Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Most accurate hunting rifle out of the box

Not new, but 2 of my most accurate were a Remington 513-T and a CZ 550 American 6.5x55 SE.

Tikka T-3 25-06 with Hornady interlock 117 grain bullets.

Out of the box accuracy? You're asking a refugee from Planet 4 MOA?

Back on Planet 4 MOA, it ain't the rifle, you see. Whatever the group, "I hits where I aim." You say that, and everyone know that whatever you did to mangle the 5 gallon bucket out in the yard will transform into a magic laser beam come the Opener.

I have one rifle that came from a dear friend, O.T. O.T. sold it to me after he went blind. He needed the money, and so I bought his magic custom 25-06. He told me he'd been able to hit anything at any range, and it didn't matter what grains you used. 100 and 120 grain Remingtons did equally well. I first began to suspect something when I tried to shoot it as-is and the old Aimpoint sight had a bigger than 4 MOA dot. I pulled that off and threw on a nice Bushnell Trophy 4-12X that's still on it.

But getting it to group? I tried 4 bullets and 3 powders. I finally put it aside about 5 years ago.

This year, I finally found the ticket: 100 grain Speers over H4831sc. O.T. was right. It was a good shooter, but I doubt he ever saw what it could do.

But back to the question at hand. See, as a refugee from Planet 4 MOA, I question all claims of inherent accuracy. You tell me this or that gives best out-of-the box performance or best-in-class this or that, I think back to all the guys I knew and respected and saw what they called "MOA" accuracy. I'm not saying y'all are lying or anything like that. Quite to the contrary, I just have these faces bubbling up in front of me.

Let me make a claim. No, I'm not going to step on the Pillar of TRVTH. It's just a simple assertion that's open for debate. I will assert that the best out of the box accuracy is a serendipitous matching of the rifle, the shooter, and whatever ammo he puts in it starting out.

The most accurate rifle I ever shot straight out of the box was my Ruger Hawkeye in 30-06. Mind you it was also the first new deer rifle I'd actually pulled out of its box in 40 years. Actually, I restocked it with a walnut stock and ground the bottom of the magazine a wee bit before shooting it the first time. Does that count?

On the other hand, I got about 4 MOA accuracy out my TC Compass in 7mm-08 3 years ago, and figured it would handle a deer at 100 yards. It did. I then restocked it to fit my somewhat eccentric frame. I finally found a load I can live with this summer. It's accurate-- one of my best. It's just my loads weren't.

. . . and see here's another issue. Being a walking landform, I've always had a hard time getting things to fit. This goes for everything from boots to hats. I seldom grab a rifle without needing a tweak. My Winchester 670 was by no means new. It looked like it had been dragged behind a truck when I got it, but it fit me like a glove. Of all things, the M1 Garand felt like the hometown whore when I shouldered it the first time.

Once I got my Ruger American Predator in 223 REM settled into a new stock, a Boyd's AT-One with all the adjustments and all, it shot much better. It wasn't the gun. It was me.

My buddy has a Tikka in 6.5x55. Three bullets in the same hole just over caliber and 5 in 1/2". That's with Hornady 140 grain interlocks. A fancy bullet is not needed for a deer.

Anything relatively heavy that shoots low recoiling cartridges from a savage axis 223 to Remington/Winchester/Sako varmint rifles in cartridges up to a 6mm Rem ime

Yes the Stevens 200 . They did have a crappy trigger, but , even with it shot very accurately.

So ok : Stevens 200; 223

Probably a Winchester M70 XTR push feeder in .270 Win. Picked it up at a fun show for a fair price. Next day I stoped an Walmart and picked up a couple of boxes if Wincher 150 gr. power Points and went tp the range. I usually shoot the first group at 25 yards but I'd asked the seller if it was sighted in and said it at 3" high at 100 yards. So I gambled that he wasn't lying and carefully shot the first 5 shot into a half inch. I let the barrel cool and shot another 5 shot with the groups only slightly larger. Long story short, I shot four 5 shot groups and the largest groups was .80".

