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How is this possible? (The long version)

Aero

Gold $$ Contributor
Here’s a long one for you……..

I was introduced to guns and shooting when I was about 10ish and have been a gun nut from the very first trigger pull. Over 50 years now. Rifles have been my main interest and accurate rifles in particular. Not a day goes by and hasn’t for more years than I can remember that I’m not thinking of, working on, loading for, or shooting rifles. My little sister used to say “my brother is all guns all the time”. She has no idea.

This forum has been my favorite from the time I discovered it, not long after it started. The focus on accuracy is the draw, but there are a bunch of knowledgable people here and there is some very good info that comes from them. There are a couple of other sites that are pretty good, but it’s hard to sort through the bs at times.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on much of anything and that goes for guns and shooting. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of experience, but expert? When someone tells me they are an expert, I always take that with a grain of salt or two. I’ve met too many gun and shooting experts that really aren’t and they tend to throw out facts without ever having done the testing. Simply repeating things that are well know “facts” about what makes a rifle shoot or not. I’ve never believed much in experts. So, that leads to this little forum post…….

IMG_0066.jpeg

The pictured rifle is a box stock Remington 722 made in 1953 and chambered in 222 Rem. I bought it in the fall of ‘97. It had obviously seen lots of use, but not abuse. I paid $279 for it and it came with the Redfield base and rings that are still on it. Pretty steep at the time, but I really wanted it. The trigger was not too bad at about 2 1/2 lbs, but I managed to get it down to 1lb 2oz and still measures that to this day.

These guns were always known to shoot well, which is part of the reason I wanted it. Once home from the gun shop I poked my Hawkeye down the bore and had instant buyers remorse. The barrel looked horrible! Fire cracked, copper fouled. This thing has had lots of round through it. No way this would shoot. I gave it a good cleaning and set about loading up some test rounds.

I wanted to shoot lighter bullets, but the throat was so long I couldn’t get close to the rifling and still have bullet in the case. I loaded them anyway and off to the range I went. So 28 years ago it was called “working up a load” and as I went along with increasing powder charges the groups were starting to look pretty good, like under 3/4” @ 100. Hmm, maybe my borescope lied to me. Over the coming weeks and months I tried all kinds of different bullets, powders, partial neck sizing, all kinds of stuff. With the bullets it got along with best and the powders that got along with the bullets, the gun was an honest 5/8” shooter. I’m not talking one 5/8” group out of a bunch if the stars are all aligned. I’m talking averages of lots of groups shot over time with different loads. It’s shot a lot of groups between 3/8” and 1/2” and a bunch more at an inch or better.

Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?

So here’s more details about this rifle. As a reminder, this rifle is a 70+ year old factory rifle. The stock has the standard pressure pad at the forend tip and makes heavy contact with the barrel. There is also heavy contact with the barrel at the rear sight “boss”. The front ring of the action only makes contact with the stock at the top edge of the wood and there is not much other action contact with the stock until the tang area. I’ve threatened to “fix” the bedding for years and just had the metal out of the wood last week thinking about doing it again, which is kind of why I’m writing all this.

So, yesterday I’m at the range. I brought this rifle along with a bunch of others to recheck its zero after pulling the metal last week. I took 2 shots @100. I always have had my rifles zeroed @ 200. The orange dot is 3/4”, so right where it should be, about 1 1/2” high. Here’s the zero check group with 1/2 min right from my wind zero. The observant might see 3 holes….more on that coming up.
IMG_0063.jpeg

I’ve got my shotmarker up and running @ 600 since I’m practicing and testing some stuff there. I figure, what the heck. I take a guess since my little dope chart for the 222 load I’m shooting only goes to 500. Here’s the 6 shots @ 600. First shot shows a pretty good guess and a little too much wind @ 4 min. right. Couple clicks up and a couple off the wind knob and 5 more. Last shot was just a little pickup/angle change that I really didn’t see until after the shot registered. Those 52’s get moved by the wind a bit.

