zeke mccune
Member
Hi All:
Years ago, I had a large barrel maker-gunsmithing firm build me a rifle.
When I received the rifle I found that the gun would only shoot with very poor accuracy. I am talking about 1.250" with my loads. After being abused personally and financially by the owner of this firm I put the rifle away until recently.
I pulled out all of the records for this rifle and recalled my horrible past with this beast. I made some measurement and found that there is .147" gap between the base of the bullet and the case mouth when I measure the seating depth for this chamber. This means that the bullet has a long jump until it hits the end of the rifling of about .250". It is no wonder that this gun never shot well It has a very long free bore! The "gunsmith" who assembled this rifle sent me a group of random targets that they obtained with different loads that averaged .280". I asked what loads were used to shoot these groups and nobody knew. I asked if I could speak to the person who worked on the gun and shot these groups but again nobody knew. At this point, I knew that I was being scammed!
The rifle is chambered in .220 Swift which I have had great accuracy form Swifts in the past.
In any case, what can be done to get this rifle to shoot as it should?
Have it re chambered?
Have a new barrel installed?
Just cut my loses and junk the rifle?
Any suggestions as to what to do?
I did take this gun to another benchrest gunsmith and he told me that the gun would never shoot well and that his 5 year old son could of done better work. Another B.R. gunsmith checked it out and said that he would start with a new barrel and go from there and it would be "expensive."
TIA,
Zeke
p.s.
No, I did not burn out the throat as I have not fired it very much
Years ago, I had a large barrel maker-gunsmithing firm build me a rifle.
When I received the rifle I found that the gun would only shoot with very poor accuracy. I am talking about 1.250" with my loads. After being abused personally and financially by the owner of this firm I put the rifle away until recently.
I pulled out all of the records for this rifle and recalled my horrible past with this beast. I made some measurement and found that there is .147" gap between the base of the bullet and the case mouth when I measure the seating depth for this chamber. This means that the bullet has a long jump until it hits the end of the rifling of about .250". It is no wonder that this gun never shot well It has a very long free bore! The "gunsmith" who assembled this rifle sent me a group of random targets that they obtained with different loads that averaged .280". I asked what loads were used to shoot these groups and nobody knew. I asked if I could speak to the person who worked on the gun and shot these groups but again nobody knew. At this point, I knew that I was being scammed!
The rifle is chambered in .220 Swift which I have had great accuracy form Swifts in the past.
In any case, what can be done to get this rifle to shoot as it should?
Have it re chambered?
Have a new barrel installed?
Just cut my loses and junk the rifle?
Any suggestions as to what to do?
I did take this gun to another benchrest gunsmith and he told me that the gun would never shoot well and that his 5 year old son could of done better work. Another B.R. gunsmith checked it out and said that he would start with a new barrel and go from there and it would be "expensive."
TIA,
Zeke
p.s.
No, I did not burn out the throat as I have not fired it very much