My 223

[LAH]

I have a 700 Remington BDL which came in the plastic stock & the barrel is dull blue. I re-stocked the rifle with a BDL stock & floor plate. I had trouble cleaning this rifle so my friend scoped it with a Hawkeye & found many pits & even a section of land missing. I took the rifle to a local bench shooter [Dale Woolen] to have a new barrel but he shot the rifle & said save my money it still shoots fine for a sporter.

I took his advice & worked up loads not cleaning the rifle with solvent. I use an oiled patch followed by 5 clean patches followed by a lightly oiled one. Before shooting it gets 2 clean patches. If accuracy goes south I'll clean it & begin anew.

Any way I plan to head back to Kansas in a couple weeks to shoot the Cimarron National Grasslands. I sighted the rifle today using the Sierra 52 HPBT, 26 grains of surplus 4895, & a Wolf small rifle primer. I shot four 3 shot groups all under 5/8". Not as good as Dale did but about all this hillbilly is capable of. Enjoy the pictures.

The Rifle



Dale's two groups



My group today, slightly left



Adjustment made



Correct elevation

 

[Warman62]

Great Shooting!

 

[Mobuck]

You bought this rifle new?
I can be fairly tolerant of certain things but a rifle " with many pits & even a section of land missing" isn't one of them (unless it was my fault and even then, I'll do something about it).
I took a Savage .223 in on trade from a guy I knew long ago. He told me flat out that the throat was "eroded". He didn't say the throat was GONE for about 1/2" in front of the chamber. I could make it work for the immediate purpose but it wasn't long before I'd found and installed a better barrel.

 

[LAH]

You bought this rifle new?

Not new. A gun show purchase. Shot the gun a bunch with FMJ loads & surplus powder mostly for off hand practice. It wasn't a shooter with the cheap bullets but fun on steel. Decided to clean the barrel but the process took 3 days off & one with Bore Tech Eliminator. Once clean my gunsmith did the Hawkeye thing & declared the bore clean as he ever witnessed but said: "you need to look at this." I did & it was ugly.

I've stopped worrying about it or cleaning it with copper solvent. I shoot it & wipe the barrel with oil or Number 9. Didn't say I was happy with all this but plan to use the little rifle as a bulk shooter for the time being.