “conditioned” bore having lube that dried (or was otherwise altered) and until it was “wiped” clean with a fresh firing behaved much as a clean bore does until conditioned by multiple firings (or as seen when changing types of ammo) - but why, in my very limited observations, was mostly seen in the Remingtons?! Of course I never put this to any kind of test as I am mostly lazy about such things!

I appreciate your input and experiences and great shooting (as always) - the scope change out is a new one but obviously worked in your case?!!

PennDog

"First shot flyer". I have a good one for you guys. During a competition, I was using my dad's old Mossberg chuckster. I had just put the target sights on and was not really familiar with the rifle. I did not know it would throw the first shot out of the group. Needless to say, I fired off the first shot, looked through the spotter and made the adjustment on my hold and fired off the next 9 shots:

Boy did I feel stupid^^^^^I should have double checked to see where my second-10th shots went!! I love this old rifle though:


Shortly after that, I ran across a great deal on a 1949 Winchester model 52B and have not looked back. The mossberg chuckster 22 mag is very accurate, but you have to watch out when it's clean and cold!!!

I guess I will have to be the contrarian here. While my Anschutz 1413 will throw one or two off the aiming point after a barrel cleaning and the reason I no longer clean the barrel very often and only after accuracy starts to deteriorate I will have to offer another suggestion.

I, too, have one of these Remington rifles that exhibited this very same issue. I cured mine by free floating the barrel. The barrel channel on many of these were made with two passes of the router and some rifles have an inverted V shaped protrusion of wood in the bottom of the barrel channel making a very unstable bed and leaving a fulcrum upon which to wobble around on. I had often suspected the first shot or two settled the barrel into a resting place where it would be repeatable on target and that over time in the gun cabinet or humidity changes and the pressure on the barrel changes for the next time out that recreated the instability.

An easy way to check this is an old trick an elderly friend taught me about 55 years ago: Get a paper match from a book of matches and place it under the rear most point of the barrel after you loosen the action screw(s) depending on which version you have, and then tighten the action screw(s) back down. While this does not change the barrel channel it does effectively "float" the barrel from the channel and give you the opportunity find out if the barrel bedding is the culprit on your rifle. Depending on how thick the matches are you may need more than one to elevate the barrel enough to float it. If this works you can fix the root cause of your problem with some judicious wood removal from the barrel channel and seal the area the wood was removed from and bring the best out of these fine shooting rifles!

Let's hear how it worked for you.