I decided for no apparent reason to take my Stevens 200 in 223 to the range last Sunday. It's nothing "special", just the cheap version of the Savage, with a cheap Nikon buckmaster 3-9x. The rifle still has the factory crappy trigger in it. I DID stone the trigger a bit, and take a little tension off the spring, so now the creep is gone and it brakes at a measly 4 pounds...

This was the first group I've shot from this gun in over a year. 5 shots, from a cold, clean barrel...






The Load is 25.5 grs of OLD surplus BL-C(2), Hornady 50 gr Vmax, and Rem 7 1/2 primers.

Not at all bad for a cheap, ugly coyote gun...

there is a lot of beauty in an economical gun you can't hurt, does fine accuracy

only an accurate rifle is attractive to me...

Great shooting

I've had similar luck with BLC-2 in several Savages - stunning accuracy!

My Stevens 200 has been largely indifferent to the "standards" I feed other rifles. No real load work yet on it. Thanks for the prompting! I have two bottles of BLC-2 under the bench I'd forgotten about!

Mark

That is some nice shooting. I believe I have 7 Mod. 200s now.The repeatability on all ,out of the box, was just fine . The .223 is being rebarreled to 22PPC; not for lack of performance, I just want the 22PPC. roger

If that is a 100 yd target, I would say: "Great! don't change anything!"

Yessir,

5 shots, 100 yard target, cold clean barrel. I think I'm leaving this rifle exactly the way it is. It's coming out again with me next 2 days scouting for my daughters youth javelina hunt, just in case I can pop a coyote while I'm out there scouting.

I have one of those too. Mine is the new center feed style.

I also stoned my trigger, and took it down to 3-4 lbs.


At first it would only do 1 1/2 five shot groups at 100 yards. I was fine with that since I bought the rifle to re-bbl to 7.62x39... So I loaded up 200 rounds of 50g Sirras behind a medium charge of 4895 for plinking just for fun.

My powder measure was throwing some pretty sloppy charges and my bullet seting die was causing some serous run out but so what these are just for fun right?


Then one day I pulled the stock off for what ever reason and found that there was a little bit of the plastic stock folded over and sitting on the pillar. The action had been sitting on top of the plastic. I got out the jack knife, scrapped it off then put the gun together with the stock screws extra tight.

I then immediatly fired a group about the same size as yours.


So I made up some good hand loads with a Lee collet die, accurate powder charges and no bullet run out and cut that group size in half.


The limiting factor on my guns accuracy is not the BBL, action, loads ect.... it is the stock. It has too much flex through the wrist. I must hold it just right. If I do it will put 5 shots in a singe tight hole. If I don't hold it right it will shoot in the 1" range.


This is the most accurate gun I have ever owned but is difficult to shoot well, making it the perfect training tool for bench shooting.

try that puppy with 75 and 80 grain A Maxes...

or for punching paper, 75 grain HP Matches from Hornady..

they easily double the point blank range of that cartridge when you look at what that 50 grain V Max will give you..

yours is a beautiful utility rig...