So I put a scope on the new rifle today and went to the range with some factory federal powershok 175 grain shells. After boresighting I had trouble getting it on paper at 25 yards. Eventually I moved it even closer to 10 yds just to see what was happening. Every hole was severely oval shaped. I thought perhaps this was caused by the extremely close range but when I moved it back to 25 yards and covered the backboard with paper I found that it was still keyholing every time. Could this instability be caused by a bad crown or is there just not enough twist in the barrel to stabilize 175 grain bullets? (this would be a major bummer) The rifle is an older savage 110 and I suspect the twist is 1 in 9.5" just as they are today.

There is a good chance that the twist rate is not what it should be. The only way to be sure is to measure it. Using a brush or tight jag is not reliable. Use a .22 cleaning rod, find a brass nut that will screw on to the thread and file it into a shape that will engage in opposite grooves of the barrel. Measure the twist and, once you are sure what you have, decisions can be made from there. Before you know for sure, everything else is guessing. When the twist is known, the best bullet length and shape can be determined relatively easily.

Any condition of the crown that might cause keyholing at 10 yards would be so severe that a visual inspection would reveal the problem.....you're most likely dealing with a slow twist or a slow load that needs more velocity.

If I might offer my take on this, it could be a number of things. My first impression was it might be an ER Shaw barrel. If not, you need at least a 9" twist to stabilize the 175's. if that is OK, It is probably copper fouled very much. If you got all the copper out and can verify the barrel is clean, it is probably shot out. You need to make sure you are stabilizing those bullets. The above will all cause them to keyhole except for a bad crown; I don't think that would do it.

A 1/9.5" twist is plenty fast enough to stabilize 7mm Rem. Mag. 175-grain factory ammo unless there's something wrong with the ammo. You need to check to see what that twist actually is, and make sure that there's no patches of severe fouling or leading in the bore.

You might try some lighter bullets? If it shoots lighter bulets well it probably is a twist issue.

Hope you get it all sorted out.

X

I would start by cleaning with a good copper solvent and alternating with a good powder solvent. After that see if the bore is shot out. If thats o/k and still key holing try a lighter bullet.

Hey come on wait a minute !. Key holing at 10 Yd. ??. Even if the twist rate was WAY out of whack it shouldn't do that at that range !.

Federal 175 factory loads ? , key holing out of what new gun ?. 7 MM Rem mags are 100 - 180 grain wonders !. I've never heard of one even a worn out one key holing with factory loads !.

I'd be looking at a defective barrel or chamber bolt something else . Why would the crown be screwed up on a new gun ?. Who made this gun ?.Savage ?. They are normally a real reliable manufacture . No one can say for sure that every gun is top notch from any manufacture . A lemon escapes once in awhile from them all !. generally when tested it's caught and rejected though . Was this a " Brand New Gun " ?. Or New to you ?.

I would ask a qualified shooter to fire some stock rounds through it for you . See what he has to say about it . I'm not saying your not qualified or any thing like that !. Just do your self a favor and ask someone you trust or who is recommended at a range to paper punch a couple of groups for you .

That would be the first thing I would do , so as to ensure I wasn't part of the problem !. Then if it does it on the other person YOU KNOW it's the weapons fault !.

As usual my $ 0.0025 worth of input .

Shoot straight know your target . ...

I'm w/ Dr K here. Most 7mags are 1-9 or 1-9.5 & do fine w/ bullets to 175gr. I would look hard at that crown & last inch o fbbl. to see if you've got a burr or ding. That's the only thing I know that can make a good bullet do that. There is a pssability that your box of ammo is very bad, but I doubt that. Best way to tell there is try another brand.

Could it be tht the ammo is 264 Win mag and not 7 mag? that would make it key hole quickly.

Kedron,have no fear for I am here! I know what you are experiencing because I have experienced it too. YOUR BARREL IS SHOT OUT! I'll prove it to you.Remove the bolt and look down your action and barrel from the stock end(hold rifle towards light).You will notice 2 to 3 inches of your rifling missing ahead of your chamber.It's time for a new barrel.I've shot out 3 big seven barrels and saw the keyholes and felt the hangfires.

Terry,
I'm with you. The ammo could be mis-boxed. In a similar scenario, a hunting buddy bought a new Colt Light via the Internet marked 270 Win. He could not even hit the target at 50 yds. As it turned out, it is a mis-marked 30-06 barrel.

He attributed the soft shooting to "superior" stock design, initially.