IMG_0062.png

Now, back to that 3rd shot on the zero target. After cranking the elevation up to my 600 guess, shooting the 6 at the shotmarker, then back down to zero, then back up to try for a dirt clod on the impact berm 40 yards behind the target, then back down to zero and the wind back to 1/2 right, I took that third shot. All these shots are off a very solid concrete bench, but shooting off a Harris bipod and a little rear squeeze bag, just like in the pic of the rifle above.

Here’s a pic of my load and dope chart.

IMG_0065.jpeg

So, here’s the bottom line of this novel and a list of all the things the experts would say make this entire exercise not likely if not impossible.

70+ year old rifle technology with a factory light contour barrel with likely thousands of rounds through it (I’ve got just over 1500 through it and I bet it had double that on it when I bought it).

Completely unacceptable bedding of a factory wood stock. Really?

Leupold 12x scope (boosted and dot reticle, so about 19x) mounted in antique rings and base. Give me a break!

Shooting off a Harris bipod. Come on!

And even worse, the load. New Starline brass (everybody knows that won’t work). 30 year old powder (Scot 4197), lit by Bosnian Ginex primers.

So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?

The answers are yes and no.
 
Last edited:
Here’s a long one for you……..

I was introduced to guns and shooting when I was about 10ish and have been a gun nut from the very first trigger pull. Over 50 years now. Rifles have been my main interest and accurate rifles in particular. Not a day goes by and hasn’t for more years than I can remember that I’m not thinking of, working on, loading for, or shooting rifles. My little sister used to say “my brother is all guns all the time”. She has no idea.

This forum has been my favorite from the time I discovered it, not long after it started. The focus on accuracy is the draw, but there are a bunch of knowledgable people here and there is some very good info that comes from them. There are a couple of other sites that are pretty good, but it’s hard to sort through the bs at times.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on much of anything and that goes for guns and shooting. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of experience, but expert? When someone tells me they are an expert, I always take that with a grain of salt or two. I’ve met too many gun and shooting experts that really aren’t and they tend to throw out facts without ever having done the testing. Simply repeating things that are well know “facts” about what makes a rifle shoot or not. I’ve never believed much in experts. So, that leads to this little forum post…….

View attachment 1685727

The pictured rifle is a box stock Remington 722 made in 1953 and chambered in 222 Rem. I bought it in the fall of ‘97. It had obviously seen lots of use, but not abuse. I paid $279 for it and it came with the Redfield base and rings that are still on it. Pretty steep at the time, but I really wanted it. The trigger was not too bad at about 2 1/2 lbs, but I managed to get it down to 1lb 2oz and still measures that to this day.

These guns were always known to shoot well, which is part of the reason I wanted it. Once home from the gun shop I poked my Hawkeye down the bore and had instant buyers remorse. The barrel looked horrible! Fire cracked, copper fouled. This thing has had lots of round through it. No way this would shoot. I gave it a good cleaning and set about loading up some test rounds.

I wanted to shoot lighter bullets, but the throat was so long I couldn’t get close to the rifling and still have bullet in the case. I loaded them anyway and off to the range I went. So 28 years ago it was called “working up a load” and as I went along with increasing powder charges the groups were starting to look pretty good, like under 3/4” @ 100. Hmm, maybe my borescope lied to me. Over the coming weeks and months I tried all kinds of different bullets, powders, partial neck sizing, all kinds of stuff. With the bullets it got along with best and the powders that got along with the bullets, the gun was an honest 5/8” shooter. I’m not talking one 5/8” group out of a bunch if the stars are all aligned. I’m talking averages of lots of groups shot over time with different loads. It’s shot a lot of groups between 3/8” and 1/2” and a bunch more at an inch or better.

Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?

