Factory rifle accuracy survey

[Fish Hunter]

223 Rem - Howa 1500, Hogue stock 24" bull barrel. No modifications. Always shoots under 1MOA and around 0.5MOA with 50gr V-Max, 55gr V-Max, 60gr V-Max, 55gr GameKing, 65gr Gameking, 55gr Oryx and 55gr Hornady FMJ. The majority of these bullets all shoot on the same vertical line or with half inch of the the vertical line.

6.5x55 Swede - Tikka T3 22" barrel. No modifications. Consistently shoots under 1MOA and around 0.5MOA with 120gr Ballistic Tip, 120gr Pro Hunter, 140gr Ballistic Tip, 140gr Accubond, 140gr Partition, 140gr GameKing, 139gr Scenar and 156gr Oryx. On a side note this rifle also likes the 95gr V-Max and the best I have done is a 4 shot one hole group at 100m with the V-Max's

7x64 Brenneke - Tikka T3x 22" barrel. No modifications. Consistently shoots under 1MOA and around 0.5MOA with 150gr MatchKing, 150gr GameKing, 160gr GameKing and 156gr Oryx. Looking forward to what his rifle will do with the Safari Bullet Company 160gr 7mm bullet when it is available

30.06 Sako African Hunter (Sako 85) 22" barrel. No modifications. Consistently shoots under 1MOA with 165gr Oryx, 180gr Oryx, 165gr Accubond, 165gr GameKing, 180gr Partition, 180gr Pro Hunter. I have struggled to get this rifle to group with 150gr bullets, with the expection of the 150gr ProAmm

All hand loads and all using Lapua cases. Mostly CCI and some Winchester primers.

I believe that if I was a better shooter all these rifles would be 0.5MOA and some better

[ady]

Winchester Mod 70 243 with Sporter 22 inch barrel, 1:10 twist. Bedding as it came from the factory.

3 holes cutting at 100m

I could never get a decent grouping out of the rifle and changed from 100gn lead core bullet to 87gn monolithic bullets. The rifle likes the lighter bullet at a slower speed. I was shooting the 100gn at around 3000 fps and got a good enough grouping for hunting. I'm shooting the 87gn at around 2700 fps with excellent accuracy.

[Toxxyc]

Remington 700 SPS in .30-06.

With factory ammo I couldn't get it to shoot less than 2" groups at 100m. It refused. I tried PMP, S&B, Federal (Fusions, so the expensive stuff) and also PPU. PPU fared the best, with a group here and there coming in under 2", but unreliably so. S&B was the worst, with PMP and Federal being around the middle.

With my handloads it shoots 1/2" at 100m all day long without even trying hard.

[Daaf Malan]

You often hear that one brand of factory produced rifle is more accurate than another, or a particular brand guarantees sub MOA

It is a very nice topic, but one has to compare apples with apples. A few things to consider:

1. Certain calibres are more accurate than others. A 6.5 CM or 6mm Dasher is going to outperform a 303 British or 7.62 X 39 generally.
2. Certain stock rifles like a Savage LRP and Tikka Super Varmint has an unfair advantage, so does 24' + bull barrels over standard 22' barrels.
3. Only 100% Untampered rifles, which have no aftermarket triggers, -glass bedding, trued action, modified crown or silencer can be used.
4. Bolt action has an advantage over lever or semi auto. So does varminters and precision rifles.
5. And then the Monday vs Friday-built rifle. It was Kassie Kassleman who took two identical factory rifles with following serial numbers and did load development on both, only to discover that the ammo reloaded had to be totally different from one another.

[Katlagter]

From the other end of the accuracy spectrum :

Ruger Mini-14 .223 Rem (old 182 series, trigger job, otherwise standard): 55 gr CMJ handloads; typical group at 100m - 3". Reading up, that's actually not bad for an older Mini-14, where 5" groups are not unusual.

[Grobbie]

From the other end of the accuracy spectrum :

Ruger Mini-14 .223 Rem (old 182 series, trigger job, otherwise standard): 55 gr CMJ handloads; typical group at 100m - 3". Reading up, that's actually not bad for an older Mini-14, where 5" groups are not unusual.

MOM, Minute Of Man. Pretty good for the old dame.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ady]

It was Kassie Kassleman who took two identical factory rifles with following serial numbers and did load development on both, only to discover that the ammo reloaded had to be totally different from one another.

I found the same with handguns, but they didn't have serial numbers that followed.

[Katlagter]

MOM, Minute Of Man. Pretty good for the old dame.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I used a variety of other military style bullets (ball) before and typically got 5" groups. Since going to the CMJ's my groups almost halved

[driepootx]

[Againstthegrains]

It is a very nice topic, but one has to compare apples with apples. A few things to consider:

1. Certain calibres are more accurate than others. A 6.5 CM or 6mm Dasher is going to outperform a 303 British or 7.62 X 39 generally.

Do not confuse caliber with rifle design, the majority of rifles chambered in .303 British or 7.62x39 were made as military style rifles with very high tolerances. This means you can use all sorts of mass produced ammo under the harshest war situations, and the gun will still be able to put lead in the air in the general direction of the enemy. But, take the same caliber and build a custom precision rifle with low tolerances, load it with hand loaded precision ammo and give it to a competition shooter, and you will need to shoot a few hundred rounds, to be able to find a statistical difference in accuracy between the calibers. At the skill level most of us shoot at, there is no such thing as an inaccurate caliber, only an inaccurate rifle.

Certain stock rifles like a Savage LRP and Tikka Super Varmint has an unfair advantage, so does 24' + bull barrels over standard 22' barrels.

The advantage of a bull barrel over a standard, is that it heats up slower, and gives you a bigger window in which the rifle is accurate over a string of shots. It is also heavier and thus more stable on the bench so that it is harder to "pull" a shot. A longer heavier barrel will recoil less and reduce flinching. If the shooter controls for these factors, heavy and light barrels can be equally accurate.

Only 100% Untampered rifles, which have no aftermarket triggers, -glass bedding, trued action, modified crown or silencer can be used.

Here I agree 100% with your point. I did include bedding as one of the points to mention, because it is the primary reason for a new rifle failing to reach its potential. I almost assume these days that everybody beds their rifle before they even shoot with it. With respect to trigger and suppressor, again this is something that helps the shooter, and is not an intrinsic property of the rifle. I will discuss trued action later.

Bolt action has an advantage over lever or semi auto.

As it is under the hunting rifle section, I assumed to be considering only bolt action rifles.

So does varminters and precision rifles. And then the Monday vs Friday-built rifle. It was Kassie Kassleman who took two identical factory rifles with following serial numbers and did load development on both, only to discover that the ammo reloaded had to be totally different from one another.

This is the crux, and something I was hoping to distill from this survey. A factory rifle than can be described as a "real shooter" that can shoot one hole groups is usually one where the factory got it right, and by "luck", the connection between barrel and action is perfectly aligned and the bolt face is perfectly square. When a manufacturer sells a precision rifle, they probably do this "accurising" in the factory on purpose as part of the sub MOA guarantee. I have a few friends who have bought a Tikkas or Howa that was a poor shooter, and after a lot of bedding, trigger jobs, tweaking the load etc they landed up at a good gunsmith who told them that the threading on action is out of alignment with the barrel. Like a "Monday" car.

With all of the above in context, the purpose of the survey is to develop a database to see how often a manufacturer nails it with a perfect rifle, makes an average rifle, or makes a dud that will require a few grand worth of gunsmithing to blue print, square up etc to get right, or land up on the second hand market.