What did I break?

[cchilds (Carter Childs)]

So yesterday I went to the range for some load development testing for my 28 Nos. Since that gun heats up so rapidly and takes a while to cool I decided to take a second gun to do some testing with during the cool down. Given all the recent talk of the 7 PRC I decided to take mine. It’s a Seekins Element, and the ammo I took was from Choice ammo with 168 lrx. (recent discussion of Choice on a thread here not too long ago)

Here are two pictures of the groups I was getting. 3-shots each.

I also had a few rounds of the same bullet loaded by Copper Creek and got a slightly larger group but probably within statistical error and a little bit faster.

I was tickled pink with those groups. At least for the type of hunting I typically would do. Therefore today I said to myself let’s clean this gun and then put it in the safe and it can sit there until almost deer season when I can take it out and confirm zero and shoot a few fouling shots. This will give me some time to get some more ammo because I’m about out and it’s not cheap.

Immediately after the cleaning as I’m trying to insert the bolt back into the gun I’m not sure exactly how it happens but the gun Falls completely out of my hands, fall somewhere between 4-5 ft, and lands on the scope, bounces off and then lands on the stock. And the floor is concrete by the way. I’m of course mortified. Did a quick look over and didn’t see any obvious damage, really not even any scrapes on anything.

Was talking to a hunting buddy and he said man you need to take that thing out now and see how it works, you don’t want to wait till deer season to find out something’s wrong so I agreed and took it to the range.

First three shots.

Wow, still fairly tight but obviously significantly off in elevation and windage. Let the gun cool completely and fired three more shots and got basically the same result.

So make the adjustments on the turrets and then I get this after cooling again.

Let it cool completely again and try it again and got basically the same thing, don’t have a picture of that one. Fired my last two shots that I had and got this

Took the gone home. Base and ring screws were tight. Didn’t think about action screws until right this very minute.

I’m a little perplexed because I would have imagined that if I had done significant damage to the gun I would not have gotten two separate three shot groups which were fairly tight back to back immediately. Maybe something in the scope that was initially okay but then adjusting the turrets and or repeated recoil knocked it loose??

Unmounted then remounted the scope, same rings. It was definitely off level but only slightly. Got to wait 2 weeks before more ammo to get here to do more testing.

Other thoughts, ideas?

[wmfeht (William Feht)]

3 shot groups are insufficient to come to any sort of conclusion about a rifle’s precision. All your groups are within the envelope of what I’d consider typical for a hunting rifle.

Edit: to follow up a bit, disassembling everything and making sure everything is torqued is the correct first step. What I would do for groupings is to shoot multiple 5 shot groups and then use software to overlay them into a single ‘virtual’ 15-20 shot group to set a baseline for that rifle’s accuracy.

[backfire (Jim Harmer)]

A bit perplexing for sure. I think you’re right to check torque on all screws and make sure everything still seems to be free from visual damage.

I agree with William on the accuracy though. I’d want to shoot quite a few groups before and after to see if there is a statistically significant change. It is totally possible and maybe even likely that it was just an unlucky couple groups.

[BEN (Ben Caulder)]

So, in one of Jim’s latest video his Sako(?) was not grouping like he thought and he thought maybe it was is rings, Montrums. I had those exact same rings and I wanted to try the integrated level. My 7PRC sheered off the aluminum bars that connect to the rail. Deffinately not 6061, let alone the better 7071. It was funny, because my rifle was grouping nicely, then suddenly it was off, like 2-3" off and inconsistent. Took one last shot and the scope fell off to the rubber mat at the table I was shooting from, and thank God it did. Easy problem to diagnose lol.

You may want to check the integrity of the base of your rings, because outside of me not dropping my rifle and yours not losing your scope - the problem seem very similar. Good luck.

[cchilds (Carter Childs)]

Oh, good point.

I did take the mounts off but did not inspect the cross bolts at all. I will definitely give that a look now.

[alexfields]

I had a problem similar to this once, and a buddy of mine suggest I get a lapping kit to see if rings were properly aligned for the scope. I thought it was a long shot, but to my surprise, this did the trick. The rings didn’t line up right until I lapped them. Then my groups were more consistent, and no longer wandered as much. It’s odd though because I used that the alignment checker on a couple of other rifles I have and those weren’t lined up quite evenly either, but everything was still working fine without ever lapping. So I am still skeptical–was it just a different brand of scope that made the difference? I think it was a Vortex Viper series that was struggling until I lapped… Or maybe after I lapped, I just had better fit/tightness than before, and could have achieved the same thing without lapping first? I thought I had torqued to proper specs the first time, but…?? Don’t know if anyone else has experience with lapping rings and could comment.