Problems with accuracy HELP!

Cordur

Cordur

Regular
Rating - 100%
15   0   0
Location
Calgary
Ok so I've just bought a new Savage MkII BTVSS in .22LR Topped it with a Bushnell rimfire scope in 3-9X32 (I know a cheap scope but it was the only thing they had in silver to match the shiny barrel, except for a 6.5-20X40 $970 Leopold, but for that price I could have bought a .17hmr and a .22wmr to have a matching set!)

Anyways I bought a nice selection of rounds to try and see what this rifle likes. Tried the following:

Eley Tenex 5 shot group 7/8" at 25 yrds
Fiocchi Super Match 5 shot group 1/8" at 25 yrds
Winchester SuperX 10 shot group 3/4" at 50 yrds
Remington Subsonic 5 shot gropu 1" at 50 yrds
CCI Stingers 10 shot group 2 1/4" at 50 yrds
CCI CB 10 shot group 2 1/4" at 50 yrds

Now while the Fiocchi shot well at 25 yards the group opened up to about 1 1/4" at 50 yards. Not to mention that of the 25 shots I took at 50 yards with them all were keyholes. None of the other 50 yard shots were keyholing but then again the groups weren't as bad at that distance. What gives here? One of the guys at the range asked if I was sure it wasn't just my shooting skill. He said he was joking but would poor form cause this? I was shooting off of a rest at an indoor range. I shot the 50 yard open with the Fiocchi after getting the nice 25 yard group and only scored 108. Not exactly what I was expecting from this rifle. I asked a guy shooting a 10/22 a few lanes down to give the Eley Tennex a try to see if it was just me or my rifle and he shot a 3/4" group at 25 yards which was about half the size of what he was getting with some sort of milk carton sized box of federal bulk ammo.

The keyholing really bothered me. But then again nothing is making me all that happy about shooting this rifle yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Last edited:
Crown looks ok. It's recessed quite a bit. I don't think anyone would have dropped it, as when I made the purchase it was new in the box. Could the angle of the clip be damaging the round as it is pushed into the chamber by the bolt?

Edit: Actually scrap that. I just loaded a few clips through it and there isn't a noticable mark on the rounds from them entering the chamber.
 
Last edited:
Cordur said:
Crown looks ok. It's recessed quite a bit. I don't think anyone would have dropped it, as when I made the purchase it was new in the box. Could the angle of the clip be damaging the round as it is pushed into the chamber by the bolt?
Click to expand...

You could check that by chambering a round from the mag and then eject it slowly enough to remove it by hand (so as not to damage during normal eject)
 
C d not many rimfires offer their best capabilities fresh out of the box, most folks I know put at least a few hundred down the pipe for a break in, before they start to think about the guns accuarcy potential. I have scoped rifles with the scope that you have but only inexpensive autos that I hope will shoot Minute of Gopher. You can step up to a Tasco for about $100.00 or a Banner for $129.00 and quite likely get better groups.FS
 
Ya what Fassteel said, how may rounds are down the pipe so far? Some people say a few hundred, but I've had better experiance with several hundred and then you really start to see a difference.Don't forget to give it a good cleaning if you haven't done so already.
 
The keyholing sounds like an issue here.
I cannot see that this would be caused by your shooting form or your scope.
It would have to be either the ammo or the barrel.
Plus that only one brand is doing it makes me suspect the ammo.

Give the gun a few hundred rounds then clean the barrel well & then see how it does.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've been keeping a round count so far down to the number of each type I've fired. So far only 215 shots down the pipe. I've cleaned it three times so far, though there was a fair bit of build up around the breach after this last go round. Cleaned it up again and used some Hoppes #9 Solvent and then followed it up with a some oil. Using a bore snake to clean it. Didn't want to use the steel rod on this barrel but if there were some bad fouling I'd be tempted to. Bore looks nice and clean though.
 
Is everything "key-holing" at 50 yards ... or just the Fiocchi's ? :eek:

First I suspected "crown" too ... and have never been a Bushnell fan.

Leupold makes a VX-I in silver ... both for standard application
centre-fires ( a 3-9x40 ) and a much more compact version for
shotguns & muzzle loaders ( a 2-7x33 ), which has a 75 yard pre-set
parallax which should work just fine on .22's. ( around $300 )

I've found CCI "Green Tag" to be quite accurate for inepensive ammo at
50 yards ( under 1/2" in my gun ) with Eley Tenex Ultimate EPS and
Lapua Midas "M" giving the tightest groups. Eley "Club" (Orange Box)
and Lapua Super Club ( both less expensive than Green Tag, but harder
to find on a regular basis) also gave very good groups.

CCI "CB Longs" are hardly target rounds.... never had a .22 that shot them
with what I consider any measure of accuracy, but they are comparatively very quiet - and do a good job on small pests at 10-15 yards.

Try a few more boxes of different ammo.

If everything is still key-holing at 50 yards, return the gun to where you bought it, and INSIST that they return it to the manufacturer for you, for
warranty repair/replacement.
 
Well, where to start. Ok so I called Savage USA and they told me that the warranty work in Canada could be handled in Alberta by Dave in Bently. So I called Dave and he kindly gave me a number to some people in Ontario as he only looks after center fire work from Savage and not the rimfire. Had to leave a message with the folks in Ontario, who told me I should ship the rifle to them. I told them I wasn't interested in paying for shipping. They offered to have it picked up by UPS but since UPS doesn't tell you when they are stopping by, only that they will try to pick it up 3 times I said this wouldn't likely work too well either since I'm not usually home all day long. Then they told me they would give me their account number for UPS and I could just drop it off and they would look after the shipping. Seems good to me and they were eager to help get things sorted out. Thumbs up for Savage on customer support yet again!

So before sending it to them I thought I had best take it out again and take up some of your suggestions on putting more rounds through it, as well as trying a few more different brands. I picked up 5 different types to try and only one which I had never ever ever heard of before.

In order of best to worst of the five it went: Federal Gold Medal, CCI/Speer Blazer, Gp 5.6mm (don't know what they call it it's from Yugoslavia and I can't read croatian or what ever it is) Federal Champion, Federal American Eagle. The stuff from Yugoslavia was better than the Champion of American Eagle but it puts out an awful lot of smoke and the smell is not at all pleasant. It's like the casings are just a bit too small. The case measures 0.222 inches and the bullet 0.224 inches. That's compared with the Federal Gold Match cases at 0.223" and a consistent 0.223" bullet size. For the record the Blazer measured an average 0.223 bullet case and a 0.224"

The Federal Gold Medal shot very very well. Was quite happy with it actually. The Blazer though came in a close second. To be honest the Blazers grouping was only about 1/8" larger than the Gold Medal and the Gold Medal I believe has a 5 shot grouping for me of 1/16th of an inch at 25 yards. None of the rounds were key holing at 50 so I think that it was just the Fiocchi will have this problem. Seems kind of strange considering it is marketed as a bi-athalon round. So I think I'll keep the rifle for now and pick up 10 boxes of the Gold Medal to keep for target shooting and get some of the Blazer for plinking.

Just a side note about the American Eagle hollow points. I recovered quite a bit of the lead that I fired and this was the only brand that didn't expand. All of the rounds where still pretty much as they were fired with a bit less rounding on the nose after punching through 1 1/2" of wood. I knew which round they were because they were the only copper jacketed of the variety I shot. Not too impressive for a hollow point anyways.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom