More & more I'm hearing how out of the box Remingtons, Savages, Winchesters, Rugers, etc. bolt guns are doing this with regularity. These all are using mass produced barrels, hammered or buttoned. So is it the quality of the barrel that makes an accurate rifle or the precision on how it is fitted relative to the action & stock?
I think the quality of factory barrels, at the same price point, has improved since the 80’s. I also am of the opinion that bullets have improved since the 80’s. The semi conductor revolution changed manufacturing so that today’s better factory firearms are produced within tolerances that were unobtainable in the past. The precision of today’s manufacturing caused a problem with the Forensic Science bunch: guns today are so similar that a bullet out of one matched bullets out of all the others. But, this all depends on the Quality Control on the production line. If the company decides that it need to bump up corporate profits and loosens up the tolerances, accuracy will deteriorate.
For accuracy, I believe the primary factors are bullets, barrels and bedding. But a bad chambering job, a ham fisted gunsmith, or disgruntled factory worker, can and will ruin what could be potentially a good rifle. The barrel to receiver fit is critical and so is the chambering job. I had a 90’s Remington 700 in 30-06 and nothing I did in terms of load, or stock bedding, really improved the group size. I traded that rifle off, but later I found what may have been the problem. A gunsmith I know was complaining about “Wal Mart” Remingtons. He had encountered a number of late model cheaper Rem 700’s where the barrel and receiver threads were horribly mismatched. The barrels were installed with a type of Locktite to tighten up the barrel to receiver fit. If the barrel and receiver are not a tight mechanical fit, then point of impact is going to vary each shot due to the wobble. That might explain why that Rem 700 was never capable of the finest accuracy even though fed the finest bullets. I have a Classic Rem 700, in 6.5 X 55, that is wonderfully accurate, so production quality must have its ups and downs.
Absolutes are never absolutely true, but I am going to state that a bad barrel, one that varies in diameter, the hole through the tube has a lot of twists and turns, a barrel that has been “straightened”, and one that the chamber is an oval, offset from the bore, is never going to shoot well. Of course with infinite time, experimentation, shooters have managed to find one load that actually works well in their bad barrel, but as a general rule, a good barrel will shoot a number of loads well, a bad barrel will shoot most of its loads poorly.
Then, comes bedding. A good action in a poorly bedded stock is going to shoot most loads poorly, though, with infinite time and experimentation, shooters often managed to find one load that actually works well in their badly bedded rifle. But as a general rule, a properly bedded rifle will shoot a number of loads well, a badly bedded rifle will shoot most of its loads poorly.
I conducted load development for M700 classic in 6.5 Swede and found the thing was not necessarily a tack driver. At 100 yards it did shoot under 2”, which I consider perfectly acceptable for deer hunting. If the rifle shoots 2 MOA, then it will hit within four inches at 200 yards, six inches at 300 yards. That is plenty good, considering that I don’t hold much better with a lightweight rifle off the bench.
The 6.5 Swede action was in a wooden stock. For this rifle, and someone else confirmed their rifle was similar, Remington created a raised area in the barrel channel which created a pressure point. I like free floated barrels. When a barrel heats up it will expand. If there is a pressure point, or a bearing point on the barrel, as the barrel expands, the pressure against the barrel changes. This will cause a change in a point of impact.
So with stock channel tools, I scraped the barrel channel, removing the pressure point, and created a clearance so the barrel no longer touched the left side of the barrel channel. I suspect the left side of the barrel touching the stock created a lot of side to side movements. But not all. If the recoil lug is free to slide around in the stock, the action will shift during recoil.
I “pillar” bedded creating columns of Bisonite, and then I routed a humongous amount of wood forward of the magazine recess, and filled that with Bisonite. The final bedding looks awful, with voids, and it is not completely filled out around the recoil lug recess. But I was tired and grumpy and wanted to shoot my rifle, so I put it back together and took it to the range.
Anyway, just bedding this rifle changed its group size considerably. These lightweight rifles are hard to shoot, they are twitchy, they kick hard, and they are very sensitive to stock weld and shooting position. Still, this rifle might shoot under 1 MOA, which is excellent for a deer rifle.
Here is a "before glassbedding" target. Everything is at 100 yards. If you notice the wide horizontal dispersion with 140 SMK’s. Sierra match bullets are in a word, superb. In a match barrel they will shoot bug hole groups. This side to side movement indicated to me that something was wrong with the bedding. The action, or the barrel was moving left and right in the stock.
After glassbedding, in my opinion it shot much better. These targets were fired fast, about five shots under a minute, maybe two. I racked the bolt and shot if the crosshairs looked good. The barrel was hot enough to be uncomfortable to touch.