I am having serious trouble with my Savage 30-06. Backstory:
I had a gunsmith glassed and pillar my Savage 116 to a Boyd stock. Prior to this it was a 1 MOA gun.
Today went to the range and bore sighted (the right way, didn’t use a laser) at 50 and zeroed my scope (Viper HS 4-16x 50). Took it to a hundred to get actually zeroed and it was completely off paper. Bore sighted again. Still not on paper. Got help from the range gunsmith and he did the exact same thing, same results.
Then he put up a 2’x3’ paper to the left of mine and got on paper. My paper, 3 feet to the right of where he aimed.
What the heck?
Barrel is free floating, scope is secure and I mounted it with my torque wrench at 18ftlbs. Scope is brand new.
We did find that the bolt is a little loose which may be why I was getting misfires, but nothing is obvious as to why it is 3’ off at 100 yards from a bore sight.
Sounds like it’s either a problem with the new scope, or assuming you used a different mounting hardware for the new scope, that Hardware could be a problem also/either.
It’s one of those things where you have to only change one variable and see what happens.
I had a rifle once that I could not get on paper at 100 yards to save my life. Brand new out of the box. So I tried the same scope but with a different mounting system, no difference. Tried a different scope with the first and then even second mounting system, no better. Took the gun to the gunsmith and it was painfully obvious that the holes for the scope mounts were way out of line. They had to replace the entire gun.
Slept on this and I am not sure the scope is the issue. Bore sighted, both me and a gunsmith, and dialed the scope in accordingly. On paper at 50 yards and grouping fair. 2’ wide right at 100 yards. Again, bore sight and scope lined up.
There is slop in the bolt, too much. Could this cause accuracy issues?
What about damage to the barrel that alters the spin and flight?
What do you mean by “slop in the bolt”? Is it just loose when you’re cycling it and have it open, and then it firms up once you close the bolt and lock it; or is it Loose even in the locked position?
Is this a new thing since the Gunsmithing work, or has it always been this way?
Plenty of bolts are sloppy while cycling but soon as they close they lock up tight. If it doesn’t that certainly could cause problems but never having seen that before in personal life I don’t know for certain what it would do regarding accuracy, and furthermore it seems to me if it was it wouldn’t be a repeatable, predictable point of impact shift. That being said I should mention that I am not by any means a certified gunsmith.
Likewise, in my experience, any damage to the barrel doesn’t cause a repeatable, point of impact shift but rather the group size just goes from the size of a golf ball to the size of a beach ball or worse. It starts to look like a shotgun pattern.
Kind of have to treat it like a detective. If I read you correctly, the gun worked perfectly at Point A in time, and now at point B in time it is not. What’s the difference(s) between point a and point B?
Slop is even closed. This is post gunsmithing not before. Gunsmith at the range (different than the smith who did the work) saw the issue and saw that there is a torment issue with the lever.
The gun had a lot of work done: new stock and glass bedded the new wood stock and pillars. New scope mounted. Added an ARCA plate. No work done to the bolt- not work that I requested at least. No work to receiver, no work to the barrel.
It’s going back to smith tomorrow. I’ll update when I get some answers.
I had the barrel threaded but there wasn’t enough barrel to thread so the smith put on an adapter. They did something to the end of the barrel that added a wobble to the bullet.
Unless I get amazing news from the gunsmith, I’ll be getting a new elk rifle.
I was going to say, i had the same issue with my tikka 6.5cm.
100yrds… off the paper
50 yards low about 8 MOA
Cranked it up and got it back on.track.
I think it was at.378yards on veracity PH. SO off
Zeroed it on the app and now shes dead center…