So here’s more details about this rifle. As a reminder, this rifle is a 70+ year old factory rifle. The stock has the standard pressure pad at the forend tip and makes heavy contact with the barrel. There is also heavy contact with the barrel at the rear sight “boss”. The front ring of the action only makes contact with the stock at the top edge of the wood and there is not much other action contact with the stock until the tang area. I’ve threatened to “fix” the bedding for years and just had the metal out of the wood last week thinking about doing it again, which is kind of why I’m writing all this.

So, yesterday I’m at the range. I brought this rifle along with a bunch of others to recheck its zero after pulling the metal last week. I took 2 shots @100. I always have had my rifles zeroed @ 200. The orange dot is 3/4”, so right where it should be, about 1 1/2” high. Here’s the zero check group with 1/2 min right from my wind zero. The observant might see 3 holes….more on that coming up.
View attachment 1685747

I’ve got my shotmarker up and running @ 600 since I’m practicing and testing some stuff there. I figure, what the heck. I take a guess since my little dope chart for the 222 load I’m shooting only goes to 500. Here’s the 6 shots @ 600. First shot shows a pretty good guess and a little too much wind @ 4 min. right. Couple clicks up and a couple off the wind knob and 5 more. Last shot was just a little pickup I really didn’t see until after the shot registered. Those 52’s get moved by the wind a bit.

View attachment 1685766

Now, back to that 3rd shot on the zero target. After cranking the elevation up to my 600 guess, then back down to zero, then back up to try for a dirt clod on the impact berm 40 yards behind the target, then back down to zero and the wind back to 1/2 right, I took that third shot. All these shots are off a very solid concrete bench, but shooting off a Harris bipod and a little rear squeeze bag, just like in the pic of the rifle above.

Here’s a pic of my load and dope chart.

View attachment 1685767

So, here’s the bottom line of this novel and a list of all the things the experts would say make this entire exercise not likely if not impossible.

70+ year old rifle technology with a factory light contour barrel with likely thousands of rounds through it (I’ve got just over 1500 through it and I bet it had double that on it when I bought it).

Completely unacceptable bedding of a factory wood stock. Really?

Leupold 12x scope (boosted and dot reticle, so about 19x) mounted in antique rings and base. Give me a break!

Shooting off a Harris bipod. Come on!

And even worse, the load. New Starline brass (everybody knows that won’t work). 30 year old powder (Scot 4197), lit by Bosnian Ginex primers.

So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?

The answers are yes and no.
Well, yes.

You might not like the explanation, but it is this.

Every once in a while, I'll shoot a few 5 shot groups at the range that would easily win a competition on that given day in that given series.

Trouble is, I can not duplicate that performance over multiple days.

So. I've learned to take the good, bad, and ugly over multiple outings to determine what I'm capable of on a given day.

Which is why I know I'm no expert.
 
Picked up a 721, probably at least as old as your gun, but in 30-06. Barrel looks pretty decent for a 70+ year old rifle. Will see how it shoots
 
Never try to decide how a rifle will shoot or group or how much time it has left by looking down a boe scope. I have not seen a Savage barrel that does not look like it was made in sweat shop by children in a dirt floor machine shop in some part of South East Asia and in spite of that fact you find a larger than average number that shoot pretty well!

A bore scope can tell you how a barrel was made. It can give you an idea of what to expect with reguard to copper fouling. It can tell you a lot about the people and shop that made it. If a barrel that was a shooting machine with tiny little group but suddenly starts to open up it can give some clues as to what is happening. It can not predict what size groups a barrel will shoot or how long those groups will last.

A bore scope is a diagnostic tool and not able to do much of anything on it's own or with out tons of experince.

