I have been working on a M98 chambered in 280 remington. It has a 24" sporter barrel on it that is fairly thin. I have never owned a rifle that walks succesive shots as much as this one. If I fire even three shots in a short time span the group walks two inches up and to the right at seventy yards. If I shot five shots together, the movement is nearly five inches. Let the rifle completely cool and the first shot will be in the same hole as the previously fired first shot. I have bedded the action and barrel, free-floated the barrel, removed the bedding in the action area leaving only that where the recoil lug and back tang sets only the find the same results. Any suggestions?

archer4,

I have a Model 70 in .300Win.Mag. that does the same thing. There was not any one thing that solved the problem, but a combination of several. Most of them you have tried. One I do not see on your list is to try some upward pressure on the barrel at the end of the stock. I cut a small strip of bicycle inertube for my expermentation. Replaced it with a more permanent fix later. Never thought it would help, but it did.

Safe shooting
cjw3

When you say you've free floated the barrel, how much clearance does the barrel have ? I find that a twice folded dollar bill sometimes isn't enough. Or, it could be tighter on one side than the other. I'd check it all the way to the reciever ring.
Another thing to try is bedding the barrel shoulder an inch or so. Rather than going to rebedding the forend tip with the pressure point system.
Some rifles are like that. Unless the barrel and it's installation in the reciever are perfect, not misaligined as is common with factory guns, this is not at all uncommon. Even custom barrel installations, with a blue printed action job, somtimes will do this when the barrel is hot. Not common, but it does happen.
The important thing is the first shot from a cold bore. But, I too, would want the next shots much closer to my POI.
You can try rechambering after setting the barrel back and blue printing the action. But a new premium barrel, installed by a good barrel maker, would cost about as much. And give you some choices of custom features. E

If you are satisfied with the bedding and straight installation of the barrel, your problem is stress in the barrel. Years ago I had a similar problem. I had the barrel and action cryogenically treated and the problem was resolved. Since then I've cryo'd every new barrel, some being done by the maker such as Kreiger and Pac-Nor. As the barrel heats up, the stress will cause exactly the problem you seem to have. It's worth the $40 or so it takes to have it done and beats replacement.

I've also had similar problems as mentioned by Eremicus, where a plastic stock will bend enough to make contact with a "free floated" barrel, pushing the POI away from the direction of contact. Some fiberglass and tupperware stocks are very flimsy in the fore end.

You don't mention whose barrel it is. I hope it is not and ERS. It does sound like you need some stress relief, better yet send it back and get a refund.

I'm a big fan of cryo since it eliminates exactly what you're describing. As was mentioned, the first shot from a cold bore is what's important in a hunting rifle, though.

All my target and varmint guns get frozen.

Redial

Archer4,

Mr. Kobe is correct, ERS barrels suck!

Before you get to carried away, try this. Remove the barreled action from the stock and clean the barrel real good. Remove the firing pin and replace the bolt and close it on an empty chamber. Looking down the bore from the muzzle end, you should see what appears to be the image of a target. The rings surrounding the center should be perfectly uniform and concentric if the barrel is straight. Any one ring, or, group of rings out of place, would indicate that this would the place to start troubleshooting. While your eye is at the muzzle end, check the condition of the crown while you're at it.

If you were to cut a rifle barrel into several sections and measure the barrel wall thickness of these sections, you would discover that the bore tends to wanders off center in it's travel down the length of the barrel. When a barrel heats up from firing, the barrel will tend to move in the direction of least resistance or, to the thin side of the barrel. This by itself is enough to cause your rounds to walk. The hotter the barrel gets, the more it moves. Couple this with a thin whippy barrel, that might be contacting the stock during recoil because it isn't floated enough, can cause one to start pulling hairs.

In troubleshooting your problem, you need to methodically isolate and eliminate each and every trouble spot, carefully working from the breech to the muzzle. It sounds like you have started doing this already but you first must determine if the barrel is up to par and is something you can work with by checking it for straightness before attempting anything else.

With your barreled action back in the stock and tightened down, grasp the barrel and forend with your left hand and as you loosen the forward guard screw, see if the barrel feels like it wants to climb out of the stock. The barrel should not move at all when the front screw is loosened! If it moves, then there is contact somewhere causing the action to bind or be pulled out of alignment with the bore.

Check little things like bolt handle clearance. Make certain your front scope base screw is not so long that it is making contact with the barrel threads through the receiver. Check to see that the bolt nose and extractor does not make any physical contact with the barrel.

Little things out of whack or interfering with each other can compound symptoms and bring on nightmares. By carefully examining everything and inspecting their relationship with each other, you should start seeing an improvement, but you have to start first and foremost, with a straight barrel.

Let us know.

Malm

Thank you for the info all. I will rework the project starting with those activities that I can perform myself and let you all know the results. On my original, I neglected to note that the rifle has a laminated wood stalk, and I beleive to be a douglas barrel. Now that I am thinking about it, at lower velocities, all groups center to left and as the velocity increases move right.

The first problem I had which was resolved by freezing, WAS with a Douglas barrel.