I have an interesting problem with a "Kimber-ized" 96 Mauser. When I bore sight this rifle by looking down the barrel at a 100 yard target and lining up the crosshairs on the same target this rifle shoots about 26" low and 14" left.
(This same boresighting method puts me within 5" of the bullseye with all other rifles.)
The groups out of this rifle are not so hot either and the crown looks fine. I can't see a bend to the barrel but I have a suspicion its there what else would cause this?
I am about to pull the barrel and find another 6.5x55 barrel for it.
This rifle is my 7 year olds "hog rifle" that he is dying to kill a hog with so I better do something to fix it!

You might look at the mounts if the rifle was shooting before.
If not it might not be drilled straight.

plainsman thanks but I've been thru that aleady and re drilled and tapped the reciever. The real trouble is it doesn't shoot anywhere close to where the barrel points.
Like I said before when boresighted perfectly it shoots about 30" away from where the bore is lined up on.
I'm just trying to ring out the bugs to get my son to start shooting it so I don't have much history with it.
Anybody have a small ring Mauser take off barrel in 6.5 Swede they would unload cheap?

You might also try your bore sighting method with the barreled action out of the stock. You just might be suprised at what you see. I bet the crosshairs change.

Pull the bolt and wipe the bore clean. Insert an unprimed case in the chamber and look into the bore from the muzzle end. The image should resemble a perfect target. If the rings are out of whack, then you have problems. Maybe not the problems you are looking for but problems nonetheless.

In lieu of an unprimed case, you can use the bolt but you will have to first pull the firing pin so as to provide a small hole to define the rings. Don't forget to close the bolt when looking. Diffraction rings can tell you all sorts of things about the health of your rifle. It's probably one of the best diagnostic tools around when troubleshooting accuracy issues.

A bent barrel will show up when looking down the bore and not getting a perfectly circular picture. The old craftsman in the BSA factory in England used to straighten barrels after boring and rifling by beating them over lead blocks and looking down the bore until a perfect circle could be seen. I straightened a banana bent 270Win barrel once in a lathe using the tool post to crank the high side back to straight (had to go past straight to allow for the spring back. Kept sighting down the barrel until I had a perfect circle. When finished the gun shot back on target and the owner carried on using it happily for years.
(He bent the barrel by inadvertently slashing it when track clearing. Had leaned his rifle against a small tree, continued on down the track doing his clearing work and on returning spotted the lone tree, not seeing and remembering his rifle was on the other side and whacked the tree down with his slasher.)

Back to your problem, I would be doing as Doug suggests, look at the barrel bedding.

I would recrown it.

Even though the crown is smooth, if its axis is tilted, at all, then it'll throw the shots to a different impact point. Won't spray them, it'll just move the group's center over on the target.

And Kimber was WIDELY known for poor workmanship on their Mauser conversions.
Regards, Joe

I'm curious, have you tried shooting it ? Something is not right, but it would be interesting to see how it shoots!

In addition to the great suggestions you have already received, you may try the "shadow line" method employed by Mauser to check barrel straightness. First, clean your barrel and leave a thin coat of oil so it reflects light well. Choose a light colored wall in your house and tape a black piece of 8.5x11 construction paper on it, with the long edge running straight up and down. Remove the barreled action form the stock. Place the b-action on a support about 10-15 ft away from the wall. Bore sight the line between the paper and the wall so it bi-sects the bore. Move your head back and raise it slightly so you see a shadow cast down the bore so that one side of the bore is dark and the other is light. Turn the barrel 90 degrees and repeat three more times. The shadow line should appear unbroken from muzzle to chamber if the barrel is straight. If the shadow line breaks and looks jagged, that indicates the barrel is bent at that spot and in which direction the bend goes.

If memory serves me correct, Kimber lathe turned the steps off these barrels. It is quite possible a barrel could be bent in this process. I doubt they bothered to check. At the very least it would induce stresses which were likely not relieved.

Well I'm pretty sure I have a bend in the barrel. After hearing some great advice here and doing some more checking in better light I'm ready to re-barrel my kids rifle.
I'd like to find a surplus barrel somewhere but can't seem to locate one at all the usual places Numrich, SOG and a list of others anybody have a source for one of these?

You may be able to straighten it. It's a crap shoot but what do you have to loose?

Take the rifle to someone who knows how and has turned lots of military barrels. I turned lots of these barrel in the old days and it was not uncommon to have a bent barrel after turning. We had a barrel press and it was easy to correct the problem. On these barrels they would shoot very well after the correction. I would bet that this is the case with your barrel. You could expect 1 to 2 inch groups on this hunting rifle.

Often a customer would have a warranty barrel problem. The rifle would not sight in without lots of shims or windage mounts. A little trip to the back room to bend the barrel would put it back on target. A customer would be told that we had to straighten the barrel.

Hubert Hecht, 7th generation German gunsmith showed me how he straightened barrels:

A bag off shot laid on the bench, bring the barrel down like hammering a nail (high spot down, of course) Go easy...you can really move around a barel this way..spare tire also works well...none or minimal scratching on the out side.

I think this method is fairly common in parts of Europe, since I've heard it described by several German gun mechanics.

Great way to move point of impact on shotguns

Snellstrom, I had a WBY Vanguard in 270Win at one time. I bought it for my son to hunt with and didn't have a lot of time or opportunity to sight it in, so we shot it at 75 yds and put it about 1" high with a respectable group. He didn't want to hunt with it and I ended up with the V-guard while he used my Rem 30/06. I thought this was OK until I tried to shoot a huge buck standing broadside at about 225 yds. I missed that buck by enough that the shot didn't even cause it to run. The first shot went way right so I aimed at the far left end of the deer and missed but he took off like he had places to go. Took the rifle to my uncle's pasture and sighted it in at a paced 225 yds. and then shot it at a target at 75 yds. and the shot went yds to the left. I have told people about the bent barrel in that rifle and I always get pooh-poohed. It does happen.

quote:

anybody have a source for one of these?

gun broker auctions has a large number of new Remington takes offs go thru.

Take a little time to see what they bring.

.270s and .243s are dirt cheap.
7-08 and .308 go for more.


If you have a lathe dial the old barrel in with a 4 jaw and rotate it slowly. look through it while the lathe is turning about 50 RPM.
It will probably look like a jump rope inside if it is crooked.

On an industrial size machine your can actually use the cross slide to push the barrel straight.

You can also do it with 3 3X4s and a BFH.