On Target
by Butch Syme
There are some tell tale
sign on patterns that will tell you what is wrong with your rifle.
If your group is vertically stringing, it's a good chance that
your scope mounts or piller mounts are loose. These nuts and bolts
should be installed with some kind of thread locker to a set poundage.
It is more important to have scope mounts tightened equally. I
torque mine to 5 inch pounds. Your pillar mounts should be tightened
in a set order. First snug up the recoil lug bolt and then snug
up the rear tang bolt. Then tighten the the recoil lug bolt to
around 15 foot pounds. After that torque the rear tang to 5 foot
pounds. If your rifle has the third bolt, snug it up at this time.
( This bolt does NOT need to be torque'd).
If your rifle has horizontal stringing, then the shooter is probably
doing something wrong. Choppy trigger pull or ad cheek welds or
closing eyes at bullet release are some common mistakes. The cure
here is to SHOOT,SHOOT,SHOOT, and SHOOT some more.
If your rifle gets a nice circular group but its just larger than
one would like, then its bad bedding. Bad loads, or even a bad
crown. If you don't trust yourself in repairing these flaws, there
are alot of talented gunsmiths (amateurs included) that live in
the Elko area.
As far as thinking that your barrel is shot out, its an old theory
that is all but nonexistent today. In the late 50's and before
their was some barrels that would shoot out due to bad metal and
curing technics and super fast loads. If your rifle was built
after 1960, you probably can rule out bad barrels. BUT,, there
are the occasional "LEMONS"!!
Happy shooting,
P.S.: Write to us and send us your
hunting and shooting stories/pictures to NevadAdventureS, Po Box
8308, Spring Creek, Nevada 89815 or E-mail us!
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