Lightweight Mountain Rifles - How does yours shoot?

I have a couple mtn rifles. A HS proguide in 325wsm, a rem ti in 260 I picked up this spring and a fierce edge ti. The hs is the most consistent rifle, it may boot you hard but it will put 3 200 grain accubonds into around a half in at a 100, and hold that half moa out to at least 400 yards. It really isnt a long range gun, but at under 300 yards it packed enough energy for me. The fierce can print tiny groups, but the barrel needs to be icy cold. The first two shots of the day will be bang on, and well under half moa, but once it warms up things get wild fast. The rem ti feels like a bb gun, not sure I am in love with the stock, but it shoots decent. I have only worked up one load, and it will put 5 into 2" at 200 yards and holds its groups decent as the barrel heats up.

I find shooting the light rifles takes more concentration and as dogleg said above, a firm grip to be consistent. That can be mastered, but a barrel that starts tossing shots when it gets warm is the kiss of death for a light rifle for me. The thinkittle barrels warm up fast, a bad barrel can make group sizes get pretty big by the third shot.
 
LongBomber said:
I have a couple mtn rifles. A HS proguide in 325wsm, a rem ti in 260 I picked up this spring and a fierce edge ti. The hs is the most consistent rifle, it may boot you hard but it will put 3 200 grain accubonds into around a half in at a 100, and hold that half moa out to at least 400 yards. It really isnt a long range gun, but at under 300 yards it packed enough energy for me. The fierce can print tiny groups, but the barrel needs to be icy cold. The first two shots of the day will be bang on, and well under half moa, but once it warms up things get wild fast. The rem ti feels like a bb gun, not sure I am in love with the stock, but it shoots decent. I have only worked up one load, and it will put 5 into 2" at 200 yards and holds its groups decent as the barrel heats up.

I find shooting the light rifles takes more concentration and as dogleg said above, a firm grip to be consistent. That can be mastered, but a barrel that starts tossing shots when it gets warm is the kiss of death for a light rifle for me. The thinkittle barrels warm up fast, a bad barrel can make group sizes get pretty big by the third shot.
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I hear you. Although, with the mountain rifles I only plan to take one shot in the real world so I don't mind letting it cool down between shots to see what kind of accuracy it can get. Hopefully I don't need more than two shots, worst case scenario! Nice rifles you've got there...about to PM you on one ;)
 
Dogleg said:
As an aside, the single most important thing I've found for getting a Kimber to group tightly off the bench is just to hold the grip a lot harder than I would normally. Holding the forend might shock and offend the 10+ pound flat bottom crowd but that can help too.
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I fully agree! Have found the exact same results, but it takes some getting used to.
 
crazy_davey said:
I fully agree! Have found the exact same results, but it takes some getting used to.
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Davey,

It seemed all wrong at first, because I'd been doing the opposite my whole life. Now I pretend I'm squeezing small groups out of the grip itself; it helps me remember.

The other day we were shooting on a friend's hay meadow range. We've barely got it started, having only placed the benches this spring. Anyway, he is still awful short of gongs so only has a couple 6" plates on portable stands. We moved those to 500 because the alfalfa was too high to see them at the 3 and 400 yard marks where they lived before. Trouble was, it was either hit or miss and there was no way to tell where the misses went. What little wind there was from behind. It doesn't take much wind to blow one off the plate, so it took a little while to realize that most of the mystery misses were coming up when the Kimber Select Grade 7 Rem came up in the rotation. Its a good little gun, and should have been hitting better.Once I remembered that it was one that liked a hard hold I was able to terrorize it again.

That rifle is the one that I'm convinced was cured with UBC.

Something else about light weight rifles, they might not be the perfect candidates for a free-floating barrel. You can't even talk about light rifles without Ultra Light arms coming up, and those are long on full length bedding. Three out of four of my light barrelled Kimbers have forend pressure now. Full floating barrels might be perfect for heavy barrels, but it has sort of creeped in as a manufacturing short-cut into areas where it doesn't necessarily belong.
 
I'm tempted to full length bed my Montana but I'm afraid it'll add quite a bit of weight. It would take a fair bit devcon to do the job.
 
I agree, a tight hold and a little pressure on the barrel just ahead of the scope and my mountain ascent will shoot tighter groups. I don't like shooting cradles either. I prefer to shoot of sand bags.
 
This is a 100M target. Centers at 200 and hits the bull at 400 and a couple inches off at 500.

Tikka T3 in 7x57AI, 140 grain Berger. My sheep load.

 
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I've got a savage 111 lightweight hunter in 30-06. Don't have any pics, and I've only shot about 15 through it to sight it in. Last group was sub moa with PPU ammo. I have a cheap cabelas 3-12 scope on it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I imagine it'll do 1/2 moa with handloads.
 
Does anyone have a picture of a single target with perhaps 5 or so separate groups on it? As pretty as a single small group is it sure doesn't tell much.
 
That's not what ultralight rifles are designed for. It would take forever to shoot that many groups with enough time to let the barrel cool sufficiently between shots. These aren't heavy barrel bench rifles. They're meant to fire a few shots between long periods of hiking.
 
Brought my Forbes 30-06 with the Leupold 6x out last week. Our range has a smallish steel ram at 300m, a pig at 200m and chicken at 100 m.
First shot center mass of the ram, second into the centre pig and third the chicken. Good enough for me. (sucker hurt me laying down tho! T shirt vs. coat I suppose)
3 shots are more than I will ever get on a critter.
I have used it at 600m to test on target. Plenty of accuracy, but I cant crank them out like my target guns.

btw - hold them tight for accuracy.
 
Smcx said:
That's not what ultralight rifles are designed for. It would take forever to shoot that many groups with enough time to let the barrel cool sufficiently between shots. These aren't heavy barrel bench rifles. They're meant to fire a few shots between long periods of hiking.
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I know what they can do. I own two rifles with a mountain contour, one weighs 6 lbs 3 oz scoped. That skinny barrel heats up quick, but it cools quick too. On a fall or winter day it would probably take three hours to shoot five groups, or you could take an average from a couple groups every outing. That is not the point I'm trying to make though. The point is posting the picture of a good group is pretty pointless. I have a picture of a group I shot with my .308 target rig that measures .113", but the average with the rifle over dozens of groups is about .55 MOA. Is it a .1 MOA rifle?

I'm not trying to call anyone out or to be asinine. For all I know the guys who posted groups could have been posting an average group for the rifle. However, almost everyone on these forums has these 1/2 MOA rifles, but when I go to the range I very rarely see a 1/2 MOA group out of a hunting rig. There is a disconnect somewhere between the range and the Internet. It may be that you have a 1/2 MOA rifle, but all I'm trying to say is that if you want anyone on the Internet to believe it, you may want to try posting a target with enough consecutive groups on it that one can begin to see an average.
 
I posted two targets that are numbered and dated, with two different bullets. Those groups were shot one after the other, one is a five shot group the other is a three. I shot barnes ttsx and hornady sst.
 
I'll try posting up some pictures when I can get them taken, normally the fired targets go into a folder without taking any pics.
My picture taking ability is severely hampered by computer illiteracy..
 
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