Please indulge this #1 shooter with a question about erratic groups. #1B, .338 Win Mag. 5 shot groups, most often 3 in 1.5", the other 2 about 2.5 inches away. I haven't messed with the bedding, didn't want to do anything irreversible. Any help would be appreciated. The last load I tried was Sierra's 250 gr with 72 gr. of H4831. The gun seems to like 200 gr bullets better but I was hoping for a 250 gr load. Thanks for your trouble. Merry Christmas!
#1's are notorious for requiring a bit of tinkering before they settle down...in most cases. There are many bedding tricks out there....loosening or tightening the forearm screw, various aftermarket hangers for the fore end, etc. There are many gunsmiths that specialize in exorsizing the deamons from #1's for a modest fee. Might want to check Rifle mag, Handloader mag...I have seen ads for #1 gunsmiths there. A good friend of mine, John Lewis at Carolina Precision Rifles is one such person. www.cprifles.com.
Best of luck and hope Santa is good to you.
You only live once, but...if you do it right, once is enough.
One simple suggestion is to be careful to be consistent with how you hold or rest the forearm when shooting. The rest or support hand presses against the forearm, which presses against the barrel. Inconsistency here can cause inconsistency downrange. I know it to be true from experience with my #1As.
Another idea is to send the rifle back to Ruger. I sent a #1A back due to inaccuracy and they replaced the barrel, replaced the trigger, and re-worked the forearm hanger. They actually cut part of it off, modified it, and welded it back together! Dang thing shot good too, and there was no charge.
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Our God reigns. Harrumph!!! I often use quick reply. My posts are not directed toward any specific person unless I mention them by name.
One question I have is the age of the rifle. Ruger started making their own barrels around 1990 and they are pretty good. They also started using shorter throats on their chambers, which also helped things.
In general I have had very good luck in getting post-1990 No. 1's to shoot pretty much out of the box. The one modification I do try on these rifles if they don't shoot as well as I'd like is to epoxy-bed the very tip of the forend, the last inch or so. This stabilizes the forend, which may be your problem. It's a very easy thing to try.
So far all the post-1990 No. 1's I've owned (maybe 8 or so) have either shot well out of the box, with the forend screw tight, or responded very well to tip-bedding. I haven't had to try any of the usual array of other No. 1 tricks on any of them.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
Mule Deer, How would the epoxy bedding trick work with the RSI version? Would it make more sense to bed the last 6" or so? I'm dealing with the same thing with one group of 3 very close and another group of 2 around 2" away. The groups are often touching. This is happening on sandbags with the point of the forearm checkering resting on the sandbags. It seems that the longer I let the barrel cool the closer these two groups come together. She's only 2 years old.
Bought a newly made 1A in 7X57 a couple of years ago. It shot just great right out of the box. I mean really great, like 4 shot groups well under an inch as you can see below.
Since it wasn't broken I obviously had to fix that ASAP! Took the forend off and it had been hand fitted at the tip where it touched the barrel - at least that's what it looked like. There were obvious small spots where a leetle wood had been shaved off, right through the finish.
Put the forend back on, thought I put the screw in with the same tension but it NEVER again shot quite as good as it did straight out of the box.
Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery. Hit the target, all else is twaddle!
Nope, the tip bedding I discussed is of the forend itself. Mostly it keeps the tip from wobbling back and forth, which is apparently what causes some problems.
It might work on an RS1 too, but there I would probably bed both the tip and put a pad in the middle of the forend too.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
My #1A Is rediculesly acurate with its favorite load. And shoots any 140 grain bullet quite well. I can not get a dollar bill under the tip of the forstock at all, so its possible a previous owner( Or the factory)tip bedded it. I don't plan to touch the forarm screw to find out though. Just for your info, my 7X57 shoots a 140 grain balistic tip in to about .25 and sometimes less. That is for 3 shots of sand bags. velocity is around 2900. Powder is H-414. I will not specify charge weight here cause its prety high and some body might try it in a Per 98 mauser, but a PM will get you my data. Fun cartridge and the 1A is a class rifle. Mine has a 2X7 leupold. ...tj3006
1. The No.1 has a very slow lock time due to it being hammer fired rather than striker fired. What that means in the real world is that it will require very good bench technique to keep the sight picture while the hammer falls. It takes some getting used to, but when mastered it will make a significant improvement in group size. For example, in the .338WinMag those shots four and five take some concentration considering you've just been subjected to that recoil for the first three. There are some lighter aftermarket hammers that will decrease the lock time, but they sometimes can cause ignition problems. Not an issue on targets, but definitely an issue on a big game rifle.