Geoff

okay.. take the bolt out of the gun

put your calipers on the bullet and find the spot where it is .284..

take a bullet *****I WOULD PULL A BULLET*****

and try to stick the bullet in the muzzle.. if it goes in, there is a real problem with the barrel...

turn the bullet to mark a ring and put your calipers on it.

I suspect a bad barrel, not a problem with the loads

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
Kedron,have no fear for I am here! I know what you are experiencing because I have experienced it too. YOUR BARREL IS SHOT OUT! I'll prove it to you.Remove the bolt and look down your action and barrel from the stock end(hold rifle towards light).You will notice 2 to 3 inches of your rifling missing ahead of your chamber.It's time for a new barrel.I've shot out 3 big seven barrels and saw the keyholes and felt the hangfires.

Good point, I saw the new rifle but didn't see the older Savage. There could be just an issue of wear.

The 7mmRem mag has a very short barrel life.So does the 270WSM. I would not want to own a 7mm Ultra or STW.The 7mmRem mag can stand only about 70 or so max loaded rds before it loses its ability to stablize bullets(any bullet,seated however).

quote:

The 7mmRem mag can stand only about 70 or so max loaded rds before it loses its ability to stablize bullets(any bullet,seated however).

This is surprising. The barrel manufacturers in South Africa must know something about building 7mmRM barrels that the rest of the world does not. I rebarreled a customer's 7mmRM before the season because it would no longer hold under an inch and a half at 100. He has been loading 130gr HV bullets for almost 10 years and shoots for the venison market. Going by the primers he has purchased, the rifle has done somewhere between 4000 and 5000 shots. The new barrel has done 100 to 150 shots already.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
The 7mmRem mag has a very short barrel life.So does the 270WSM. I would not want to own a 7mm Ultra or STW.The 7mmRem mag can stand only about 70 or so max loaded rds before it loses its ability to stablize bullets(any bullet,seated however).

I disagree with your statement. Unlike the 264 Winchester, Remington's big 7 never developed a reputation as a barrel burner. Considering the number of them out there the survival rate is high. In retrospect I believe the 264's reputation is rather unfair too as any large capacity case, when fired hot and repeatedly as varmint hunters so often do, will cause throat erosion.
I routinely load my 7m/m to the maximum with 160 grain partitions and 13 years later it is no worse for wear. I followed all of the latest trends and reloaded according to what John Haviland (Deer & Big Game Rifles 1994) said. It didn't take long for me to figure out that H870 and H1000 weren't the best powders out there regardless of what that gun scribe said, so like 1000's of others I developed my own "pet loads". My point you're wondering? That trigger on my rifle has been pulled well over 1300 times and it still shoots MOA or less.

NO WAY HOZAY!

We are talking about one used Savage 110 that happens to be chambered in 7m/m Rem mag, and one bad barrel in said calibre does not make a cartridge a "barrel burner."
My model 70 in 7m/m Rem has been a stellar performer and remains a favorite. Fed a steady diet of of 66.0 grains of V-V N160 and Nosler's #16327, it is fast and accurate. That's all one could ask for in a firearm that costs less than $1000.00

Kedron, Lyman's 46th edition says your Savage 110 does indeed have a 1-9.5" twist. Given that you're located in Michigan I'll bet a beer you rifles former owner used it as a varmint rig and, more likely than not, didn't give it much TLC. Consider paying someone with a "foul out" system to clean your rig. If key holes continue to be a problem consider a new barrel, or trading for another 7m/m magnum.
As opposed to what others say, Remington's big 7 caught on and with good reason -it's a whale of a calibre offering the most punch without penalty. Those who say otherwise don't know Remington's big 7 as well as they think they do.

only70 rounds thru a 7Rem Mag before it loses it stability???? ROFLMAO. Another candidate for stupidest statement of the year.

I don't know that copper fouling would cause keyholing. Lousy groups, but keyholing?? Of course, try cleaning it really well but I'm kinda wondering if the ten yards was too close. Once you got on the paper, did you try any shooting at distance? Is it still keyholing at 100 yards? And too, the rifle may just dislike that particular bullet. Have you tried some others?
And for what it's worth, there's only been about a gazillion rifles checked for twist with a tight patch or brush to say it doesn't work. Another case of why do it easy when, with a little effort, you can make it very difficult.

Shootaway, 70 rounds and it's done? Come on dude. Maybe 70 in 3 minutes.

quote:

Originally posted by stillbeeman:
only70 rounds thru a 7Rem Mag before it loses it stability???? ROFLMAO. Another candidate for stupidest statement of the year.

nah.. but a good runner up...

dumbest statement of the year

"more game is lost due to bullets being too hard and not expanding than anything else"..

ah, the game is LOST, how did they figure out if the "hard bullet" caused it...

btw, POOR SHOOTING is the leader for lost game

The 7mm rem mag is not known for being a barrel burner. As magnumized as the 7 rem is, it really isn't much hotter than a 270 win, and we all hate having to replace our 270 win barrels all the time......

