30.06 factory vs hand load (I'm sure this has been talked about a lot) Savage Axis

salmonriverfire

salmonriverfire

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I have a Savage Axis in 30.06, I love the rifle but I've never been able to get it to sight in properly. I always blamed this on my running cheap optics on it and not holding zero. I went to the range yesterday and couldn't even hit paper at 25 yards (I had been monkeying with my dials because one loosened up). I was shooting American Eagle 150 grain FMJ. Once I was on paper at 25 I moved up to 57 yards (thats just where the target is) Took me 5 more rounds to hit paper there. Once I did heres how it looked.

30.06%20Target%20reloads%20vs%20factory_zpsnhhpwz1x.jpg


Yellow - First round
Red - Second round
Green - Third round
Grey - Fourth round
Blue - Fifth round (last of my American Eagle)

So between shots I was Adjusting my scope acordingly, but that last round through me off, I hardly moved the scope (the grey was so close) but it was WAY off. So my buddy passes me 3 of his handloads, same spec 150 Grain FMJ, American Eagle brass, OAL the same as the American Eagle, and without touching the scope I put the 3 in the center together.

This really opened my eyes to the unreliability of factory ammo. I have 106 30.06 brass ready to reload, that's the last of the factory ammo my gun will be shooting.

I hope this might help someone else out, I knew these issues before but never seen it so clearly.

Heres the rifle.

Svage%2030.06_zps7zkqkuje.jpg
 
A tailored and tuned handload will always shoot better than factory ammo, but factory ammo is not necessarily inaccurate..... It may be a case where your gun just doesn't like what you were trying to feed it..... Or it may be a case where you just got lucky with the handloads....

Were you shooting supported or freehand?..... You mention you had a dial loose on your scope, I would put decent glass on it before trying anything else...
 
How much shooting experience do you have?

You issues can be related to poor technique, poorly constructed rifle (not free floated, bad bedding, imporper torque on action screws etc), a bad scope, over magnifcation for range, parralax issues, ammo, etc.

Judging by the size of the scope and the fact that it is mounted to an Axis, I'm guessing you paid very little for it.
 
Your optics are suspect to say the least.

So how do you "know" that as you were "adjusting your scope after each shot" that it was actually "holding" properly.

You are blaming the ammo when in fact your scope might be so unreliable that IT'S causing that pattern.

The Axis lacks on a lot of fronts, but accuracy is generally not one of them. And it was built to shoot "factory ammunition" very well.

So before you go through hundreds of rounds, adjusting after each one, chasing the shot with a "suspect" scope, why not put on at least some mediocre glass and see what the gun does. Heck, you might be able to borrow even a cheap Bushnell from someone and just see what it does.

I have an Axis. It's wicked accurate with everything I feed it be it cheap off the shelf or my hand loaded stuff. The rifle is good, my glass makes it better - yes, maybe I went way further the other way (that's 800 bucks worth of Burris sitting on it), but it sure shoots straight and groups from it at 400 shot free hand look better than yours there at 50.

Savage%20Axis_zpsyjxubhwz.jpg
 
I read your post a couple times. You do not seem to know what size groups you and your setup can produce if you are adjusting the scope after every shot at 25 yards and not getting linear movement of the bullet holes. To get it on paper at 25 yards, bore sight it. (look through bore, get it centered on something, adjust scope reticle to match). Once you get a bullet hole on the paper, fire 2 or 3 more shots without adjusting anything - if your "group" is 2 or 4 or 6 inches at 25 yards, may as well quit "sighting in", because your technique or your rig needs adjustment.
 
I guess I forgot to mention a few things. I forgot to put my laser bore sight in before going, so i had no idea how far off it was to begin with, Hense not hitting paper at 25. I only had 15 rounds to start with (i know not enough to properly site in a rifle but i wanted to get it closer. I would shoot one rounds, then move the dials however many clicked needed to get to center based on the shot on target. I wanted to get it close so that I could then shoot a group and see how far off it was. the problem is I ran out of ammo before i got it to that point. My point about the factory ammo was the difference between the last shot and the reloads, I get that it could be my fault, or one bad round, but from now on I will be shooting reloads, I just wanted to share my experience in case someone else is having the same issue.

I do not have a lot of shooting experience with bolt action rifle. mostly handgun and AR. My training came from the police academy and from my cousin in the military, I will admit my technique could be off some, but i was there with a much more experienced shooter and he agreed with the factory being poor ammo, It was also less than a dollar a round and my buddy had the same issue with it in his rugar american (we bought 10 boxes and split them).

The scope was pretty cheap, it was about $350 I am going to try more with it once I get my reloads done and see how it groups. I have shot decent groups at 100 yards before so i feel its not me causing the issue.

And just to confirm the one real grouping on that target is the 3 in the center and the one blue circled round the rest were caused by adjustment. That said I highly doubt that the factory ammo would have done the 3 shots in the middle. My next thought was to weigh all my factory ammo and group the same weights together (my cousin does this for his competition 22LR) and see if it is more accurate, however I am now out of ammo.
 
$350 is not cheap for a scope. I have used several leupold vx1s ($250ish in the EE) and they are very good quality optics. What type of scope is it exactly? Hopefully not Leapers or NC Star or something of that variety in which case it would need to be ditched.

