hickskateboarder
Member
whats goin on men (and women),
new to the site but not to shooting, had a gun in my hand for at least the past 20 years. i've heard good things about this forum, so i'm hoping yins can help me.
BACKGROUND:
My buddy got me into long range shooting with 22's. he has a Savage Mkii heavy barrel, and the thing is a blast to shoot at a 3 inch dinger at 200 yds. as long as you know how to account for wind, you can hit it pretty much every time. so i wanted my own accurate .22. i have a Marlin 17VS, beautiful gun (matte stainless barrel, gray laminate stock) and will hold better groups than i can shoot. killed more critters than i can count with that gun. so naturally, i thought a new xt-22vr, with the heavy barrel and a nice 40x scope would outshoot my buddy's savage, so i bought one.
THE PROBLEM: when i first shot the rifle i was horribly dissappointed with the accuracy. it was freezing cold out as i bought it right after Christmas, and i thought maybe it just need broken in and shot in nice weather. so over the winter i put some rounds through it just to get that barrel worn in, and waited for the nice weather. something i noticed, when tightening the rear action screws to 15 IN-LBS, the screw proceeds up through the action and hits the bolt, keeping it from moving. so i had to remove about 1/8" off the end of the screw so i could torque it properly without locking up my bolt. also, for those of you without one, the front screw goes into a mount that is dove tailed into the bottom of the barrel a few inches in front of the action. its the loosest dove tail i've ever seen in my life. upon tightening it one time, i bent the edges of the dovetail from the barrel and had to tap it with a hammer to get the mount to hold again....
when spring came and i tried shooting at 100 yds, i didn't even keep all of the rounds on a piece of notebook paper. at 50 yards, i'm lucky to get 4" groups. i've tried every type of ammo i can get my hands on (blazer bulk, winchester bulk, winchester m22, federal bulk, federal auto match, cci stingers, cci velocitors, cci standard velocity, cci minimags, cci quiet 22, aguila supermaximumhypervelocity, aguila sniper subsonic 60 gr, wolf match, and others i've forgotten), my buddy with the savage didn't believe it could shoot that bad and thought it was me, so i let him shoot it, at 50 yds he was shooting the same 4" groups (i'm the one the Army gave an Expert Rifle badge...).
thought maybe it was the scope, so i took the scope off the model 700 300 win mag (knowing if the kick of the 300WM didn't knock the scope off zero, i could throw the 22 if i wanted and it would be fine) and put it on the xt-22 to no avail. we've tried different torque settings on the action bolts, again to no avail. i've heard horror stories of the barrel not being rifled the whole way on marlins ever since remington bought them, but mine appears to be fine, no dings or anything. casings show no sign of a bad chamber. crown looks perfect, barrel is completely free floated.
no idea what is wrong. this thing stumps me. i think i could make a .22 with a hammer and 1/4" tubing and shoot better groups. i'm sending it back to marlin to have a look at in as soon as i receive the shipping label from them, but i have heard that people have sent rifles back for repairs 3 times with it not being fixed. so i ask you: any ideas? anything i should look for?
like i said, i'm usually pretty good with guns, but this thing has me stumped.
sorry for the long post, but i wanted to get it all out there. hopefully ur boss is off ur back long enough you can get back to me. haha!
thanks for any replies guys, have a good one!
new to the site but not to shooting, had a gun in my hand for at least the past 20 years. i've heard good things about this forum, so i'm hoping yins can help me.
BACKGROUND:
My buddy got me into long range shooting with 22's. he has a Savage Mkii heavy barrel, and the thing is a blast to shoot at a 3 inch dinger at 200 yds. as long as you know how to account for wind, you can hit it pretty much every time. so i wanted my own accurate .22. i have a Marlin 17VS, beautiful gun (matte stainless barrel, gray laminate stock) and will hold better groups than i can shoot. killed more critters than i can count with that gun. so naturally, i thought a new xt-22vr, with the heavy barrel and a nice 40x scope would outshoot my buddy's savage, so i bought one.
THE PROBLEM: when i first shot the rifle i was horribly dissappointed with the accuracy. it was freezing cold out as i bought it right after Christmas, and i thought maybe it just need broken in and shot in nice weather. so over the winter i put some rounds through it just to get that barrel worn in, and waited for the nice weather. something i noticed, when tightening the rear action screws to 15 IN-LBS, the screw proceeds up through the action and hits the bolt, keeping it from moving. so i had to remove about 1/8" off the end of the screw so i could torque it properly without locking up my bolt. also, for those of you without one, the front screw goes into a mount that is dove tailed into the bottom of the barrel a few inches in front of the action. its the loosest dove tail i've ever seen in my life. upon tightening it one time, i bent the edges of the dovetail from the barrel and had to tap it with a hammer to get the mount to hold again....
when spring came and i tried shooting at 100 yds, i didn't even keep all of the rounds on a piece of notebook paper. at 50 yards, i'm lucky to get 4" groups. i've tried every type of ammo i can get my hands on (blazer bulk, winchester bulk, winchester m22, federal bulk, federal auto match, cci stingers, cci velocitors, cci standard velocity, cci minimags, cci quiet 22, aguila supermaximumhypervelocity, aguila sniper subsonic 60 gr, wolf match, and others i've forgotten), my buddy with the savage didn't believe it could shoot that bad and thought it was me, so i let him shoot it, at 50 yds he was shooting the same 4" groups (i'm the one the Army gave an Expert Rifle badge...).
thought maybe it was the scope, so i took the scope off the model 700 300 win mag (knowing if the kick of the 300WM didn't knock the scope off zero, i could throw the 22 if i wanted and it would be fine) and put it on the xt-22 to no avail. we've tried different torque settings on the action bolts, again to no avail. i've heard horror stories of the barrel not being rifled the whole way on marlins ever since remington bought them, but mine appears to be fine, no dings or anything. casings show no sign of a bad chamber. crown looks perfect, barrel is completely free floated.
no idea what is wrong. this thing stumps me. i think i could make a .22 with a hammer and 1/4" tubing and shoot better groups. i'm sending it back to marlin to have a look at in as soon as i receive the shipping label from them, but i have heard that people have sent rifles back for repairs 3 times with it not being fixed. so i ask you: any ideas? anything i should look for?
like i said, i'm usually pretty good with guns, but this thing has me stumped.
sorry for the long post, but i wanted to get it all out there. hopefully ur boss is off ur back long enough you can get back to me. haha!
thanks for any replies guys, have a good one!
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