Remington 700 issues?

[TheSkyBuster]

Is it the stock or am I crazy?


I bought a remington 700 sps stainless in 22-250 a couple years ago after I sold my Tikka, I shot it a few times and pretty much stuck it in the back of the safe untill a month os so ago when I decided I wanted to hunt coyotes again.  I wanted a heavy bullet for the small chance I came accross a big cat so I chose the 55 grain Sierra Gameking, It's supposed to be a good coyote bullet also.   Well long story short I couldn't get it to group under 3 inches at 100 yards so I went back to my ol' standbye a 40 gr V-max infront of 38 gr's of varget and it was the same story 1.5" to 4" groups factory ammo was the same story, very random 1 group would be decent the other all over the paper.

So after many trips to the range, different powders, bullets, charges, overall lengths charges, even a different set of dies, I realized if I rest the rifle on the sandags with the sandbag under the forend at the swivel stud it shoots like crap, If I bring the bag way back to almost under the action it shoots quite a bit better. 


Sandbag under the swivel stud:





Sandbag under the action:





still not great but exceptable for me.




for the first few trips I had convinced myself that I was just a bad shot, (out of practice)

Then I brought the 17HMR and fired a ten shot group under the same conditions.







So Now Im thinking I have an issue with my stock, I can see where the stock is touching the barrel and wearing a bit.






so my best guess is the stock is my problem, but before I spend 3 or 4 hundred bucks on a good one I thought I would ask here. has anyone had this problem before? or heard of it?  is there something else I might be missing? I would appreciate any suggestions.


Gun is factory except for a cleaned up trigger, (a beautifully crisp 3 lbs) and a 3-9 VX-1.  current load and load in the first 2 pictures is a 55gr Gameking 35.5 grs of Varget at an O.A.L. of 2.365  and my varience in muzzel velocity is less than 25 FPS.  It also seems that the lighter (40 or 50gr) bullets are a little less effected by the position of the sandbags.

TheSkyBuster

[high country]

Float it! Grab some sockets and sand paper and get as close to the barrel diameter as possible.....start sanding. You can put a layer of electric tape on the barrel to back the sand paper and not scratch your barrel.... use that as your guide to a perfect float once you get it close. I bet if you bed and float it......she will shoot well. BTW, a bag on or in recoil reach of a stud is a no no.

When I see big groups like that first one I look to the scope. Give all your mounts a peek, make sure nothing is loose or broken.....and the scope needs to track well.

[TheSkyBuster]

I considered floating it and I still might, The stock seems quite flimsy to me I would think it would flex quite easily and not help much, but it's worth a try. In the worst case I buy an aftermarket stock.  My 700 in 7mm rem mag wears a H.S. precision stock that A gunsmith floated and installed for me along with some other work.  I have taken the scope off and reinstalled it, checked the bolts and all that good stuff but I have not tried another one as I'm currently out of spare scopes.  I usually avoid the stud on the bag trick but in this case I was doing lots of trial and error. There's not a huge amount of recoil in this case anyway.

[FC]

Check all the usual suspects, stock touching at fore-end, loose action screws or scope. You aren't resting the barrel on sand bags at the same time when you are resting the swivel stud are you?

[woodswalker]

The first thing you need to do is float that thing and bed the action...then go back and see how it does.

[jackelope]

That thing is shooting 5" groups...one would think that a rifle out of the box, floated and bedded or not, would shoot better than 5".  I would also have a hard time saying a flimsy stock would cause that. The tupperware stock on my savage I could about fold up and put in my pocket and it shoots 1.5" or so...
 

[FC]

My Savage responded very poorly when rested on the swivel stud and grouped 3-4" but got down to about an inch rested on the action screws. A new stock got it between 5/8-3/4" YMMV. My stock was extremely flimsy and would touch the barrel with only a slight movement in the rest.

