I have a rifle that doesn't group very well. I have had a gunsmith look at it and he thought the chamber was not cut to spec and redid it. He thought the crown, bedding and free floating were fine. It still did not group after the work was done. Now I am considering rebarreling. I was looking at Pac Nor and they have a service to rebarrel rifles. I can also find a local smith to rebarrel my rifle. Is it better to have the barrel maker perform this service or find a local smith to do this? I am undecided because I think a barrel maker would obviously do a good job, but I also think it would be good to have a local smith do it because I could work with them if rebarreling did not fix the problem. Any advice would be appreciated.

I think that the biggest part of the finished accuracy of a premium barrel is the skill of the guy doing the threading, chambering and fitting.

How confident do you feel in the abilities of the local gunsmith?

You really should be more specific.

What is the rifle? Is it a hunting or target rifle? Has it always grouped like that? Did it ever shoot well? How well? What is the action make? What is your expectation of accuracy? What caliber? What scope or sights? What ammo have you tried? Are you shooting from a bench, off hand, sitting, standing?

Was the headspace incorrect? Define out of spec. How much has it been shot?

I would not take it back to the same gunsmith. He apparently did not do so good the first time.

There are many fine gunmakers here that can correct any problem you have however it must be well defined.

Good luck,

Joe

What caliber is it, and what make of barrel? You can't fix a bad barrel no matter what you do, but you can ruin a good barrel with poor machining techniques. How bad is it? Nowadays even the cheapest barrels will shoot well enough for hunting, meaning within 1.5 moa; often better. And other factors are equally as important like bedding.

I bought a Montana m1999 action and sent them a Shilen barrel to install as a .308 Win. When I received the barreled action, I sent it to McMillan to bed into a hunting stock. When I got it back, I was only able to get it to group in the 5 to 6 inch range using Federal and IMI match ammo. So it is a hunting type rifle. I was hoping for 1 MOA. I took it to a smith that was recommended to me to look at it and it still produced 5 to 6 inch groups. So now I was thinking of trying a different gunsmith or sending it to Pac Nor to rebarrel. This is my first custom rifle.

If I were in your shoes I would talk to Shilen about it, they seem like great people.
I've only purchased one of their barrels but they were excellent to deal with and my guess is if you are decent with them presenting the problem you will get some kind of satisfaction from them.
This is assuming you have checked your base screws for tightness, rings too and have a proven scope on it that can shoot great groups on other rifles.
I would not buy another barrel until you've been through those steps and talk to Shilen.
It should be relatively easy to get a .308 Bolt action rifle to shoot 1" groups, if they barrel is decent and everything is in good working order (as I said rings, bases and scope).

With that said my local gunsmith (Kevin Weaver) has installed all my barrels except one, that one I sent the rifle to McGowan and they did the barreling.
I am absolutely happy with all barrels I've ever purchased and had installed, these include Pac Nor, Shilen, Douglas, McGowan, and I think a Wilson.

Thanks for the suggestions. The barrel I used was purchased from Brownells and not directly from Shilen. There is one smith in the area that specializes in Accurizing rifles and two others that have the right equipment to do it. I am only familiar with the work of one who built me an accurate 1911.

quote:

I was only able to get it to group in the 5 to 6 inch range using Federal and IMI match ammo

Don't remember a factory much less a Shilen that I've had that would group that bad.

I agree had a friendly talk with Shilen would be my first step

I have trouble seeing what would improve that grouping other than the barrel. Tweaking the action might take a 1.5" to 1". Barrel, bedding or scope would be what I would look at.

Assuming the shooter is capable of submoa.

Could the barrel have been installed incorrectly?

I am confident of the optic and install and that is not an issue. It's a Leupold VIII 3.5 x 10 that I have used on another rifle without issue. Blue loctite on the base screws, all the other screws tight, etc.

I have a Rem 700 PSS in a McMillan stock that shoots consistent .75 inch groups with the same match ammo.

Wow, it would be hard to make any barrel shoot that bad if you wanted it to. No matter how it was installed.
Does it have rifling?
Check your scope mounts/screws. and scope.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
[QUOTE]

Assuming the shooter is capable of submoa.

I was waiting for someone to say something like that and all I can say is I wish we could shoot at a range together. This is not the problem.

DamonL
I would contact Brownells and then Shilen, be very nice and tell them what is going on, let them know nicely that your expectations are higher.
Not to worry no one was assaulting your shooting skills but it's always good to check.
Some people can't shoot worth a shit and then buy a new accurate rifle and it still won't shoot in their hands so its good to check.
Sounds like it is narrowed down to the barrel if you've checked everything and scope is good and you can shoot with another rifle.

