[Chamacat]

I would like to ask of you guys, that have shot many more rifles than I ever will...Have you ever bought or hand a custom rifle that simply would not shoot with any powder/primer or bullet?...No matter how much you tried and invested in componet's and know-how?...And how often does this occur in out-of-the box nowaday rifles?...I'm not looking for let's bash XXX brand rifles..I'm just looking to be more cautious on purchases..thanks

[Walkalong]

I have one with a neglected bore that will only do 2 MOA with Fed Match ammo.

[rcmodel]

Nope.

Those that wouldn't shoot at least acceptably for what they were had obviously bad barrels or such when I bought them.

I think it is safe to say that new bolt-action rifles today come out of the box more accurate then most shooters can shoot them.

Thats due to several things including better bullets and factory loads then have ever been available before.

And CNC machining and digital inspection making Monday morning "goofs" much less common then that might have been at one time.

rc

[243winxb]

Out of the box rifles shoot or they don't. Its all in the barrel. No amount of bedding, trigger work, fancy scopes can change a bad barrel. All rifles do not shoot sub minute of angle, in fact very few do IMO. Internet groups are much smaller compared to the real world. Guns that dont shoot well are traded. You have better odds buying new. My first rebarreled 243win didnt shoot well as it came from the well know custom smith. Turned out to be a bedding problem they didnt catch after 2 extra trips back.The barrel shot well,average under MOA, but not benchrest accuracy i was looking for. After putting the old factory barrel back on. Put the gun in the rack, sold it.

[atblis]

never mind

[ranger335v]

"Have you ever bought or hand a custom rifle that simply would not shoot with any powder/primer or bullet?"

That's a pretty broad question. I've never had anything that "would not shoot", how well they shot is another question. A great .44/40 and .30/30 wouldn't be much for a .22-250. What level of accuracy are you actually asking about when you say "shoot"?

[ReloaderFred]

Yes. I have one now that has to go back to the factory for a new barrel. When they phosphated the rifle, they evidently forgot to plug the bore and it looks like sandpaper the entire length. It won't shoot for beans and I've never gotten a clean patch from it, even after spending over an hour trying.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[LeonCarr]

Not a custom rifle, but a buddy of mine bought a brand new Ruger No. 1 single shot in .25-06 that would do no better than three inch five shot groups at 100 yards with handloads or factory ammo. He sent it back to the factory after checking everything on the rifle (scope rings, good scope, good factory ammo, etc), and they said nothing was wrong with it and that it "met their accuracy standards". We loaded what seemed like a few thousand combinations, and the three inch groups came from rounds that were trimmed to uniform length, weight sorted, sorted for neck wall thickness, neck sized, all powder charges weighed and equal, and bullets seated with a floating sleeve straight line bullet seater. That rifle was the biggest tomato stake I had ever seen in 25 years of shooting centerfire rifles. He traded it in on a Remington 700 BDL in .25-06, put the same Leupold 3.5-10 that was on the Ruger on the Remington, and the same handloads went into 5/8 inch at 100 yards.

I had heard that Ruger No. 1s were finicky, but that rifle was the worst.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

[OrangePwrx9]

About 10 years ago I bought a new Rem. 700 BDL sporter in .222 Rem. I also bought dies and a hundred fresh nickel cases (Nosler I think) and proceeded to resize and load them normally. Used modest loads...not starters, but close. Wanted the nickel cases to avoid any mixup with .223.

Put the gun through a break-in with shooting and cleaning. As long as I shot loads from fresh cases, the gun seemed easily capable of .75" groups at 100 yd. When I started putting the same loads into the once fired cases, the groups immediately doubled in size. At the time I surmised that the chamber might be out-of-round.

Put it in the closet with the plan of either taking it back to Remington or getting it rebarreled. It's still there.
Bob

[Randy1911]

I bought a Springfield 1911 that the grouping was so bad at 25 yards I could have done better by throwing a hand full for rocks at the target. I sent it back to Springfield and they replaced the barrel. It shot 2" groups after that.