2. I have only had to do forend work on one of my 20 or so No.1s to get them to shoot MOA. But, several took extensive load workup to find their favorite load. Many of us want the short easy path to the right combo. I've been lucky on a couple of mine, but most took some time to find the right load. When I found it, all was well. When you start down the path of tinkering with the forend, as was mentioned above, you're opening Pandora's box and chasing problems. The quick way to see if the forend is causing the problems is to remove it and shoot the rifle without it. If the load still shoots 2" then it ain't the right load for that rifle's dymanics.
3. Make sure the buttstock is tight. I've seen several out of the box No.1s that did not have the buttstock bolt tight. A loose butstock on a No.1 will cause innaccuracy. Make sure your's is tight.
Don't make this complicated- your p.o.i. is changing because your barrel's warming up. As another poster said, if you're hunting it won't make any difference. I wouldn't fix it.
Verd has the answer. A 1-5 MOA shot group is a more than ample test for 3 shots on a hunting #1. Warm that barrel up any further and you are juast wasting ammo. And, to what conceivable end?
BUT, that is only initial performance.
Down the road, that rifle might well start moving POI becasue of humidity changes. The rifles NIB are NOT well sealed. If you live in a constant humidity region, no problem. If there are wide swings in humidity, or you hunt in the rain a lot, you have to seal the wood yourself. and test the rifle's POI each time, prior to using it in the field.
Nope, the tip bedding I discussed is of the forend itself. Mostly it keeps the tip from wobbling back and forth, which is apparently what causes some problems.
JB, I believe you hit the proverbial nail squarely on the proverbial head. IME, many rifles (of any type) that have forend/barrel contact also have this "wobble" problem. Also IME, simply eliminating the wobble makes a ton of difference in group size. Often this can be accomplished by simply filing a shallow, narrow groove in the bottom center of the forend tip with a rattail file. This results in the barrel being "cradled" between two high spots where it cannot wobble.
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Our God reigns. Harrumph!!! I often use quick reply. My posts are not directed toward any specific person unless I mention them by name.
Thanks everyone for your help. A little history, this rifle was made in 1981, I bought it used for its beautiful wood, yes I'm one of those loonies. It was a .243 Win. It shot the same as it does now. I wanted a .338, Dan Pedersen in Prescott rebored and rerifled and chambered her in .338. It does shoot fine for moose hunting, which I may never be able to do, but I enjoy trying to make rifles shoot better. I will check the buttstock. On the foreend tip, it has wood built up there, I could see it could make the barrel unstable. I can take the recoil, it does rattle the brain a little. I had a Decelerator put on while it was in Prescott. What about those Hicks devices and similar methods, seems so complicated. I will try the foreend work. I am trying to hold things steady from shot to shot. I shoot at my own range in the back yard from my own homemade cement bench, good rests etc. Thanks again for the advice.
I have 4 of the No 1's and they all have those welded areas on the hanger. Must be part of their assembly process. Mine have never been back for repair. Have one that was made in the first year of production and it's welded also.
I suggest that you inlet an aluminum V in the forend ( Any good gunsmith can make you one), they use the anchor screw to put or take tension on the barrel..Always seems to work for me. Also it never hurts to check the inletting for tight spots...
There's an endless array of things we can try with No. 1's.
Ray's suggestion is a good one. All I casn say is that in any pre-1990 No. 1 that gave me and problem, a Hicks Accurizer fixed it, which is functionally very much like what Ray describes.
For those who haven't used one, the Hicks thingy is easy to install and makes experimenting with different forend tension extremely easy.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
I "marine tex" the forend tip about 1 1/2 inches back from the forened tip which supports the barrel on all 3 sides which is important to prevent forend wobble as Mule deer said.
I tighten the forend screw after applying the marine tex to about 1 1/2 turns off max tight to provide some latitude to fine turn the barrel harmonices if needed.
I preform the same process to my T/C barrels as well...it sure works. I have the targets to prove it.
