Number 1 son acquired Winchester Model 70 in 264 Winchester Magnum about mid 1980's vintage. Something had happened to the rifle as there was a dent in the tip of the barrel as the scope that came with it also was dented on the top. The rifle shot all over the place with factory Remington core lokts despite glass bedding and a Leupold scope and the action screws torgued properly. We had the dent cut out of the barrel and recrowned hoping this might be the issue. Still all over the place 3 to 6 inch groups at 100 yards. At this point we were considering rebarreling the rifle. Fortunately, Number 1 son picked up 2 boxes of ammunition made by another manufacturer. Much to our absolute suprise, the 3 shot groups dropped to 2 1/4, 1 3/4, 3 groups 0f 1/14 and the last group 3/4 of an inch at 100 yards. When examining the corlokts one bullet was half way in the casing. It appears that these cartridges were defective. Thank goodness we tried another box of shells.
Winchester Model 70 264 Winchester Magnum Accuracy issues
- Thread starter Freedom95
- Start date
Did the “factory” Remington ammo come with the rifle?
My thoughts are you may have gotten someone’s reloads in the original boxes.
Having a bullet set back into the case could well be that the shell was in the magazine and set back under recoil.
Not saying it can’t happen but usually Remington factory ammo is set with pretty tight neck tension.
My thoughts are you may have gotten someone’s reloads in the original boxes.
Having a bullet set back into the case could well be that the shell was in the magazine and set back under recoil.
Not saying it can’t happen but usually Remington factory ammo is set with pretty tight neck tension.
Sounds like you've got it solved, but if you;re still looking for advice:
First, buy good ammo for it. If that fails, handload for it and slow it down - work your way up, and stop when accuracy starts to fall off again (you'll find 2 accuracy "nodes" as you make your way toward maximum). Velocity and accuracy, a lot of the time, are trade-offs. Pretty rare to get both. That's been my experience anyway.
By the way, a 1 1/2 - 2" group on a hunting rifle isn't really all that bad - you should try to do better of course if that's important to you, but the rifle is perfectly suitable for big game with groups like that.
First, buy good ammo for it. If that fails, handload for it and slow it down - work your way up, and stop when accuracy starts to fall off again (you'll find 2 accuracy "nodes" as you make your way toward maximum). Velocity and accuracy, a lot of the time, are trade-offs. Pretty rare to get both. That's been my experience anyway.
By the way, a 1 1/2 - 2" group on a hunting rifle isn't really all that bad - you should try to do better of course if that's important to you, but the rifle is perfectly suitable for big game with groups like that.
Definitely, and 3 shot groups just aren't a very good statistical analysis of what that gun can do...or the shooter with it. That's what this is showing you. A solid 2" at 100 yard rifle may give you a .75" group and then follow it with the 2" group with most being somewhere in between.
But if you always got that 2 MOA potential out of it you'd be a world class shooter
It'll definitely fill freezers.
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Sounds like you've found your problem.
I had a 1970 something M70 in 264 that was my go to everyday rifle in the 80's. It would shoot between 1 inch and 1.5 inch groups at 100 yards with most of my handloads until I burned the throat out of it. After that I had it bored to .308 and made a 300 win mag out of it and that shot well too.
I had a 1970 something M70 in 264 that was my go to everyday rifle in the 80's. It would shoot between 1 inch and 1.5 inch groups at 100 yards with most of my handloads until I burned the throat out of it. After that I had it bored to .308 and made a 300 win mag out of it and that shot well too.
True. But the majority of hunters will not see that round count in their lifetime. I had a 264 for a while. I could never get the speeds out of it I thought it should do, so I rechambered it to a 6.5 STW. - dan
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I purchased the rifle used but it was like new and didn't have a lot of rounds through it. I figured that I put less than a thousand through it total but every one of them was full power, I didn't know about reducing charges back then....
In those days that rifle lived in my pickup truck on the ranch and it got used almost daily then served as my main hunting rifle in the fall so it saw a lot of service and seldom got cleaned. By the time the accuracy dropped off the pits in the throat were too deep to rebore to .284 so I had the smith take it out to .308 A friend of mine still has this rifle and it shoots well.I have a pre-64 M70 in 264 with a 26 inch barrel now, it's a mate to my 300 H&H but these rifles are in good original condition and get fondled a lot more than they get shot.
It's certainly possible. RemRugChester barrels can be seriously rough and every once in a while the factory will let a turd slip out.
I sometimes wish I never bought that cheap chinesium Teslong bore scope off Amazon...there are some things you just can't un-see!
It would be a worst case scenario for sure. A buddy of mine had a Savage 110 that would pick-up copper from a box of bullets ten feet away on the reloading bench. You could see the tooling chatter with the naked eye.
I tried to convince him that this was a warranty issue, but after a cleaning session with Wipe-out it would shoot half decent for a few groupings and him being a one-gun once a year hunter type guy he was fine with it.
It can be. There have been some seriously rough barrels that snuck through QC over the years. Particularly 264's for some reason, they are very sensitive (the two I loaded for, mine and one other were) to anything that changes that chamber, throat, leade, and bore dimensions. - dan