[Chamacat]

I feel that when I say "Shoot"..I'm talking about one-holeing...It shouldn't matter if it's a 22lr to a 375 H&H Magnum...It was always beyond me that as soon as one get's a new rifle there is alot comes into play to make the rifle "Shoot" as well as it can be shot..The reason that I made this post is that I wonder how many "Lemon" firearms that are out there being produced daily..I understand that there is a human factor involed with any production...I had bought a .223 in a XXX...It was a compact rifle...I tried and tried to get the little rifle to shoot at 100 yards..I took care from day one seasoning the barrell...I loaded hand loads from a 100 or more different configurations of "Try This"...I finall ygot the rifle to one-hole once...I took the same everthing out another day and it would not repeat itself..So I finally got sick and tired of me new .223 and dumped it...just like above..that's when they are traded...I'm buy no means as accomplished a hand loader that some of you are...but don't you think that I should have hit the sweet spot more than once?..And when I did hit it why wouldn't the rifle shoot the same weather it was next day or next month?...So I bought another .223 off gunsamerica and will start over again...Thanks

[Chamacat]

Yep...I'll even go one step further...I would think that there is alot more "Lemon" rifles out there than we know about...How many times have you been at the range and the shooter next to you ..says that's good enough for me....When in fact when you happen to look at his 100 yard target would by no ways be good enough for you...It's probably the guy that only shoot's once twice a year..but what do I know..lol

[Sidewinder72]

I bought a Ruger 10-22 for my son. You could not shoot a 8x10 paper at 25 yards. Sent back to factory for repairs. Got it back and was shooting so far to right you could not set sights. End up putting scope on it. You can not tell me every gun is shot for accuracy, just for function.

[ranger335v]

"I had heard that Ruger No. 1s were finicky, but that rifle was the worst."

Ruger #1s often need a bit of barrel tuning to shoot well. Not difficult but it's very helpful, that fore end wood and the barrel need to be made right.



"I feel that when I say "Shoot"..I'm talking about one-holeing..."

Ah....with more than one shot? At 100 yards? That's pretty hopeful. :what: Not many factory rifles will do that, not after the first shot anyway. In fact, not many customs will shoot that well at ranges passed 50 yards! :)



"You can not tell me every gun is shot for accuracy, just for function."

That's true for most, don't know of anyone who says otherwise.

[Strongbad]

Well, you said a "custom" rifle. So I'm going off of that. It depends on what was custom about it and what kind of gun it is. A custom hunting rifle for me should deliver atleast 3/4" groups or less. If it's a benchrest gun, it had better put them in the same hole.

In the case of a custom hunting rifle built by a reputable mfg, I'll use HCR for example since they're a local outfit, I'd take it back. However, a place like HCR wouldn't give it to you in the first place unless it delivered excellent accuracy. That's what you're paying a lot of the extra money for... no doubts/peace of mind.

For benchrest, obviously it's the same but in my mind it's a little different. Frequently with benchrest, it's not a situation where you look at gunsmith and say "I want a 30 BR" and then come back when it's all over. You're involved in the process from start to finish. You decide the barrel you want, you decide the specs on the chamber, you're deciding what it's going to be fed, etc. so you're partly responsible. Now, if you've got everything tailored properly, and you know your technique is solid and the gun isn't delivering to your expectations, you take it back to the gunsmith and figure it out together. Those kinds of rigs go through such rigorous inspections throughout the build process though, anything that is a flaw in materials will generally be caught and corrected.

[Chamacat]

I don'y know how to post links..But..Field and Stream just released their top 11 rifles outa of the box accuracy..for 2007and 2008 I believe..I had always heard that remington rifles were best out of the box...Even Remington boast this themselves...So thinking that they had several out of eleven they only had one...Carl

And yes when I say custom rifles..to me that's any rifle other than out of the box...

So I'm thinking that it is safe to say that most people would expect a new out of the box rifle to shoot .750 groups...

Which brings us to a new question...What about the quality control in these gun factory's? have any of you been to a rifle manufacture?..Where you impressed?..Or were you saying to yourself that you would not purchase a rifle from these guy's...just a thought..