Did you know that most adults over the age of 50 have some tearing of their rotator cuff? 75% of people with varying degree's of tearing of their rotator cuffs are asymptomatic. By the age of 70 a significant amount of men have prostate cancer but it was not detectable and they had no symptoms it was discovered during autopsy. If you look at various symptoms of various rare and common disseases and then look at something rather common and begnign like a cold they can have similar symptoms. My point is that a lot of things are not so cut and dry that you can use one tool or use a tool out of context and arrive at the correct answer. You might need a new transmission or ECM in your truck or you might just need to check all the grounds and battery connectors and harness for corrision.

If that barrel did not have some errosin and fire cracking and someone told me a varmint rifle from the 1950's as all orignal I would assume something was wrong. If it was a 700 Nitro Express Doubles and it had fire cracking but looked like new I would suspect someone was being dishonest about refinishing of wood and metal!

Believe the target. No matter what it is telling you it is being 100% honest with you everytime if if understand what it is telling you or not that is another story!

I would say this should you decide to rebarrel it save the old barrel some people like to have the origanal for reasons of collector value. You see this a lot with older Winchesters for example where puriest think that after you rebarrel one it is just another rifle and no longer a Winchester. Given the demise of the origanal USA based Winchester Firearms I think that is a silly standard since you can no longer get a factory origanal barrel that is not a used barrel or suspect milage! No amount of patina and origanal parts matters to me if the rifle does not shoot straight and function like new!
 
Here’s a long one for you……..

I was introduced to guns and shooting when I was about 10ish and have been a gun nut from the very first trigger pull. Over 50 years now. Rifles have been my main interest and accurate rifles in particular. Not a day goes by and hasn’t for more years than I can remember that I’m not thinking of, working on, loading for, or shooting rifles. My little sister used to say “my brother is all guns all the time”. She has no idea.

This forum has been my favorite from the time I discovered it, not long after it started. The focus on accuracy is the draw, but there are a bunch of knowledgable people here and there is some very good info that comes from them. There are a couple of other sites that are pretty good, but it’s hard to sort through the bs at times.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on much of anything and that goes for guns and shooting. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of experience, but expert? When someone tells me they are an expert, I always take that with a grain of salt or two. I’ve met too many gun and shooting experts that really aren’t and they tend to throw out facts without ever having done the testing. Simply repeating things that are well know “facts” about what makes a rifle shoot or not. I’ve never believed much in experts. So, that leads to this little forum post…….

View attachment 1685727

The pictured rifle is a box stock Remington 722 made in 1953 and chambered in 222 Rem. I bought it in the fall of ‘97. It had obviously seen lots of use, but not abuse. I paid $279 for it and it came with the Redfield base and rings that are still on it. Pretty steep at the time, but I really wanted it. The trigger was not too bad at about 2 1/2 lbs, but I managed to get it down to 1lb 2oz and still measures that to this day.

These guns were always known to shoot well, which is part of the reason I wanted it. Once home from the gun shop I poked my Hawkeye down the bore and had instant buyers remorse. The barrel looked horrible! Fire cracked, copper fouled. This thing has had lots of round through it. No way this would shoot. I gave it a good cleaning and set about loading up some test rounds.

I wanted to shoot lighter bullets, but the throat was so long I couldn’t get close to the rifling and still have bullet in the case. I loaded them anyway and off to the range I went. So 28 years ago it was called “working up a load” and as I went along with increasing powder charges the groups were starting to look pretty good, like under 3/4” @ 100. Hmm, maybe my borescope lied to me. Over the coming weeks and months I tried all kinds of different bullets, powders, partial neck sizing, all kinds of stuff. With the bullets it got along with best and the powders that got along with the bullets, the gun was an honest 5/8” shooter. I’m not talking one 5/8” group out of a bunch if the stars are all aligned. I’m talking averages of lots of groups shot over time with different loads. It’s shot a lot of groups between 3/8” and 1/2” and a bunch more at an inch or better.

Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?