My guess is the twist in the rifling is not tight enough to keep the bullets stable or a really bad cut on the rifling. Try a different load (150 gr maybe) and see what happens, a little easier than trying to determine twist. Fouling can cause some pressure issues, but shouldn't keyhole.

I know that rifles are expensive and people want to believe their barrels will last a very long time,but this is not the case for such calibers.I think people who sell and repair guns to people who are on limited budget would not want to tell the truth about barrel wear for fear of chasing customers away.Many reloaders try and push their loads to the highest velocities and when this happens barrel life is really short.The truth however is that you will be missing 2 to 3 inches of your rifling after only 70 hunting rds.I cannot see a big seven barrel going double or triple that and not looking like a shotgun barrel for a quarter of its length.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
The truth however is that you will be missing 2 to 3 inches of your rifling after only 70 hunting rds.I cannot see a big seven barrel going double or triple that and not looking like a shotgun barrel for a quarter of its length.

The exact same thing happened to me.

I rectified the problem by hacksawing off the barrel as close to the chamber as possible. Then I turned it around and welded the muzzle end back on and to my surprise - it shot even more accurately! After firing about 9000 rounds I looked down the barrel and new rifling had grown where previously there was none.

quote:

And for what it's worth, there's only been about a gazillion rifles checked for twist with a tight patch or brush to say it doesn't work.

Beeman,
Believe what you will, I have been checking twist rates with the proper instrument for 14 years. In the lead up to the SA hunting season this year, I checked at least 10 or 12 rifles. Not one was what the owner thought it was, after he checked it with a jag and rag. Some were a half inch off and some were up to 2 inches off. At a competition in SA earlier this year, several 308 shooters swore that their barrels were 1:13" or 1:14". When properly measured, all were 1:12". Checking the twist rate with a jag and rag is like measuring with a bad scale. You would not know the result is wrong unless you measure with a good scale.

Toadhead,

did you try this?

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
okay.. take the bolt out of the gun

put your calipers on the bullet and find the spot where it is .284..

take a bullet *****I WOULD PULL A BULLET*****

and try to stick the bullet in the muzzle.. if it goes in, there is a real problem with the barrel...

turn the bullet to mark a ring and put your calipers on it.

I suspect a bad barrel, not a problem with the loads

quote:

Originally posted by stillbeeman:
only70 rounds thru a 7Rem Mag before it loses it stability???? ROFLMAO. Another candidate for stupidest statement of the year.

He's 12 years old and has never owned a rifle, so what do you expect? Even given his age and inexperience though, he has a real shot at the Darwin award.
------------------------------------------------
"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

The supreme specimen I am!

wow toadhead, thats exelent news! my only problem is that i dont want to wait for the results after 9000 rounds.
i was wondering if you used faster and hotter loads will that speed up the prosess? or do you need to use squib loads to get quicker results?
anyway i will try each on a couple of rifles and post the results
greg

It'd be hard for copper fouling to cause keyholing, but I've seen hard carbon fouling build up in the throat of a barrel to the point of constricting bullets passing through it to less than bore diameter. And in old stored military rifles (not the case here), I've seen dried, hardened cosmoline completely fill the rifling grooves so it looked worn out to a slightly rippled smoothbore, and last this way through several range sessions and normal cleanings. This barrel needs a very thorough cleaning before pronouncing it shot out, IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
The 7mmRem mag has a very short barrel life.So does the 270WSM. I would not want to own a 7mm Ultra or STW.The 7mmRem mag can stand only about 70 or so max loaded rds before it loses its ability to stablize bullets(any bullet,seated however).

Ruger doesn't know this either, evidently. I bought a No. 1B in 7mm Rem. Mag. the very first year that the No. 1's were on the market. This rifle has never had a round of factory ammo through it, only handloads. I put a Leupold 2X-7X variable on it when I got it home, and the very first time I took it to the range, it put three shots into 1" at 200 yards three different times before I took it home. The load was 66 grains of N205 with the Remington Corelokt 175-grain bullets. MV of this load chronographed 3070 FPS from that 26" barrel.

Now, I've had that rifle for over 35 years, and during that time, it has fired a few rounds, much more than 70, but perhaps no more than 1000. Yet it will still shoot 3ea., 175-grain bullets into 1" at 200 yards. Since N205 is gone, I find I have to use 70 grains of IMR 7828 to get the same performance I used to get from 66 grains of N205. This includes MV and group size. In addition, I have switched to using 175-grain Noslers for hunting, and 175-grain Sierra PSPBT's for targets.

