Winchester Mod88 grouping issues

M

McGui

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Mascouche, Québec
Hi,

I'm having trouble grouping with my 308. I never had any problems with that by the past, but this year when I went to the firing range, I had trouble grouping a 100y and I had trouble getting bullets on the paper at 200y.

But after I took a look at the empty cartridges, I noticed that they were dis-formed at the front and that they had the bolt impression at tail. I have no real trouble closing the bolt on cartriges but when I take a look, it's like they aren't seating where they should be.

Here are some pictures:
http://imgur.com/a/bI2O4#LO50kCy

What do you guys think?
 
The dented case mouth on the empty cases is caused by extraction, no big deal. for the grouping problem I would change the ammo brand and try again. A friend of a friend brought me a rifle to see if I could find out why it wouldn't group. Seems like that Browning BAR just didn't like Remington Core-lokt ammo and would shoot 180 gr bullets into about 8 inch groups at 100 yards. Changed ammo to 180 gr Winchester ammo and it printed a 1 inch groups.
 
Thanks for you answers,
I'm pretty sure scope/mount isn't the problem as everything seems ok with them.
For the ammo, I've been using the same since a couple of years and never had any problems with it.
Barrel is getting cleaned everytime I take it to the range/hunt
But now that you mention bedding, I recently decided to refinish the stock since it was beginning to present wearing marks.
Could this be related to the tightness of the screw that attaches the barrel/stock?
 
yep I think you might have stumbled onto something. 88`s have a nut dovetailed partway down the barrel. that is where the whole thing is held together. Changing the tension will change your POI and if that tension is not constant fliers and all manner of other things happen.
Good luck.
 
Is the stock pressing on the barrel anywhere? Inconsistent pressure on the barrel will give inconsistent results (accuracy)

When you first mentioned a sudden change in accuracy, my first thought was to bedding/stock. The fact you refinished it, means something changed. We had an 88 do funny things when stored in a different (dryer) place and stock dried out a bit.
 
Model 88 Winchesters can have several issues that will cause their POI to wander.

There are a couple of things you need to check first.

Just looking at your scope mounts won't tell you anything. You need to make sure everything is tight enough to hold.

If your rifle still has its iron sights, shoot it without the scope and see how well it shoots. That will eliminate a lot of what you're asking.

Recently, I restocked a mod 88 for a friend. He was having similar issues. When I started to take his rifle apart, one thing only became obvious after I removed the bolt that the receiver base levers against when it's fitted to the stock. The base was loose and the wood around it was beat up enough to allow movement. This of course had other repercussions and worked against the bolt in the fore stock that holds the barrel in place.

I found that the rear base needed to be glass bedded into place as did the front of the receiver and the barrel, just past the holding bolt. This firmed everything up enough to get the rifle shooting into sub 1.5 inch groups at a hundred meters.

You need to be very careful bedding the front of the receiver. The mag release is there and it would be quite easy to get bedding compound in there.
 
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