So here’s more details about this rifle. As a reminder, this rifle is a 70+ year old factory rifle. The stock has the standard pressure pad at the forend tip and makes heavy contact with the barrel. There is also heavy contact with the barrel at the rear sight “boss”. The front ring of the action only makes contact with the stock at the top edge of the wood and there is not much other action contact with the stock until the tang area. I’ve threatened to “fix” the bedding for years and just had the metal out of the wood last week thinking about doing it again, which is kind of why I’m writing all this.

So, yesterday I’m at the range. I brought this rifle along with a bunch of others to recheck its zero after pulling the metal last week. I took 2 shots @100. I always have had my rifles zeroed @ 200. The orange dot is 3/4”, so right where it should be, about 1 1/2” high. Here’s the zero check group with 1/2 min right from my wind zero. The observant might see 3 holes….more on that coming up.
View attachment 1685747

I’ve got my shotmarker up and running @ 600 since I’m practicing and testing some stuff there. I figure, what the heck. I take a guess since my little dope chart for the 222 load I’m shooting only goes to 500. Here’s the 6 shots @ 600. First shot shows a pretty good guess and a little too much wind @ 4 min. right. Couple clicks up and a couple off the wind knob and 5 more. Last shot was just a little pickup/angle change that I really didn’t see until after the shot registered. Those 52’s get moved by the wind a bit.

View attachment 1685766

Now, back to that 3rd shot on the zero target. After cranking the elevation up to my 600 guess, shooting the 6 at the shotmarker, then back down to zero, then back up to try for a dirt clod on the impact berm 40 yards behind the target, then back down to zero and the wind back to 1/2 right, I took that third shot. All these shots are off a very solid concrete bench, but shooting off a Harris bipod and a little rear squeeze bag, just like in the pic of the rifle above.

Here’s a pic of my load and dope chart.

View attachment 1685767

So, here’s the bottom line of this novel and a list of all the things the experts would say make this entire exercise not likely if not impossible.

70+ year old rifle technology with a factory light contour barrel with likely thousands of rounds through it (I’ve got just over 1500 through it and I bet it had double that on it when I bought it).

Completely unacceptable bedding of a factory wood stock. Really?

Leupold 12x scope (boosted and dot reticle, so about 19x) mounted in antique rings and base. Give me a break!

Shooting off a Harris bipod. Come on!

And even worse, the load. New Starline brass (everybody knows that won’t work). 30 year old powder (Scot 4197), lit by Bosnian Ginex primers.

So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?

The answers are yes and no.
Congratulations!
Your rifle is finally broken in
(Impressive 600 yd shooting BTW for that caliber)
 
Now, I’m sure some who have made it this far are thinking, big deal. 5/8” rifles are a dime a dozen. But, are they?

Dime a dozen? Not from my (somewhat limited) experience. Not exactly impossible, either, though.

I look at it this way: Off-the shelf factory bolt rifles with good ammo and a good shooter, repeatable MOA groups is a pretty good rifle. Repeatable 1/2 MOA groups is an outstanding rifle.

That, of course, changes once you start going with customized components. And I open that up by about 2 or 3x for AR's (mostly because guys around here with new AR's have no clue what they're doing.) But that's my take on the guy with bolt gun with the still-labelled stock and the ammo in the Big 5 plastic bag.

I'd say you have, and are, a pretty good shooter. And thanks for the read.
 
With a good shooter behind the rifle these old Remingtons can shoot. The triggers on those old rifles were very good even with the split sear. One thing I'll add is the rear sight lug can be a problem. I own two of these one in 257 Roberts and the other a triple deuce. Both excellent shooters with the stock bedding intact.
 
I used to believe there were some "absolutes" when it came to reloading and shooting relative to achieving a high degree of precision. And for the most part, these "absolutes" hold true but once in a while there will be a load or rifle that shoots extremely well that defies these "absolutes".

What I learned in almost 60 years in the shooting sports is that I am the most significant variable especially since most of my shooting is of a practical in nature. I would then rank wind and mirage the next most significant variable in the pursuit of precise shooting.

