TheCZKid
Silver $$ Contributor
Well, I recently acquired a rifle, and am trying to get it to shoot as I expected it had the potential to, but no luck so far.
It's a 17 Mach IV or 4, depending on how you know it, basically a forerunner to the 17 Rem. Fireball. The rifle is built on a Remington XP-100 action (eXperimental Pistol), single feed. Has a 21" Lilja barrel, about 1:10.5 twist as well as I can tell. Built by a former member here. It's in a pillar bedded HS Precision stock, has the trigger reworked and breaks at 1 pound 6 ounces. The action was blueprinted.
Here it is with a Burris scope installed, with 1" Leupold rings. Out shooting a few days ago.
I thought it might be the scope that was giving me the shotgun group patterns, so I changed out to my Leupold VX III 6.5-20x40mm with 30mm tube, and it was easier to see the targets, but no better luck in group sizes. I'm changing out the base and rings soon, to lower the scope, but that's not the issue, so the scope being so high is just temporary.
Here's the first sighter shots, and initial groups at 75 yards. These are all shot with newly formed, never shot brass, so that was a high consideration as to group sizes. This is an example of my newly formed 17 M4 brass on left, and once shot on the right.
Initial shots with 25 grain Vmax and 8208 powder, with Remington 7.5 primers, in Lake City formed brass. 18.6 grains showed the most promise. 8208 was Nosler's most accurate powder with 20 grain loads, so figured it wouldn't be terrible.
So, I loaded some more of the 18.6 grain loads of 8208, to fire-form more brass, and the groups were all over the place.
Decided to change to a different bullet, 20 Vmax, which shoots excellent in my 17 Hornet. And, tried Lyman's most accurate powder in 49th edition, H335. You can't tell, but the first shot on the first group just barely nicked the edge of the paper, top left, above the 17M4, this making first group 2.38". The rest you can see, and show some promise, but still erratic.
It's a 17 Mach IV or 4, depending on how you know it, basically a forerunner to the 17 Rem. Fireball. The rifle is built on a Remington XP-100 action (eXperimental Pistol), single feed. Has a 21" Lilja barrel, about 1:10.5 twist as well as I can tell. Built by a former member here. It's in a pillar bedded HS Precision stock, has the trigger reworked and breaks at 1 pound 6 ounces. The action was blueprinted.
Here it is with a Burris scope installed, with 1" Leupold rings. Out shooting a few days ago.
I thought it might be the scope that was giving me the shotgun group patterns, so I changed out to my Leupold VX III 6.5-20x40mm with 30mm tube, and it was easier to see the targets, but no better luck in group sizes. I'm changing out the base and rings soon, to lower the scope, but that's not the issue, so the scope being so high is just temporary.
Here's the first sighter shots, and initial groups at 75 yards. These are all shot with newly formed, never shot brass, so that was a high consideration as to group sizes. This is an example of my newly formed 17 M4 brass on left, and once shot on the right.
Initial shots with 25 grain Vmax and 8208 powder, with Remington 7.5 primers, in Lake City formed brass. 18.6 grains showed the most promise. 8208 was Nosler's most accurate powder with 20 grain loads, so figured it wouldn't be terrible.
So, I loaded some more of the 18.6 grain loads of 8208, to fire-form more brass, and the groups were all over the place.
Decided to change to a different bullet, 20 Vmax, which shoots excellent in my 17 Hornet. And, tried Lyman's most accurate powder in 49th edition, H335. You can't tell, but the first shot on the first group just barely nicked the edge of the paper, top left, above the 17M4, this making first group 2.38". The rest you can see, and show some promise, but still erratic.
