Vertical stringing at 100 yards with a .22? Possible causes?

[M1A4ME]

Target size/shape (even color) vs. the reticle style/size and color make a difference for me.

I have one scope, with an illuminated red dot in the center of the cross hairs, that works better for me when I crank the power setting up so that the illuminated dot is just a tiny bit smaller than the black target at 100 yds.  My eye/brain seem to do a good job centering the red dot in the black circle/dot.

I have another scope that has a horseshoe like illuminated reticle and I adjust it so that the black dot fits into the horse shoe with a small amount of white/tan paper target visible between the red horse shoe and the black circle of the target.

On the side of reticle shape/size issues I have a couple AR15's with SUIT optics on them.  The SUIT is an old rig that I really like.  No cross hairs, just a pointer that sticks down from the center/top of the field of view with a sharp tip to it.  You put the tip on the target where you want the bullets to hit and shoot.  At 25 yds. I can shoot dime sized 10 shot groups with both AR15s (one is .223 and the other 5.45X39).  But, at 300 yds. I get a 4" wide by 6" tall group.  I think it's because that small/sharp tip on the pointer is difficult to put in the same spot on a bullseye target every time at 300 yds.  Up close it's easy to put the tip on the number of the ring on the target, or another bullet hole in the target.  At any distance it's more difficult.  Side to side is okay, up and down I think I get some variation.

[RSR]

Sell it to a pawnshop or use it as a trade at a gun store.   Unless the gun is unsafe, I can't think of any reason for destroying it...  Someone will be happy to have gotten a bargain and have a means of self defense or recreation.

[skin]

 Hey Joe, next time you take it out of the stock, look and see if the action wobbles on the barrel. The barrel is just pinned in. I had to use steel shim stock and green loctite and replace the pin. Stiffened everything up nicely. That took most of the torque sensitivity away. Reduced most of the fliers away also.

[Joe L]

Hey Joe, next time you take it out of the stock, look and see if the action wobbles on the barrel. The barrel is just pinned in. I had to use steel shim stock and green loctite and replace the pin. Stiffened everything up nicely. That took most of the torque sensitivity away. Reduced most of the fliers away also.

Will do, probably in the morning.  I hope to shoot it well again tomorrow. 
Joe

[Joe L]

Well, the wind didn't die down much but I went to the range and shot 50 rounds of the Aguila Super Extra through the Savage.  Still not very good.  But I did benefit from some time with the scope and I made some changes to the ocular and focus (parallax) and confirmed that a 1/2" red dot works well with this reticle at 100 yards.  Best 5 shot groups in the 1.5" range but some at 2.5 with a vertical spread, so I am not there yet. 

When I got home, I removed the action from the stock and trimmed off some of the bedding material that was under the barrel just forward of the action.  I think the action is all that is touching the stock now.  The barrel seemed very tight in the action and the action seems to fit nicely in the stock.  I torqued the action screws to 10 in-lbs.  I'll try it again on Friday, maybe. 

My shooting buddy should receive his MTR late next week.  Maybe he will let me shoot it.     

The cold chamber groups are consistently the best of the day with the little Savage.  That's what has me thinking the action and barrel may be in some kind of a bind.  Next is to knock the retaining pins out, remove the barrel, add some JB-weld, stick it back together, pin the barrel and see if that takes up any slop that I can't detect on the bench.  I don't want to spend any more time or money on this little gun after next week. 

The high point of these last few range trips has been the new Vortex Diamondback Tactical 4-16x44 mildot first focal plane scopes.  I really like them (I have two now).  The controls are silky smooth, the reticle is crystal clear, the adjustments seem stable.  It helps that I know more now about scopes and ocular adjustment and parallax and cant, but these two Vortex scopes were maybe 1/4 the cost of the Bushnell DMR when it first came out, and seems to be of similar quality.  Maybe all the manufacturers are improving their quality and manufacturing systems.   Why I bet the one on the Savage will work perfectly on a CZ!! 

This is fun.  This is not easy.

Joe

[Joe L]

Skin hit on the problem, thanks, Skin. 

I trimmed some bedding material off the stock just ahead of the action this weekend and went to the range this morning.  First 10 shots at 100 yards had moved 2" high and 2" right.  So I decided to try a little experiment.  I tore a sheet of paper from my pocket notebook, folded to to about 1/2" wide with eight thicknesses, loosened the action screws, put the shim in front of the action under the barrel, tightened the action screws, shot 20 rounds.  All of them were 8" high, 8" right, and this was with 10 in-lbs torque on the action screws. 

The barrel simply isn't tight in the action.  Not loose enough to feel in hand, but loose enough to allow the barrel to move---relative to the action--about 11 moa.  This is why the Savages are sensitive to action screw torque, those barrels which are on the small side of the tolerance OD, when combined with an action on the large side of the tolerance in ID result in enough clearance that the gun isn't reliable from shot to shot.  If the scope was mounted on the barrel, it wouldn't be a problem.  If the barrel was screwed in to the action and then jam nutted, it wouldn't be a problem.  Perhaps with shim stock, JB-Weld, torch, freezer, and a big hammer, it won't be a problem.  On second thought, I might talk to a real gunsmith first. 

I'd be mad except now I understand why I see what I see, and that is progress.  My old engineering mind is happy, actually. 

