Quest for MOA

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Dean1818

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I purchased a yugo mauser 24/47 a few years back and have really enjoyed shooting it

The 8 mm hits like a ton of bricks and could probably humanely take any north american game animal

My Bison Armory 6.8 AR15 is amazing with sub moa

I wanted to get my Mauser to this level as well

Action 1

Bed the stock

Action 2

Add scope mounts and 3x9 optic

Action 3

Handload

To this point, my groups were averaging 1.5 moa

I decided 3 weeks ago to take some additional steps

Action 4

Buy and install a Bold replcement trigger, to get rid of rough military trigger

Action 5

Load closer to the lands, increasing the OAL


Well..... I tried it out this weekend

I used 6 rounds of older reloads to foul the barrel (shorter OAL) and the group printed around 1.2 to 1.3

At this point....I'm thinking.... I got this MOA thing!

NOT!

My new longer rounds printed at nearly 3 inches........ Ugh


Any thoughts ? Anything else I should try? Should I call it good?
 
I'd call it good. 1.3 MOA from a rifle made over 40 years ago as a general-issue military rifle is phenomenal.

John
 
as you discovered, loading closer to the lands does not automatically result in better groups.

i agree with jshirley. you've probably squeezed all you can out of this mauser.
 
There are a number of things that go into shooting sub MOA. Trigger, barrel quality, correct ammo, proper action (square, etc). There's a reason match grade barrels sell for so much money.

You're trying to get a plow horse to win The Kentucky Derby. If you want to shoot MOA, sell the Yugo and get a CZ with a set trigger. I have two (a 453 Varminter .22 and a 527 in .204 Ruger) and both shoot sub 1/2".
 
I'd call it good. 1.3 MOA from a rifle made over 40 years ago as a general-issue military rifle is phenominal.

John
I agree with John. Considering what you have and what it was designed for you have done an excellent job with it. Be happy and choot it! :)

Ron
 
There are a number of things that go into shooting sub MOA. Trigger, barrel quality, correct ammo, proper action (square, etc). There's a reason match grade barrels sell for so much money.

You're trying to get a plow horse to win The Kentucky Derby. If you want to shoot MOA, sell the Yugo and get a CZ with a set trigger. I have two (a 453 Varminter .22 and a 527 in .204 Ruger) and both shoot sub 1/2".
I would say most of the mil surplus are "plow horses" but

It was what looked like a pristine barrel so I had to try.......

I know there are plenty of rifles that I could have bought to get MOA.....
I have other much more expensive weapons.

In fact, my Bison Armory is SO accurate, its almost getting boring to me

I like the challenge of getting THIS rifle to the MOA level


I may tweak the load .1 grains up and down to see if it helps, after I load to original OAL

I am also going to lock it in a sled to see what it will do..... The range had some funky rests.......
 
You've taken the rifle as far as you can without a chop, cut or rebuild. You still might find a reload that get's you to MOA. 1.3 is OK, it is what it is. Enjoy the old warhorse.
 
Anything else I should try?


Do a Creighton Audette ladder test, to find the optimum load. Easy and fast to do - may result in better scores.
 
I am not sure what the creighton ladder is

But I did what I call a ladder at .2 increments up and down to get where I am at
 
Something else to check is the crown. I have a mauser sporter that was all over the place and on the verger of being rebarreled. I recrowned it and the groups dropped to the 1" range.

The ladder test or the other one which is more of a round robin should help find a load for it.

The throat on mine is so long that I can't seat bullets in the same zip-code as the lands, let-alone just off of them. Even with long bullets like the Nosler Partitions which happen to be the most accurate I've found out of this one. One step I take that has made a significant difference in accuracy and precision is to add a medium-ish crimp using a lee FCD. On any rifles I have that have very long and possibly oversized throats/leades, crimping them has always increased accuracy and consistency. I don't know how the 24/47 throats are, but it sounds like you can seat out close to the lands and still have enough of the shank for proper neck tension.

Start playing around with OAL and other factors. It sounds like your gun likes your older reloads, so use them as the starting point. Let the gun tell you what it likes.

All that said, 1.3 MOA is pretty dang good out of a 60+ year old milsurp.

ETA: Nosler doesn't make a 180 gr CC. It's 200 gr. I've got 2 boxes of them, but haven't had a chance to load them. I also have a box of 180 gr ballistic tips that I haven't been able to try out yet.

Matt
 
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Anything else I should try?


Do a Creighton Audette ladder test, to find the optimum load. Easy and fast to do - may result in better scores.
Yeah, as mentioned you can crown. However, sooner or later you will cross the point of diminishing returns. You can replace the barrel too but you will never make a silk purse from a sow's ear. I think you have done a great job but I also think you are about at it is as good as it gets.

Ron
 
Oops I mean ballistic tip 180

My 6.8 uses the CC version


I think I will vary the lad by .1 up and down with the old OAL, and practice with the new trigger.....

Hopefully I can get it closer


How much does a crown job cost? Can someone do it themselves?
 
You can get a crowning tool from brownells or midwayusa. You can get the tool with different inserts that allow you to do multiple calibers. I have a k98 that loves the 180 ballistic tip and imr4064. I am getting sub 1" groups at 75 yards with irons so I bet it would do better if I had a scope.
 
Ammo is the number one factor in accuracy. By far more important than anything else. Try some match ammo. My RRA AR will shoot 0.4" at 100 for 5 shots from the bench with match-grade ammo. With mil-spec stuff, definitely groups open up more than that.
 
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