[TheSkyBuster]

Thanks for all the responses,  Jackalope I agree with you, I've been having a tough time believing this is really the problem. and I'm still not totally convinced.  I was hoping someone was going to have a simple "your an Idiot" answer for me.
 FC I'm not resting the barrel on the sandbags but the stock is touching at the fore-end with enough pressure to scratch the barrel. The Savage your describing sounds pretty similar to my problem (I hope)  The farther back on the stock I bring the sandbag the better it shoots, I have to get it almost under the action to see less than 2"
based on the responses here I'm going to float it and bed it (cheap easy solution) make sure she shoots straight then start looking for a stock.

[jackelope]

My Savage responded very poorly when rested on the swivel stud and grouped 3-4" but got down to about an inch rested on the action screws. A new stock got it between 5/8-3/4" YMMV. My stock was extremely flimsy and would touch the barrel with only a slight movement in the rest.

wow...that's a crazy difference by a simple adjustment made.

[FC]

wow...that's a crazy difference by a simple adjustment made.

I had a very hard time proving it to myself, I put about 150 rounds through it in a weekend just experimenting with different resting points. It has a light sporter weight tube on it and to date is the most ammo sensitive rifle I've ever seen, if I had first fired Winchester 180gr through it I would have taken it straight back! I had never before seen a rifle show such poor accuracy due to ammo preference, I suppose it could be a bad batch or something but it was terrible with a POI over a foot lower than anything else I had tried in it and roughly TEN inch groups at 100 yards. I shot m first group and promptly took the rifle out of the stock and went over everything to make sure nothing was loose and then handed it off to someone else and watched them shoot an equally poor group. I had some Silver Bear with me and switched to it and put up a nice neat little one inch group, this rifle has always shot Silver Bear and Federal really well and now I am hesitant to try anything else....Anyone want to buy a box of Winchester .308 ?

[carpsniperg2]

  Wow thats intresting, never thought it would make so much diffrence.

[sakoshooter]

Sand that barrel channel out and glass bed the action. I like acra(spelling?) glass gel.  Plumbers putty is good for filling voids you don't want the gel in.
Stock touching the barrel, especially on just one side is bad news. The barrel needs to be able to move without interference consistently each shot.
Lots of gunsmiths that do this work sand just enough to slide a piece of paper between the barrel and stock. Personally, I like to have a much bigger gap. I make the gap even and consistent all along the barrel but being able to slide 4-5 pieces of paper under it is better in my opinion. This way you can be sure the barrel will not slap the stock when shooting.
I've got two Rem 700s. Both are set up as mentioned above.
If you're close to me, I'd be happy to help you with that rifle.

[700xcr]

If it was mine I would replace the stock. I replaced the stock on my Remington 700SPS Varmint 223rem. with a Bell & Carlson Medalist M40 style stock. Then just skim bedded it. Barrel is free floated now. Less vibration in stock. My group shrunk in size. I would replace the stock with one of these.

http://www.stockysstocks.com/servlet/Detail?category=HARDCORE+HUNTERS&no=190&param_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stockysstocks.com%2Fservlet%2FCategories%3Fcategory%3DHARDCORE%2BHUNTERS&searchpath=110989

[yorketransport]

You could test the free floating theory before ever modifying the stock. Just take an empty soda can and cut small shims to place between the action and the stock. Poke a hole through the shim fro the action screw to go through and then use 2-3 shims on each action screw. This will get the action and barrel up out of the stock just enough that it won't make contact. This way you don't modify your stock just to find out that it didn't help.

Andrew

[NW-GSP]

I am suprised no one has asked if you have checked your scope rings and mounts to see how tight they are or if it might be your scope? I just bought a remingto 700 300 win mag and I am shooting sub moa groups out of the box with it. I really do not think the problem is your stock, make sure your action screws are tighten to the right inch pounds ( not foot pounds ).
 I had a 30-06 that was doing the same thing you are saying and it was because of the scope mounts