I've since tried my two pet loads running the 150 gr. Sierra Game King and 150 gr. Nosler Partition over a max load of the long gone Winchester WMR powder. Winchester standard primer and brass as well. Interesting thing about those two loads. I can shoot shoot either one without having to resight the rifle. Either load is .75" alone but if I mix and match, the combine groups is slightly less than 1.5". What was a rifle destined to be either a loaner or trade material turned out to be a real keeper.

Frankly, I've never shot any 130 gr. loads in that rifle and probably never will. I swore off them years ago because that messed up too much good eating meat. Maybe I ought to load up a few rounds and see how they shoot in that rifle. Probably quite well. I've always found the .270 an easy cartridge to accurate ammo on paper. My worst shooting .270 is a Ruger #1 and runs 1.25 tp 1.50" on average. Maybe not my most accurate .270 but I've never seen a bench rest out when hunting.
PJ

Savage 12FV. 22-250.

IMR-4064 or 4895.

Any 40-60 grain bullet whether Hornady, Sierra or Nosler a d the old white box Winchester 45 grain HP.

The rifle never shot over 1/2" and if you would mix any combination of different bullet or powder and shoot a group it would stay under 3/4" and generally only have to move the scope 2, maybe 3 clicks to zero if changing loads.

Dumb move in a moment of weakness when I swapped that one off.

I have had 2 brands stand out for accuracy, being a John Rigby and Sons (which you would expect) and 3 Winchester Model 70's.
These rifles shot some amazing very sub MOA groups.
The cartridges so chambered, were .275 Rigby, .30/06, .300 RUM and 7x57.

The best out of the box were Tikka 3x lights: 223, 6.5 Creedmore, and 7mm-08. All three shot three shot groups of less than 3/4 of an inch, occasionally less than half an inch on my good days.

In my gun safe, the T-C Icon in 243 and a 1963 Sako L461 in 222RemMag.

The Sako gave back-to-back .178 and .331 (3 shot) groups with 2 different loads, and consistently shoots sub-MOA, as does the Icon and the Icon did 10 shots of Winchester factory 80gr loads into just over 1".

I was gifted the box of 243 ammo and was only interested in fire forming the brass, and was very pleased with the accuracy.

I had a T/C Icon .223 Remington for a while, and it was also very accurate OTB.

I sold my T/C Icon .243 stainless weathershield yesterday. I hope I don’t come to regret it. It was a vary accurate rifle, bought it off the ‘fire here in April 2013.

My most accurate rifle out of the box is a J.C. Higgins Model 50 in 30-06. It was my first centerfire rifle, purchased used at a gun show in 1987 for the princely sum of $250. It has an FN Mauser action, a chrome lined barrel by High Standard and was sold by Sears in the early 50s for $100 new.

It shoots 150 grain Winchester Power Points well under an inch. It made me wonder what all the fuss over sub 1 inch rifles was about. It wasn't until I'd bought some more rifles that I realized how special it really was.

I was once at the range next to a guy who had the complete benchrest setup; a rifle and scope combo that cost more than my car, wind flags, a reloading press at the range, the works. At the break, he looked at my targets, complimented the sub-one inch groups and asked "What are you shooting?". You should have seen the look on his face when I answered: "Winchester hunting ammo from my Sears 30-06."

Blaser R93 Luxus 257Bee shot almost everything to the same POA also. Only problem was it was to nice to hunt with:(

Cooper .243----Bloody Mary

Rio7

Same here. Kind of ugly and a lot of plastic parts but it shoots like a heavy barrel target rifle.

I don't care about fractions of an inch. As long as a rifle hits where I aim out to my limit, I'm fine.

My Blaser R93. No trigger work and the barrels are very smooth. It’s shoots both magnum calibers I have less than MOA. Of course it’s not a cheap date.

Several Tikka's and a couple of Vanguard II's will shoot 1/2" or less groups