When I competed in NRA Pistol and "expert" was defined as someone who could average at least 270x300 over a defined number of matches. Shooting one match at this level did not qualify one as an expert. One had to demonstrate a sustained performance at this level over a series of matches. Thus, for competitive shooters, this level of expertise is objectively defined. Beyond that, I do not pay attention to those boasting to be experts because there is no objective measurement to claim such a title. This is just my way of thinking - probably obsolete these days but I am what I am.
 
So, my question is the same. Is this even remotely possible or am I just super lucky?

The answers are yes and no.
I submit you didn't ask the right question. Perhaps you should have asked "Am I a good shot?" It seems to me you are a good shot, and pay close attention to what you and the rifle are doing. You take in information and process it. So yes, you are a pretty good shot!

I have shot my old Sako L-46, .222 Rem at 500 yards. The Hornady 50 gr bullet is a stubby little thing. It slows down so much it's barely supersonic and the Shotmarker is on the verge of ignoring it. My load is slower at 500 than yours is at 600. A puff of wind can blow it into the next time zone. It's fun to push the lowly 222 to long distances. If I'd pay attention, it might teach me something about calling the wind.
 
I started reloading in the Fall of 1975 with a Lee Load All. My only rifle was a Ruger Model 77 with a Bushnell Banner 3X9 multiplex reticle. One day lightning struck, the stars and planets aligned, and my luck held for 5 perfect shots. I was using old Federal brass, Speer 150 gr Hot Cores, IMR 4350, and CCI LR primers. My shooting bench was an old wooden soap box stood on end with 2 sandbags on top and holding the rifle to my shoulder with no other support in the sitting position at what the Club said was 100yards. With the scope at 9X and a target with 1" squares I shot at the center diamond, aligning the cross hairs with the 4 corners. After 3 shots I looked at my group very carefully with my scope and only saw one hole. Very carefully I fired 2 more shots and went to see what I had done. I still could only find one very small hole. I saved that target and showed it to several other shooters who couldn't believe it had 5 shots. I had a lot of trouble believing it myself. A few years later with my the first dial calipers I tried to measure that group and got 0.311", a 0.003" group. That rifle had never fired anything close to that small a group, nor has it since. No other rifle I have ever owned has either. I have a best since then of 0.024" with a target rifle. Was the range really 100 yards? Did 4 of the 5 bullets completely miss the target and I didn't notice? Was that the one group God decided to give me? Or was I just lucky? I somehow lost the target when we moved from Indiana to Colorado but it was my main hunting rifle until 2009. In 2021 I had it rebarreled with a 1:10 Lilja sporter barrel, piller and glass bedded and gave it to my youngest grandson. It shoots fairly accurately, about 1.25" with a good load of Win 760 and a 180 gr Nosler Accubond and CCI LR Primers when he does his part. I have him practice with a load of H4350 and a Sierra 165 gr Match King. A few times he has fired a group close to 1" but none below it, nor have I with both a front rest and rear bag.
 

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I had a douglass barreled Arisaka in 220 Swift that would shoot 10-12 rounds into 1/4 inch...but only after 12 rounds were fired to dirty the barrel up badly. After about 25 total rounds it would open up to three and four inches. By marginally cleaning it, I nursed about 15 seasons of woodchuck slaughter out of it. I had kills on crows at 550, woodchucks at 450 in mortal danger and the occasional unlucky chuck at 650+ died to it. I shot rocks at 700 with it (groundhog sized rocks). Whe it finally quit shooting I had HArt put a new barrel on for me. I scoped the old one. Basically nothing for four inches from the breech, then it looked like a western PA tar and chip road for about 12 inches. The last seven inches were pristine. So I did pretty good whacking stuff at 700 with a seven inch barrel!!! I can say that gun gave hives to guys I shot with who had custom 243AI and 6.5x284 rifles. They laughed, then they cried, then they started calling it "that damned gun". :D
 

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