This is fun. 

Joe

[skin]

 You are more than welcome Joe. I'm glad I could help.
 Back in 1994, I worked on a friend's marlin 25mn 22 mag. He wanted to break it in half. After I got through with it, he was hitting prairie dogs at 200 plus yds. You couldn't by that rifle from him for any amount of money. He had a $129 rifle that could out shoot some expensive rifles. A novelty rifle.

[Joe L]

Gunsmith has to mill the sight base to get it to fit the curvature of the barrel, that is one problem.  I took him the stock and action screws and gave him the OK to do whatever it takes to get it as good as he can get it.  He checked the action to barrel fit and said it was good.  So probably correcting the sight base and a professional bedding job will do the trick.  I hope so. 

I got to shoot my buddy's MTR on Thursday.  That is one sweet rifle.  If I can't get the Savage right, I am going to go with the MTR.  I took five shots with his scope settings, his eye relief and diopter, his rest, etc. and shot well under 1" at 100 yards.  I don't even know what ammo he was shooting.  Even the bolt felt good and the stock is beautiful.  Makes the Savage look like a toy. 

Joe

[Joe L]

I got the rifle back from the gunsmith on Thursday and shot it this morning.  I think fixing the scope base and redoing the bedding job helped at least a little.  I can tell the differences in the ammo now, when switching from Aguila Super Extra to Wolf target to Federal HV Match.  Still no sub 1" groups, but I did get some under 1.5" with each ammo type.  I think I will keep shooting it and see if I can the eye relief and parallax right before I order a CZ.  It may be Tuesday before I can get back to the range.  So, some progress. 

I may post a video later today or tomorrow, if I can edit it down to something that is a reasonable length.  I had a camera on the target this morning, but not on the shooter.

Joe

[david s]

Grab a magnifying glass and give the muzzle crown a good looking over. CZ's can on occasion have issues here. Savages I dont know. A bad crown generally leads to random dispersal but maybe yours just likes vertical.

[Joe L]

Thanks, David s, will take a look.

[Joe L]

I got to shoot a friend's CZ MTR on Wednesday and was able to shoot a 1" group at 100 yards and several groups under 1.5".  That is a sweet .22 rifle.

So, I decided to give the Savage one more try.  The crown looked OK to me.  I had spent some more elbow grease on the bore with some JB Bore Paste and VFG pellets after last shooting the gun.  My CZ buddy was at the range this morning (Thursday), so I asked him if I could shoot some of his SK ammo and duplicate my MTR test with the Savage.  He gave me a box of SK Rifle Match (red box) and one of SK Standard Plus to try in the Savage. 

Clean, cold bore first ten shot group was 1.0" with the SK Rifle Match (red box).    Shot 4 more groups at 1.5" or less, no flyers, no vertical stringing.  Average 10 shot group size was 1.4".  Switched to SK Standard Plus, groups opened up a little, so, including two 2.5" groups  with the three 1.5" ones brought the average for 50 rounds to 1.9". 

Shot 30 rounds in 3 groups of Aguila Super Extra with terrible results, average 4" with vertical stringing.  Next 20 rounds of Norma Tac22 and got 3" groups but less vertical stringing. 

I would say the average results with the CZ MTR I shot on Wednesday were about 0.5" better than the Savage with the same ammo.  BUT, with the SK Match Rifle, the groups were the best I've ever seen from this rifle, and the gun held up just fine over the 100 SK rounds.  Only when I switched to my older and cheaper ammo did the accuracy tank. 

I think the work on the sight base, bedding/pillars, and the bore polishing resulted in enough improvement in the overall repeatability of the gun that NOW I can see the differences in the ammo very clearly.  In the past, there weren't any good groups to be had, so all the ammo choices looked poor.  I've ordered a thousand rounds of the SK Rifle Match ammo to use so that I can finally improve my shooting technique with the little rifle, knowing now that it actually is capable of 1 moa accuracy when using a suitable match ammo.   I was able to match the MTR results for one target out of 15!!  Hooray!!

I may still have to get an MTR, but I'm not quite there yet.  Shooter needs work now.  Gun, and hopefully, this soon-to-arrive batch of ammo are good to go.  For now.  But it took a CZ rifle just to get me to keep working with the little Savage! 

Joe

[Joe L]

Here is a followup on this issue.  Machining the sight rail to fit the action curvature and bedding the action properly in the factory wooden stock fixed the vertical stringing.  That got the rifle to where I could actually see the differences in ammunition choices. 

SK Rifle Match works well in the gun.  However, I still had a first shot flyer after loading up a new 10 round magazine.  That last problem was eliminated by more work on the bore and leade area with VFG pellets and JB Bore Paste.  After two more sessions with the bore, the rifle is now a 1 moa shooter at 100 yards with no cold bore flyers and no new magazine flyers.  Best group is 3/8", but, more importantly, fifteen five shot groups at 100 on a windy day averaged 1". 

So, I was able to fix the gun mechanically so good ammo can be distinguished from less suitable choices, then fine tune the bore to get a stable gun with good ammo. 

Next is a lot of practice, to get the 100 yard average down to 1/2".  Shooter needs work. 

Joe

[RSR]

Thanks for the final update.  Happens too little.