Make sure all fasteners are torqued down to spec and once your on paper at 25 just move to 100. Now that you are on paper at that range shoot a 3 shot group at least so you can know that your rifle likes the ammo and you can tell where the center of your group is. Then and only then make the appropriate adjustments to your scope and verify with another 3 or 5 shot group.

If things don't seem right at any point along that journey then stop and investigate the problem and you won't waste so much ammo. Also make sure you are comfortable and have a very sturdy rest or none of it will count for anything
 
A scope that size with target turrets should cost a LOT more than $350 if it's any good.

At that price, if it's not made in the USA or Japan, it's probably crap. I would fit that before doing anything else.
 
If you have a bore sighter, that's fine; it can be used to bore sight the rifle, and and it should tell you if your scope adjustments are close to true, or if the reticle moves at all. If you don't have the bore sighter with you, bore sight the rifle, by placing the rifle in a rest or cradle of some type, a cut out cardboard box will work, remove the bolt, look through the bore, and move the rifle to center the bull in the bore. Now, taking care not to move the rifle, look through the scope, and turn the adjustments to bring it to zero. This should have you on paper at 25 yards.

I don't know how accurate your American Eagle ammo is, but I bet its better than you give it credit for. If we consider your best 3 shots at 25 yards, all things being equal, a 50 yard group, should only be twice as large. Adjusting the scope after each shot had you chasing your zero. Each correction compounded on the error of the previous shot, making things worse and worse as you proceeded; and that's assuming your adjustments were true to the advertised values. They probably weren't. Even if you don't have much ammo, fire 3 shot groups, then make your adjustment from the center of the group.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The first thing to do is to ensure the action screws in the rifle, the base mount screws, the windage screws, and the ring's cap screws are all tight. Next you'll want to adjust the scope to it's mechanical center. This is important because it allows you to know how close to the end of the limits your adjustments must be once the scope is zeroed . . . or if it can be zeroed. The scope is happier if the adjustments are not near their limits. From here you can bore sight the rifle and begin shooting at 25 yards. If it was me, once I was on target at 25, I'd check the group at 100, then zero at 200 yards. Finally I'd fire a 300 yard group to confirm the drop and to ensure there were no surprises with the windage as the range increased.
 
As Boomer said, check the action screws. My .223 Axis requires the front action screw be tightened first and then the back screw and don't over tighten them. Make sure you have the rifle resting on it's butt so the action seats toward the back when tightening the screws. My Axis will shoot tight groups if this is done. I had it shooting 1/2 inch 3 shot groups at 100 yards then took it out of the stock to do trigger work and when I put it back together it was shooting 2 inch groups. It took be a couple tries at getting the screws tightened just right then it was back to normal.
 
I shot 1/3 moa off a rest with federal 150 gr 30-06 at 300m (Walmart Special) and a cheapo $200 Bushnell DOA (also from Walmart) on my Tikka T3 Hunter. Ammo and scope must have been fine. So - something is going on with your rig
 
Before you scrap your scope try this test. Take a box of the handloads that performed well. Fire three shots at 50 yards, colour mark them. Adjust scope for two inchers higher, fire three shots, adjust for two inches right, fire three shots. Adjust for two inches down, fire three shots. Adjust for two inches left, fire three shots. If you have a nice 2" square, keep the scope.
 
salmonriverfire said:
This really opened my eyes to the unreliability of factory ammo. I have 106 30.06 brass ready to reload, that's the last of the factory ammo my gun will be shooting.

I hope this might help someone else out, I knew these issues before but never seen it so clearly.
Click to expand...
To make a blanket statement and paint all factory ammo as unreliable could not be further from the truth. While most of us here probably are handloaders, most would agree that there is some fine factory ammo out there that is very accurate and consistent esp in 30/06. You just haven't found the factory right ammo yet for your rifle.

The same can be said about handloaded ammo. You will have to find the right load for your rifle, and you could run into a string of crummy loads along the way.
 
Buy some better factory ammo if the is what you are going to shoot. My axis and now my winchester liked hornady 165gr superformance. Shot under moa in both. Not all factory ammo shot that good some was 2-3 moa.
I started reloading for it because $35-45 for 20 rounds is just crazy
 
Factory ammo has been pretty consistent lately. Bet even the older stuff... I shot this at 50m a couple weeks ago with federal 180 grain .308 out of my Remington 788. Ammo was likely 25 yrs old. Scope is a fixed 6x, and I hadn't shot a centrefire in over a year before shooting this group. I think there is something else going on with your gun or scope. Or... Maybe it just doesn't like the 150 grain bullets. But that's quite the pattern for 57 yds.

 
The OEM stock on the axis can create a problem if it is moving when one is shooting. This may happen with the bi-pod on it because it may be placing some extra pressure where the stock is the weakest. So one could try a bag that is placed farther back towards the receiver - where it is a bit stronger. If need be the OEM stock can be checked and adjusted for free-floating the barrel. One can also add some filler in the channel of the stock to stiffen it up.
Also, the pic. rail - base and rings need to be checked, and the scope ought to be placed on another rifle to see what is happening when shots are taken on the other rifle.
When all of those things are shored up, then it's time to do some more test shooting. And as mentioned there is some good factory ammo out there so a few different brands must be tried to determine a favorable load. One other item that could be checked it the bore to make sure it doesn't have any burrs along the lands and grooves.
 
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