[243winxb]

Same here-A brand new Ruger No. 1 single shot in 22-250 that would do no better than three inch five shot groups at 100 yards with factory ammo. Then 2 more used ones 243win. & 22-250. All with heavy varmint barrels. A special forearm hanger is said to help accuracy. Then a 77 bolt action 270win. very light thin barrrel, tried bedding, free floading, nothing worked, did get it under 2" average tho. Saw a rebarreled #1 in 7mm mag , shooting bullet hole while breaking in the new bbl. So maybe it is all in the barrel?? Never did like hammer forged bbls. Some brands now come with hammer forged chambers also. Not for me.

[NCsmitty]

Please don't be offended Chamacat, but your 300 RUM does develop a lot of free recoil. Is it possible that your technique may be compromised by the heavy recoil and is causing you to flinch? Have you had anyone else shoot the rifle to get a consensus on it's ability to group?
Flinching can happen to anyone, including me, but it can be overcome with practice.
As I said, don't be offended, as we are here to toss ideas around to try to solve an issue. You can buy different components until the cows come home, and never get your desired results.
We need to cover all the bases, and possibly flinching is part of the problem.



NCsmitty

[Galil5.56]

Have you ever bought or hand a custom rifle that simply would not shoot with any powder/primer or bullet?...No matter how much you tried and invested in componet's and know-how?

No, because the whole idea when I had my custom heavy varmint rifle built was for extreme accuracy and custom fit to me. If it had not shot to my expectations (told to the builder prior to its start) it would have been "fixed" till it did. This is not to say that the rifle shoots equally well with all ammo I make, but even the worst is pretty damn good.

Reasonable accuracy expectations vary from shooter-to-shooter and the depth of your wallet. extracting a smidge more accuracy profoundly/exponentially adds to the cost. I really believe most people would be well served with some of the offerings from Remington and Savage concerning very good mechanical accuracy, but when you buy a custom rifle that had clear expectations stated up front, you didn't pay for excuses or IMO tolerate sub standard performance... I can buy crap like that all day for 1/5 the cost.

[Offfhand]

several

[243winxb]

In 2009 saw 3 guns that were not correct. 1. New Savage 260 misfired, returned for repair. 2.New T/C 30-06 excessive headspace. 3. T/C Muzzle loader, barrel sitting tilted to the left, so much that the flash hole was way to high, poor Ignition, cause, the dove tail cut on the bottom of the barrel was at the wrong place/degree. All missed by quality control.

[ranger335v]

"So I'm thinking that it is safe to say that most people would expect a new out of the box rifle to shoot .750 groups..."

Okay. Yeah, they would "expect" that. And, for a custom in most small calibers, that's reasonable. But for any varminter caliber that's not a one holer either. I've had MANY five shot .224 groups of .75 MOA @ 100 with 3 or even 4 distinct holes! Of course if the caliber had been .30 or larger they would have been one holers. But, as a practical matter, obtaining that level of accuracy with a heavy recoiling rig puts as much or more demand on the shooter as the rifle/ammo/scope/rest/bench.

Far more sub-MOA groups are "fired" on the net than on the range.

[hillbillydelux]

Stainless Ruger mini-14. Had it for about 3 months trying to get it to shoot better than 6" at 100 yards. That was the most inaccurate firearm I have ever shot. Ever.

[04whtrubicon]

I have a Sako 75 7mag with a nice leupold on top, I was getting 3 inch groups with it. It wasnt good. A friend grabed it and put down a few sub inch groups. I was humbled, but I got better groups later knowing i was the problem.

[243winxb]

Mini-14 SS- that reminds me. Brand new gun sitting on the rack for months. Some one pulled the trigger so that the firing pin was forward. The bold could not be pulled back. The firing pin had rusted into the bolt face. Minis good for 3" groups with FMJBT, better with good bullets, maybe 1 1/4" average.

[Afy]

I had one built a couple of years ago, that would just refuse to shoot. Re-barreled 4 times, would not shoot. Got a refund, bought a Savage with a LW barrel, havent looked back.

I now shoot more sub-MoA groups at the range, than on the net. ;)

[Blackrock]

I just traded in a Savage mod 11 in 22-250 that wouldn't perform the way I liked. It was good out to 150 yds but not reliable enough at 250+ for Pdog sized targets.

[R.W.Dale]

in this day and age It's too easy to get a gun that'll shoot.


