This is my first post to the forum and I hope it’s in the right place, my apologies if another thread is more appropriate.
I’m not a prs guy and don’t have a lot of experience hunting or shooting so take this for what it’s worth. Also don’t have any feelings to worry about so do your worst and be as brutal as you think is necessary.
Bought a Kilo 2400 rangefinder for the milling reticle then learned about the BDX system. Bought the 6-20x52 then found a Cross in 308 (a buddy who shoots a lot says he’s sticking with 308 until Lake City starts making 6.5cm. Made sense to me). These are all of my first shots with it, done this past weekend. I can’t find ammo, so used Ball, plus a buddy gave me a box of Sig match ammo: as indicated on targets.
Used factory trigger setting which seems like it was in the middle somewhere between 2-4 lbs. Bought the cross for hunting black bear and Sitka blacktail deer. As you can see, the ball ammo gave a paltry (but not surprising) 1.5-2.0 moa, while the Sig match was under 1” with 5 shot groups and around .5 with 3 shot. Ranging was right at 104 yds. Shot 86 rounds total (1 dud Sig match). There is one group of 15 shots missing at 25yds from the last session after replacing high scope rings with mid. I used a clean target someone left on the stand and it wasn’t worth including here. The zero wasn’t adjusted for the match ammo because I won’t buy it. Will start working up handloads. Long post but the bottom line is that the gun is capable of shooting .5 MOA off the shelf in untrained hands with factory match ammo using a relatively thick BDX reticle.
The barrel was cleaned once with 2 passes of a bore snake on target 3 AFTER the first group of Sig match ammo. All shots were done in 3 sittings over 2 days indicated on targets by scope releveling and ring replacement.
Not sure why the last shot group with Sig ammo opened up other than sore shoulder and dud round distraction (which was actually shot 3 out of 5, not shot #5 as indicated on target.
Two other things to mention.
1. Bolt was a bit stiff before shooting but seems to have seated and I would say is now actually smooth. Not Tikka-smooth, but very good.
2. The included magazine required some (too much) effort to lock in the mag well. I bought another mag for the last session and it took slightly more effort to lock than the first. Noticed wear marks this morning on the top edge of each mag (both sides) where it seats in the receiver. Buffed those points with an Allen wrench (it was handy) and the mags now seat perfectly.
Hope this is helpful.
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