.17 caliber 25gr Berger Question

[Fitch]

Originally Posted By: GySgt This tells me it may be the rifle. I have no idea what you are shooting or how it is set up. But trigger, floating, bedding, and a good cleaning may do the trick.

Good ideas. I've had all of them make rifles better. To that list I'd add the suggestion to take a magnifying glass and look at the muzzle crown. I've had two rifles that shot a "lot" better when they were recrowned. This is the crown on my .22-250 LRPV "before" when it was shooting 1" groups:

Same "before" crown but emphasizing undamaged area, how it should look:

That wasn't a factory defect. The crown was perfect when I got it a couple thousand rounds ago. I did that to it myself, probably with a cleaning rod or a bore site tool that has a chromed steel arbor that goes in the bore (I don't use it any more just in case).

and "after":

That little burr really screwed up the groups. It's back to shooting 1/3 MOA groups again.

I happen have a lathe that lets me do my own barrel work (I've had it for 20 years, never did any barrel work on it till last winter, retirement is great), but if the crown is bad, a local gunsmith can recrown it pretty quickly.

Fitch

 

[Matt N.]

Excellent thought on the crown. I was thinking about getting a better trigger. It has the factory triggr in it now. I have adjusted it, and so has a gunsmith. We can't seem to get all of the creep out of it and have an acceptable pull weight. I have been considering dropping the bucks on a better trigger. If I were confident it would make it shoot better I would do it. BTW, it has been bedded and floated, it didn't help.