Accurizing the Stevens 200...

I've been meaning to do this to my 308. The forend of mine so flexible that if I shoot it off a rest that is positioned forward on the forend I can see the crosshairs dip a bit as I start to pull the trigger. So I shoot it with the rest just a few inches ahead of the receiver and that helps.

I did make an .045 trigger spring and that does help, some.
 
Nice job. Bedding will make a significant improvement to consistency. Inletting is way too generous.

If you haven't decided on a load, consider 75gr amax or bergers over Varget and a CCI 450 or BR4 primer. I use Win cases but pretty much everything works well.

69gr MK's are hugely popular too and shoot well in these rifles.

I bet you can tune that rifle to a consistent 1/2 min.

Despite their inexpensive price, they shoot very well for a factory rifle.

Jerry
 
Most guys and gals in here are getting sub moa groups with the stevens.My buddies with some handloads in .223 when I shot it the groups were less then .5 at 100 yards. for a cheaper rifle they impressed me lots. As for dumping $400.00 in the bar in one night...

When my G/f at the time walked in and I had 4 tables of ppl s**t faced on shooters and was standing there with my hand on the shooter girls ass and my other one on some other chicks ass standing beside me...lets just say that I came home with a very grumpy person!!!:D



"But honey I'm just checking these ladies' postures, I swear!"
 
"But honey I'm just checking these ladies' postures, I swear!"

Meh....I was just checkin them for saddle sores...:D

So I took it out yesterday and the groups I got were only 2.5 inches or so...but but but...few things were against me at the time.All the ammo I had was some Federal hard ball stuff so that doesnt surprise me. Before I even shot it I had already shot a 7mm WBY .. 300WSM...my 340 WBY...416 Rigby...as well as .308 and 12 different loads out of a 22-250. I didnt have breakfast or even any food in me,was drinking pop and was having the shake thing going on from the mass amounts of sugar in my system.

I shot over 40 different loads out of 8 different calibres non stop so was probably a little recoil weary at the time also. But its a nice little rifle and is still going to continue to get worked on. So all in all it wasnt a fair test....but at least it goes bang and that is a good start to it...:D
 
I love tinkering on these rigs. Your efforts certainly turned out a lot nicer than my fiberglass bondo/steel lag bolt contraption...

Eventually I just swapped the plastic stock out for a simple walnut job that I made up from a 88 Mauser blank I had kicking around. They are great shooters regardless. Nice job!
 
Looks like a good job on the forend to me. I also did a little to my 22-250 right out of the box, before I shot it. Bedded the action with JB weld and lightened the trigger considerably (how much I'm not sure, as I don't have a trigger guage, but at least by half compared to factory - and I tested it repeatedly for safety). It shoots under 1" all day long with inexpensive winchester white box ammo. If I wasn't getting the accuracy I wanted I'd do the stock in a similar manner to what you did, but as it's a sub 1" rifle right now I'm not fooling with it any more. These are great little rifles.

Now lets see if they go back to $299 with our dollar back where it was before!
 
Let it cure longer than overnight before you start twisting and bending. After 2 days to a week it will be fully hard and stiff as hell. You'll be laughing.
 
Let it cure longer than overnight before you start twisting and bending. After 2 days to a week it will be fully hard and stiff as hell. You'll be laughing.

It was actually 2 days after bedding the stock in that I shot it....but a better remedy then that....eat some friggen food b4 taking off shooting for 4 hours....:D
 
And start small next time. My Rigby is reserved for either cross stick practice or the end of my range session!

Actually it wasnt the rigby it was the 340 that got me. For the rigby I had on the past recoil shield but took it off and shot the 340 with just a very light jacket on. I forgot how much they recoiled off the bench as I havent shot it in 8 years or so....
 
Well... this .223 is all fine and dandy, Dennis, but I want pics of the .22-250. I heard a few rumors that once a rifle has crossed your bench it's as precise as a laser beam.
 
Yeah, the 200 in .223 is a surprising little rifle. I stiffened the stock on mine and bedded the action (with JB weld, I'm cheap:D). I sighted it in at a gravel pit at around 25 yards a few weeks ago, finally made it out to the range today and put some 55gr PMC downrange at 100 yards. It's got a Burris fullfield II with Leupold rings/mounts and a shooters ridge bipod.

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I know it's cool to blame the gun for those two shots on the right, but that's all me. 5 hour range session was starting to get tiring, I was thinking more of supper than the last few shots. That's a dime for scale.

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Got bored and tacked up some clays, this one didn't break.

All shots fired from a bench with the bipod at 100yds. I'm not a good enough shot to give any great statement on the rifle's accuracy, but I can say that it shoots better than I do. Pretty good combination for a "cheap" rifle and "cheap" ammo.
 
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