Remington 700 AAC-SD barrel break in question

[r2gallagher]

First post, just getting into medium range shooting (500-600 yards max for now). This forum seems to be that place to come to learn.

My fiancee bought me a Remington 700 SPS AAC-SD .308 for my birthday. Waited for my SWFA ss scope for months and am finally getting to shoot it. I did a barrel break in procedure, and probably have over a hundred rounds through the gun at this point. I do not reload, so i am testing a lot of factory loads. I was not getting good groups at all. With 147-150gr NATO rounds, like 6 inch groups bad(100 meters). I had another shooter double check that it was not just me. Some ammo shot better than others but it was still 2.5 inch groups. I was thinking that there was something up with the rifle.

So I was getting ready to contact Remington, but i figured i would shoot some more of there ammo before to substantiate my inaccuracy claims. I was suprised to see in my last couple shooting sessions that my groups seemed to be getting smaller. After looking back over all my targets, there is a gradual decrease in group size. The only thing i can think is that i got a rough barrel from the factory and it is slowly breaking in.

I have seen a lot of people liking these rifles and shooting good groups and just wanted to see if anyone had any advice.

Could it hurt to try the tubbs lapping bullets?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[Djstorm100]

This was the third range session with the same rifle.

First was zero, 2nd was shooting out to 400 yards, third was getting use to setup vs a .223 (how to manage recoil).

175 grain Federal Gold Match.

I clean the barrel..as in run a few wet patches and then dry patches through the bore of any new rifle/pistol before I fire it. Then only when I see accuracy starting to go down hill.
build thread
http://www.carolinashootersclub.com/threads/177696-Remington-308-build?highlight=

 

[ZombieMonkey]

I wouldn't touch any lapping bullets or worry about any other voodoo magic bs at this point. You've got two things going on from the sounds of it:
-An inexperienced shooter. Time behind the gun at home doing some dry fire exercises and working on building a stable firing position will help as will additional time putting rounds down range.
-You need better ammo if you want to shoot good consistent groups. Sounds like you are using surplus loads, you need to get match grade ammo if you want to extract the most performance out of your setup. Think of it like putting regular gas in a car tuned for race gas, you're not going to be getting every bit of performance out of it if you don't run the good stuff. Try some 168 or 175 Federal Gold Medal Match as a good standard to see how it's doing.

Also, it sounds as if you could get a lot of benefit out of signing up for the Hide's online training, it'll be good money spent. It's very inexpensive in the grand scheme of things. And if you're cleaning the rifle every time before you put it up, don't.

 

[Doc68]

Mine loves 175smk and 178amax. Plus keep practicing.

 

[M855]

Like above try some match ammo, see if one of your shooting buddies has a better stock that you can try out maybe a pss or ltr take off

 

[HumbleEinstein]

I'll second the advice on the online training and 168 and 175 match ammo. With the right ammo and understanding of how to work the rifle you'll see those groups shrink down considerably. You might be surprised by what your factory barrel is capable of. If you want maximum performance you'll have to pickup reloading.

 

[Niles Coyote]

AAC-SD owner here... Mil surplus FMJ will turn my moa capable AR into a 4 moa shot gun... don't expect to much from the ammo. Get some quality ammo and watch how you support that rifle if it still wears the factory hogue stock. If the stock comes in contact with the barrel (due to a weak forend design) its well known to change the point of impact from shot to shot. If you can afford upgrades that would be my first one for that rifle. Save your brass and when you tire of the high cost of ammo start reloading.

A good stock, good trigger time and quality ammo and the rifle will shoot moa on a bad day as see here at 700 yards running a load test Wednesday, left is 40.8 AR-comp (used dope for 2500fps) and right is 43.2 Varget (used dope for 2550) both with 175's at 700y (center target is a impact from my 6xc...) of course I had to drop one in each for good measure but you get the idea.

 

[r2gallagher]

I definitely do need some more range time and i know some of it is me. But that said i have been shooting a long time. My dad took me to .22 club when i was 15 and a great group of guys taught me to shoot from the get go. That said i have most of my experience on .22's. I built a 10/22 and with it i can shoot 5 shot jagged one hole groups at 50. But i am definitely still working on better recoil management and a muzzle break helped a lot.

When me and my buddy are shooting, we switch guns and both shoot MOA with his gun and big groups with my gun.

I am shooting off a bi-pod with a sand bag under the back. I took a dremel to the stock until the barrel no long touches the stock even with weight forward on the bi-pod. Trigger on mine is not great, i have a timney for it, but just wanted to leave the factory trigger in there until i figure out whether i need to send it back.

Factory ammos i have tried.
Lellier & Bellot 180 gr FMJ
PPU MATCH 168 gr HP BT
Hornady MATCH 168 gr BTHP
PMC 147 gr FMJ-BT
Remington Core-Lok 180 gr SP
Remington 150 gr FMJ

I did just find some FGMM 168s that i will be giving a try this week.

I want to start loading but my lady told me she will buy me a press when i buy her a house to put it in, fair trade right?

I dont clean my rifle every time. How many rounds until a good copper equilibrium is reached? How big do groups get after a full cleaning?

 

[ZombieMonkey]

I'll be most curious how the FGMM does in your rifle, that always seems to do well, the only other ammo that you've shot that is decent is the Hornady match and that stuff can be hit or miss on rifles from what I've tried. With the Remington or PMC I've seen it look like shotgun blasts out of a friend's rifle AAC-SD before so that wouldn't surprise me, shot fine in mine though.

Changing the trigger if you had to send it back isn't a big deal, two easy pins so I wouldn't let that be your deciding factor on holding off on the trigger if you already have it. I'd also run through and check the torque on your action screws, scope base, and rings to rule out anything with that causing issues if multiple people are shooting it poorly. (What rifle besides a 10/22 are you shooting that your friend has?)

You shouldn't have to clean that barrel for at least a couple hundred rounds, normally I'd say wait until groups open up, but it doesn't sound like that is a possible to tell as right now it's not shooting.

 

[r2gallagher]

Scope and scope mount are solid.

I have a lot of other 22 rifles, but my friend is shooting a Ruger M77 in 25-06 and is still doing his load development.

I forgot to say that i did shoot one better group with the hornady match stuff. I forgot to measure and i dont know where the targets are right now but i think it was about 2.5 inches. Then when i had my friend shoot it we put his chrony in front of it and he shot a terrible group and there was a over 200 FPS extreme variation in string of 5 shots.

I am hopeful that the FGMM will shot. I will throw the new trigger at it and shoot it some time this week.