A bit of a stretch, as in difficult to believe? To say it's hard to accept that a rifle might be a little more challenging to shoot as consistently as others reveals a belief in shooter infallibility that is betrayed by the vast majority of targets posted on this forum. The corollary is the belief that all rifles are equally straightforward to shoot as consistently as others. That is unsustainable. Some rifles are easier to shoot well than others. Simply put, sporter rifles are generally more challenging to shoot as well as rifles designed for target shooting. I agree that sporters are "more challenging" to shoot, but that's a relative term and the degree of challenge does not increase substantially. Special considerations need to be given to the rest, setup, front bag, and hold. Once properly addressed... It really is as simple as hold steady and break the trigger clean. If anyone does not find it so, they are doing something terribly incorrect, or their rifle is not as capable of delivering the accuracy as they'd like to believe. Benchrest is meant to be a showcase of the equipment, the shooter's role only to decide when the contraption should fire, relative to the wind conditions. The preceding statement of course refers only to dedicated BR rifles and rest systems. The various rests/bags more casual shooters might purchase do assist in producing results that are highly representative of the rifle's absolute accuracy, as it is their specific intent to reduce or otherwise eliminate the effects of human error. To be explicitly clear, anyone struggling to shoot off a bench is doing it horribly wrong. A genuinely "bad" shot should only throw a group out into the 0.3's at 50 yards.
It should go without saying that no one posting frequently here is a high level BR shooter. While it may be convenient to imagine that when results are less than desirable there must be something wrong with the equipment or ammo, most shooters would serve themselves better by accepting that they can and do screw up more often than they'd like to think. It's natural because no one is a human rail gun. And it is certain that not all rifles are as straightforward to shoot as consistently as others. To argue otherwise is both ill informed and unsupportable.Why is it that you make the presumption one must be a "human rail gun" in order to produce excellent target results? You seem to have it in your mind that one must shoot their rifle with such an extraordinarily consistent hold, otherwise shots will go flying all over the paper with just a micro-gram of inconsistent pressure. This is simply false. You might say "well, I find it to be so!" and fair enough, but your technique and setup is therefore obviously fatally flawed. Appropriate bench technique should allow the shooter to shoot to the accuracy limits of their equipment with relative ease. No muss, no hold fuss.
Rabid, it's unfortunate that both your custom rifles, the Anschutz MSR and the CZ, may have chamber/leade problems and do not shoot to your satisfaction. Perhaps you have the problem identified, as described by Calfee. Perhaps your flyer problem will diminish as the leade wears in. In any case, you seem to have very bad luck with barrels, first the original factory tubes and now both the custom barrels that replaced them.
I did not have issues with either of the factory barrels of these rifles that are now customs. The CZ was intended from the very beginning to be a custom build, as the Boyd's stock was purchased first. I then bought a 455 American as a donor rifle for the action and immediately sold the factory stock and barrel, of which I had no intention of ever using. The project sat on the back-burner for a number of months as I had wanted JC Custom Barrels to make me a rimfire barrel for it, but given the delays and some other circumstances, I ended up with a Lilja being custom fit for it. I never said it doesn't shoot to my satisfaction, in fact, it has given me a great deal of satisfaction and has produced my personal best target results to date. I am simply being honest about it, and highlighting that even though it is very good, it is not perfect. If you were to extrapolate a little, particularly with Calfee's notes in consideration, you would come to realize that producing a perfect rimfire rifle is nearly impossible. The artisans of RFBR rifle building can often come close to perfection, and perhaps sometimes they get lucky and produce one that is simply amazing, but it is extraordinarily difficult for them to do so each and every time. This leads to the point that if specialist builders cannot assure perfection, factory produced rifles inevitably contain flaws of varying severity. It does not take much to throw top tier accuracy out the window, or, if not the accuracy, at least the consistency (à la the "puking" rifle). To say that I have chamber/leade problems is a slight overstep, no rifle is 100% ready to deliver it's best accuracy/consistency with a freshly cut chamber, it's humanly impossible to cut a chamber that perfectly. It can be customer choice or gunsmith discretion on whether or not to post-chamber lap or allow for natural wear-in. My barrel was not chambered by a BR gunsmith. I have observed the CZ chamber to gradually smooth out over time, it is a slow process for sure, but it'll get there eventually.
PS:
Friend Jsmith, post chamber lapping has its pitfalls......
If one is not extremely careful, one can ruin the bore by causing a restriction right in front of the leade...
When I finish a leade, and inspect how fluid my transition is, by slugging, at that point I make the determination whether to post chamber lap, or not.
In the case of your CYankee schmidt built rifle, when I have a leade as fluid as your schmidt had yours, I don't post chamber lap either.
The thing is, many people don't understand how and/or why a rifle would behave in the manner that they often do. They see a few good groups and some bad ones, then make the assumption that the good groups are what the rifle can do "all day, if I do my part". The bad groups... there is a logical disconnect that a rifle that shot the previous group so well could not possibly have acted up and spit out some random fliers... therefore: "it must have been me". Unsure of how or why "they" were at fault, they figure "the gun shoots better than me" and continue on their merry way. You applaud them for admitting they are not good shooters and suggest they continue to work on their technique. Meanwhile....
The above photo shows the development of a significant carbon/lead deposit in the chamber of my 64 MSR Custom at 150 rounds fired, 12 o'clock position. I have noted lately that the rifle's ability to group consistently ("puking" aside) declines sharply at the 50 round mark from a clean barrel. A chamber scrub may restore accuracy temporarily, but a full clean is necessary once above 100 rounds. Rotating the borescope 90 degrees shows that the carbon ring is not uniform, and has only lightly formed at the 9 o'clock position.
Post cleaning inspection reveals a gouge where the large carbon deposit formed. The reamer must have caught a chip during chambering to cause this. It doesn't seem to affect accuracy in and of itself, as tight groups can be shot, but it does seem to attract fouling rapidly which does eventually affect the accuracy until cleaned.
We'll see how the MSR progresses over time, it is now shooting fairly well. It is already better than the factory barrel, which I never really had an issue with but I just wanted to see how an Anschütz custom would turn out. Anschütz really only produces their rifles to shoot approximately 1/2" groupings at 50 yards with good consistency, and they do deliver that more often than not. Still, they are factory produced arms and cannot be expected to deliver what a well built custom can. It is my interest to push the limits of rimfire accuracy, to which end factory components simply will not do. So you can see how it is performing, bottom row of Polar Biathlon was shot first. Accuracy potential is obvious, but for the "puker" shots. Top row Center-X was next, by then 50 rounds fired and consistency dropped on the second row of Center-X. The chamber was then scrubbed with a bronze brush which restored accuracy for SK Rifle Match. The round count is about 1000 behind my CZ, so we'll monitor how it progresses.