If I end up with one that isn't up to my standards in a couple three range trips it gets liquidated post haste.

[Clarence]

I've never owned a custom-built rifle that wouldn't shoot 5-shot groups under 1/2" at 100 yds, but all these rifles except 1 were varmint rifles built by benchrest gunsmiths. I've seen "custom" rifles that wouldn't shoot but they were usually put together by shadetree gunsmiths using cheap barrels.

The term "Custom" can encompass just about any gun that has been modified by someone.

[oldgold]

I bought a Savage 110 in 30-06 that was probably the worst shooter Savage has ever put out. My best handloads would only shoot a little less than 3". Just my luck.

Found a barrel at a gunshow, screwed it on and after sighting it in it put five rounds in 0.4"

I also had a Ruger Mini-14 that wouldn't reliably hit a 15" square target at 100 yards.

[Chamacat]

Yep...I'm new to this site and plan on staying here..I'm also new to handloading...I'm also finding out there's more to it than just putting a shell in the chamber..There is so much to know..Not only is it simply reloading shells..It's the depth at with reloading is performed...And it's not just a rifle..It's the depth at which a rifle performs..And how all the componet's of said rifle have to come together in Sync..And yes there's the human factor of the shooter...I came to this site to seek knowledge...And the people here are very courteous..and helpful...I will never be offended by anyones advice...I'm the one that asked the question..Thanks Again ...

[adobewalls]

A long time ago I bought a Ruger M-77 in 7 mag. that did good to hold 4" groups at a 100. I took the rifle to a gunsmith who then free floated the barrel and bedded the action. The gun became a 2" per 100 shooter. Later I started reloading for it and actually got it down to about 1" per 100.

It was a good gun, but took some work to get there. About 10 years later I bought a Remington Sendero also in 7 mag that out of the box shot those same reloads just under an 1" at a 100.

[ClayinAR]

I bought an FN PBR in 308. Trigger job, etc. Never got under 1.5". Numerous loads, bullets, powders, no joy.
Sold it, bought a Rem 700 Police 308 24". Same thing, no joy. Sold it.
In the meantime my Sako Finnbear 7mm Mag (pre Garcia) still shoots 5/8" to 3/4" after about 45 years. Hunted every year.
Just bought a like new SAKO Finnbear 300 Win Mag (also pre Garcia). I have not shot it yet.
CC

[Jesse Heywood]

A lot of good advice here.

If you are buying a used gun remember that most people will not sell their best shooting gun. Also, learn everything you can about bore condition so you can thoroughly inspect the bore.

If you buy a new gun, first do your homework and learn what to expect before you buy the gun. Don't buy a mini-14 and expect it to shoot 1" groups. But if you buy a new gun that should be shooting better than what it does, call the manufacturer and let them know. Most will fix the problem.

I have never bought a gun that couldn't shoot better than I can, but that's not saying much. I just love to shoot.

[evan price]

Had a NEF Handi-rifle (I know, hardly a precision custom rifle) that the chamber looked like the cutter was chattering when they cut the chamber. Even with factory ammo the cases split and it never shot worth a crap. Returned it, and they sent a new gun which was fine.

[stork]

I've had one. It started out as a blueprinted 700, 7mmIHMSA in a 27" Schneider match barrel. Smithed by a well respected benchrest gunsmith about 25 years ago. The guy who had it built had two rifles built at the same time and quit shooting less than 2 years later. I wound up buying both of them 15 years ago and concentrated on the XP100 223 Imp also with a 27" Schneider match bbl.

The 223 shot very well (.2's & .3's @ 100 yds). The 7 never shot better than 1 1/2" @ 100 yds. I finally had it rechambered to 7-08 Imp 5 years ago with no better accuracy. I had written off ever getting it to shoot until for some unknown reason I tried RE19. It went from a regular 1 1/2" gun (occasional 1" groups that weren't repeatable) @ 100 yds to a 1/2" gun @ 100 yds. This with the same bullets (120, 139, 140, 150, 154) that wouldn't shoot with varget,4350, 4831,h450, h414, 4895 and a few others.

I had given up on this one & was trying to decide on caliber for rebarreling until I tried the RE19.

FWIW