BTW, the bullets still "fly point" on for as far as I can keep them on paper! And, I just looked thru the barrel, and NO RIFLING is missing! In addition, the whole length of the bore looks as pristine and shiney as it did in 1970! Since we can expect the bore of the M1 rifle to last over 5000 rounds of M2 Ball, I would be astounded if the 7mm Rem. Mag. would not last over at least 1000 rounds. Maybe 2000.

Where the hell did you get that 70 rounds BS??

I'll have to raise the flag on all of you. When it comes to hunting and rifles I am DEAD SERIOUS. I'll have to PERSIST in seeing that you all get a SHOOTING EDUCATION.

quote:

I am DEAD SERIOUS. I'll have to PERSIST in seeing that you all get a SHOOTING EDUCATION.

ok.....BUT i CAN ASSURE YOU THAT IT SURE TO HELL AIN'T GOING TO COME FROM YOU.....YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT!

Back to the Focus point !. I re read " Kedron's " original post . I thought he said New Rifle ?.

The rifle is New to Him but an older model savage 110 , correct !. Then either the barrel is bent or shot out period !. If something like this key holes at 10 25 or even 50 Yd. , then it's not the loads . Unless as some one mentioned earlier the wrong ammo was used . But factory Loads ?. I would have to say the chances of that happening is like NEVER !. Liability is an UGLY Law Suit !. No manufacture is EVER going to mislabel ammo or powder or projectiles !.

Did Kedron purchase Ammo ? or did some one give it to him ?. Did it come from the previous owner of the gun ?.

I don't like to disagree with anyone about how many rounds a particular weapon will puke out accurately . I can how ever say for the #3 , 7 MM Rem Mags that I own . ( I like them ! )
Even my oldest Commercial Mauser 3000 L still shoots sub minute of angle with # 5 to a group , firing about a minute between shots .

I shoot just a guess but around 300 - 500 rounds out of most all of my weapons a year . I've owned that 3000 L since 63 . You do the math !.

Oh there were a couple of years there that it never got fired at all . Because of a south east Asian conflict I had to attend !.

Super fast 3500 - 4200 FPS like .204 and the others throat barrels much faster ...

Some where I'll find that article from Springfield Armory pertaining to WW2 Garands barrel life . 20 K rounds if memory serves me !.

I was surprised !. Remember most ( U S Military ) any weapon that shot under 1.5 " at 100 yd. were put into service as Sniper rifles . Under 2.5 " at a 100 yd. were service grade . Anything above 2.5 " were rejected !.

Least wise that's what I've read over the past 40 years !. ...

If the rifling seems to be in good condition - shiny and smooth and by that observation you have eliminated obvious causes such as almost no rifling at all, a blow ring near the muzzle(from shooting with fluid in the bore), fouling so heavy it swages the bullet down and so on, keyholing has only one cause. The bullet is unstable. Instability is caused by insufficient stability factor or something destabilising the bullet as it exits the muzzle or on the way to the target. If we assume that the grass on the range is lower than the line of flight to the target and the crown has no obvious defects, it points to the fact that not enough spin is imparted to the bullet. There are only two reasons for this: The bullet core is slipping or the twist rate is too slow. Core slippage is unlikely with a Speer Grand Slam bullet. The twist rate can be measured. This is not difficult. Check it and let us know what you find.

Even if there are several inches of rifling missing ahead of the chamber, a bullet the length of a 175gr 7mm will not keyhole. The rifle will just not group well. Shorter bullets may keyhole at close range but will settle down and just shoot big groups at further distances.

Sorry, I didn't get a chance to reply sooner. The savage is in fact only new to me. It's an older 110,
well before the accutrigger. The rifling seems to be quite distinct for the entire length of the barrel. I will try jeffeossos suggestions as soon as I get some more shells. If the rifles barrel is in fact bad I'm glad I ran some factory shells through it before I bought dies and brass because the replacement barrel will be a .338. Thanks for helping me get this figured out guys. If the barrel checks out I'm going to try some lighter bullets next weekend.

shootaway

If you want someone to believe a 7Mag barrel has rifling washed out after 70 rounds, go somewhere else where people don;t know better. I have an old Sako Classic I've hunted with since 1980 or so that has had 3000 through it- still shoots 3/4 in. and shows no sign of snake skin in front of the chamber. If you can't make an intelligent remark to a legitimate question, STFU.