Bad scope?

I'd start by slugging the bore; I'm thinking its oversized as I can't imagine a rifled barrel of any quality shooting that badly unless the bore were oversize.

Let a buddy shoot it. Tell him it is a tackdriver- see what happens. Sometimes we loose confidence in our equipment and another set of eyes can make a difference.

Case in point- I started having issues with a long range set up NM M1 Garand- low round count, professionally built and had fired scores in the upper 180s at 8,9 & 1000. A friend fired it at 300 and the group could be covered with a 3" spotter. - 10 rounds.

Turned out I had simply lost confidence and the result was poor performance.

May not be the case for this situation, but worth a few rounds-espc. since you state the rifle has been checked out by a smith you seem to have confidence in.

quote:

I was waiting for someone to say something like that and all I can say is I wish we could shoot at a range together. This is not the problem.

While I raised the question in jest I did have a friend that simply couldn't shoot a good group.

He had no issue with minute of deer but never shot longer than around 150yds.

Since you have .75" groups with other rifles that rules out that problem potential

I'm with dpcd it is just hard to get a rifle to shoot that bad.

I see John raise the oversize issue while I was typing.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:

quote:

I was waiting for someone to say something like that and all I can say is I wish we could shoot at a range together. This is not the problem.

While I raised the question is jest I did have a friend that simply couldn't shoot a good group.

He had no issue with minute of deer but never shot longer than around 150yds.

Since you have .75" groups with other rifles that rules out that problem potential

I understand. It is one variable that needs to be considered.

So regardless of the cause, it sounds like a re-barrel is what's left to try to fix this.

First I would check out the scope mounts and scope. You can put the scope on another known good rifle and see quickly whether the erector tube is giving problems. I would check the mounts as well. If you are using Redfield windage mounts check those screws at the rear bridge. Sometimes they will loosen with recoil and cause the same thing you are experiencing.

If I thought the chamber was a problem I would have sent it back to whomever chambered and installed it.

I would check the stock bedding. You can stand the unloaded rifle upright and while holding the forend with one hand put your index finger at the barrel/stock juncture and loosen/tighten the front guard screw. Feel for any movement of the forend from the barrel as the guard screw is tightened and loosened. Do the same thing with the rear guard screw placing your thumb on the action tang. McMillan is not in the habit of sending out bad work but sometimes bad things happen to the best of us.

The owners of Shilen are good people and would make any problem directly related to the building of the barrel good but I am not banking on that being the problem. You can have the barrel bore scoped to see if there are any anomalies. You can also run a tight fitting patch down the barrel and see if there are any loose spots in the rifling especially near the muzzle.

I would concentrate on checking one thing at a time to find the culprit. Also your shooting technique should be good. I would shoot it from the bench with a good stable rest. Let someone else shoot it to see how it reacts to them. I have a brother in law that from years of bird hunting had developed a champion flinch.

You can try a few different factory offerings and bullet weights to see what the barrel likes. The 308 is an easy cartridge to make shoot good but I would check the seating depth to see how long the throat is. For instance Remington throats their barrels long in that cal. I have had rifles open up groups to 1 1/5" due to the long throating but never 5-6". However two or three minor problems can add up to a big PITA.

There are many gunmakers here that can give you better advise than me but that is what I would start with. Everything is fixable.

Joe

Before you get all wound up with tweaking this and that, I have only seen in your post that you only tried match ammo. Go to Wally world and buy a box of cheap Winchester or Remington ammo and see how it shoots. I have one 308 that does not like match ammo at all, but is just fine with 150 and 180 Win ammo.

Just a thought.

I would suggest trying Larry's advice. I have a 23-yr old heavy barreled Savage 112FV in 22-250 that averaged >4.5" 5-shot 100-yd groups with FC 55 gr HPbt, and Frontier 55 gr V-Max and 60 gr PSP. But it averaged 0.75" with Frontier 53 gr HP Match loads. And handloads with 53 gr. Sierra HP Matchkings are even better. It just needs bullets no longer than 55 gr. PSPs.

Cheers, Al

I would check the bore size. I had a friend of mine who is a superb rifle smith barrel a rifle for a customer and when he took it out to test fire and it shot patterns instead of groups. it turned out that the bore was the wrong size it had just been miss stamped as to caliber.