I think made the mistake of cleaning my 16" CL .308 barrel too well. The rifle has always been right around MOA with 168 FGMM and 168SMK/Varget. This is over about 600 rounds. At 200 rounds I ran a snake down it a few times and kept on trucking. Couple weeks ago the groups opened up so I cleaned the barrel well. Take it out and its shooting 2 to 3 MOA. Completely random groups over about forty rounds. Start checking everything, scope, mount all good. So I pull the barrel, check everything visually, run some patches down the barrel to be sure there is nothing there to cause any problem and reinstall with the LMT provided wrench. Go shoot with 168 FGMM and its still printing like a shotgun.
I read about the shitty LMT torque wrenches so I take the rife to a buddies shop, pull the barrel, seat it with the rifle vertical and torque it to 140 inch pounds with a Snap On torque wrench. I take it out and run twenty rounds of 150gr ball through it to put some copper in the bore. Let the rifle cool then shoot two five round groups with 168 FGMM and they are just under 3 MOA. I have a friend who knows what he's doing shoot a couple groups just to remove one more variable and it does the same exact thing. I'm running an ERS scope in ADM mount so I take that off and put it on my buddies new Rainier .308 to see if that could be the problem. We both shoot solid MOA groups with that rifle and my scope.
At this point I'm ready to throw this thing in a lake. I take it home let it sit for a few days and decided if its going to shoot like a battle rifle then so be it I'll just make it one. I pull the PRS stock, ERS optic and Geissele National Match trigger out of it and put the factory stock set up, an SSA-E and a Vortex 1-6 on it. Then I let it sit in the safe as I was tired of dicking with it.
I finally decide to call LMT and see if they have any guidance. I spend ten minutes going through the whole spiel and the guy says "It must be something with the barrel then" I ask if I send it in will they look at it and fix it if they find something. He tells me he will authorize a return but since I used reloaded ammunition in the gun it voided the warranty and if they find any problems with the barrel I will have to pay for it. To say I was stunned to hear that would be an understatement. I specifically only shot FGMM after the problems started to remove the variable of handloads and explained that to him but it did no good. I told him I ran handloads through it so my warranty is void. I just said "Thanks" and hung up. Pissed would be an understatement.
So a few days ago I take the rifle out to zero the 1-6 at 100. I fire four rounds to get it where I want it then fire a four round group just because I am a masochist and thats what was left in the mag. I just see that its on target through the scope so I put it away not really looking at the group too close mainly because at 6 power I cant tell a whole lot other than there are holes where I want them. End of the session I walk down and it has three rounds in about 3/4" with one low opening it up to about a 1.5 MOA group with a 6 power optic and not really giving too much of a shit behind the trigger.
So now I'm hoping that I just needed to run a lot more rounds down the barrel than I would of imagined to get it shooting again. I had forty four rounds down the bore before that four round group. It was the smallest I have seen since I cleaned the damn thing originally. I was done for the day or I would of shot more to see what was going on. I plan to take it back out and shoot more with the 1-6 and then put the ERS back on it to try that.
The whole thing has been a giant pain in my ass. I was pretty happy with the rifle before this ordeal. I'm hoping it all comes down to having put a bunch of copper in that barrel before it comes back. We'll see.
Pic of a friend on the rifle set up with PRS and ERS:
Nice pic with a piece of brass in mid flight! Looks like it's going to smack the camera!
