Problems, scope, ammo, rifle, or the dumb one behind the three

General Firearms Reloading & Ammunition
1

This might be a long one ill try to keep it short.

I shoot a .30-06 savage and i reload, just recently, i bought a leupold VX3 CDS and have put about 20 rounds through the gun since. it shot 1/2 moa with my old hand loaded ammo at 100 which was better than my old scope ever shot. i had leupold make a BDC elevation dial for a different load using the same bullet but velocities from a different powder. Winchester 760

So i finally acquired some Winchester 760 powder and swapped out the generic dial for the custom one. When i did so and ran the dial adjustment from 50 yards to 600 I noticed some resistance at a certain spot but did not think much of it. I also switched to magnum primers, as recommended by the manual for the 760. Additionally i used a neck sizer as opposed to full length. Finally i used a bullet seat depth gauge and bullet comparator to measure the distance to my lands and grooves and set my bullet back .003" from the shortest measurement.

All of these things i expected to give me a more accurate load. So i go to the range and start at 50 to sight it in. I shoot a sub 1/4 inch group and feel good, adjust for windage and make a single confirmation shot. I then move the target to 100 yards for final zeroing, at which i loose complete accuracy/ consistency. My shots are all over the paper. I shoot roughly 25 rounds hoping its just operator error or bad rounds. Some “groups” form vertical lines, and other “groups” form horizontal ones, the best of which being 4-6 inch groups. I even had several not land on paper and one landed almost 12 inches high.

I move the target back to 50 yards and shoot another 3 shot string and it shoots a 2 inch group. I was shooting to zero so i shot with a bipod and a sand bag under the butt stock.

I realize i took a big shortcut in the world of reloading and did a lot of things at once. However the first 4 shots, which behaved rather perfectly, make me think that it is not the ammo but rather the scope to be the culprit. None of this makes sense to me and I do apologize for the essay but i would like everyone to have as much info as i do. At this point i feel i should send the scope back to leupold and am hoping to get an objective opinion on the situation.

thanks for your help

2

Well this has an easy fix.

  1. Check make sure scope is mounted correctly and properly tightened.
  2. Get a known decent quality factory ammo and go shoot again. Same results = probably a bad scope. Otherwise its the reloads.

To know fore sure, it would be useful to bring a KNOWN good scope/rings/base as well to test IF the first scope fails just make sure its not the rifle or even the rings/bases.

I wouldn’t send the scope back until you’ve confirmed its actually to blame.

3

I dont know why i didnt think about that last night but i did just that and with factory ammo it shot 3 inch group at 50 not exactly acceptable and yes the rings and bases are nice and snug and they are leupold rings /bases

4

Even a Savage should be able to hold a minute at 100. Like our gunsmiths tell us… when a gun is shooting THAT bad, it’s something obvious… Loose base/Rings/Scope, etc.

5

my savage is quite capable of much more ill have you know