Trouble getting my 408 CT to shoot under 1 MOA

GUNENTHUSIAST

American
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 8, 2010
299
26
SE PA
I have an edm arms XM408 with RND Bipod assembly. I have been testing loads with Bertram brass, 131 to 135 grains of retumbo and cutting edge as well as rocky mountain bullets. I am loading on CH4D dies.

I have shot groups from 100 to 500 yards and I am consistently getting 1 MOA at best with the worst being close to 1.5 MOA. I am hoping to improve this at least to sub MOA.

Any thoughts on where to go from here?
 
I have owned and tested 3 EDM rifles, .50, .408 and .338. The .338 needed some bugs worked out but all 3 were 1/2 to 3/4 MOA guns. EDM had very little POI shift when using an Elite Iron suppressor (.338 and .408) I found the relaxing behind the rifle and learning to give a little on recoil helped keep the bullet on target. Still gotta drive the gun, but don't over grip it and lock up on trigger pull. I changed the AR-15 grip to a PSG style wood grip by Nils Grip. The less vertical aspect helped get a better hold of the rifle and took the twist and stress out of my trigger finger and shooting hand. Then there is practice, practice, practice.
 
I would be ecstatic to see .5 to .75 MOA out of this rifle. I am starting to think this rifle just isn't capable of anything better. I also switched to an ergo psg style grip. I will geep trying I just ordered 50 more CE bullets, but after 155 rounds down range with basically the same results I feel the chances of it being my shooting technique are less than it being a rifle and or ammo issue.
 
The last thing I have tried, not condoned by Bill, but made a difference, was to use the muzzle brake spanner wrench on the barrel nut to get it really tight. Not sure how it affects head space by going beyond hand tight on the nut. Seemed to improve accuracy. Try this only at your own peril. Not recommended by EDM or me. But thats how I roll.
 
Cutting Edge recommends a particular method for determining proper seating depth that is rather unique to their bullets - in case you didn't know. Excessive fouling from copper/nickel alloy solids drove me crazy with my XM04 back in 2007, with groups opening up rather quickly. I would check that your COAL with CE bullets jibes with their recommended method. Also, a call to Bill Ritchie is never a bad idea. He stands behind his rifles and has seen and heard it all.
 
I have Built 2 custom 408s. I shot the barnes bullets. Lost river bullets. Cutting edge bullets custom bullets that i had specially made. I used mrp2 powder reloader 25 retumbo h50bmg H870 wc872 and just about anything i could think of. One rifle was a 110lb benchrest rifle. The other was a 30lb tactical rifle. No matter what i did i could not either rifle to shoot under 1 moa. I even rebarreled the benchrest rifle with a different barrel in hopes it would shoot. I had no luck. I tore both rifles apart and built 338-408s and i could not be happier.
 
Kilmore - I did the same thing with the wrench. I did notice a sight improvement by doing this but it took this to get close to 1 MOA.

Dogtown - I did do their exact prescribed seating method, good thought though. The gun has been back to EDM and Bill blamed the bad accuracy on the RND bipod messing with the harmonics. He shot a couple 3 shot groups with the EDM factory bipod measuring about .6 MOA. I don't consider 3 shot groups representative of accuracy so I did a side by side comparison of the 2 different bipods with 5 shot groups at 500 yards. The groups averaged 6.2 inches with the factory bipod and 6.3 inches with the RND so the difference in my test was negligible. I really need a pivoting bipod for the real world open country shooting I do, so if I have to use the factory fixed bipod the rifle is useless to me.

Sharp Shooter - That sounds painfully familiar.
 
I'm beginning to think its my ammo. The last batch I made up the bullets were seating with all different amounts of effort. I actually had one round that I could pull the bullet in and out by hand. This is twice fired Bertram brass resized on a CH4D die in a RCBS press. I don't know what the hell is going on!
 
I hate to say what the problem prolly is.....

One issue is that the dies are prolly cut for the old brass specs. Bertram brass has thinner necks and will not size properly if the die is not set for that type of brass. I had to change my tooling for the new brass. Another good technique is to keep the neck and shoulder area annealed so the tension is consistant.

Another issue is the type of seater die, the long bullets dont seat into the neck straight all the time, run out is massive.
 
I thought they figured that out? I remember back in 2006, both Jamison and Bertram (EDM headstamp) .408 cases were too soft and led to lots of annoying issues. Jamison resolved the problem by 2008 and were putting out really good brass (two star headstamp) and as far as I remember Bertram did the same not long after. Not to sound too hippy to the OP, but maybe you "got a bad batch, man."
 
Also I just read this off EDMS website

This new concept has proven to be more accurate than the tube type pivoting bipods, because it doesn't induce harmonics into the barrel. Nothing is touching the barrel. The tube types pivoting bipods we were offering ultimately touched the barrel, in other words the Bipod is connected to the tube and the tube tightens to the receiver whilst holding the barrel in place, since our barrels slide into the receiver for quick disassembly, hence the barrel is not free floating anymore. I noticed accuracy depletion with those systems. This new system uses your existing Bipod; we replace the rod that holds it and modify the leg block. It uses heavy spring force to keep pressure on the leg block so you can keep your Rifle level on uneven surfaces, it stays in the vertical position with good resistance to keep you on target and level.
 
As previously stated, don't overlook barrel fouling, but the one thing I would look at closely is the barrel bore uniformity. You'll need a 'smith or barrel maker who has an air gauge; if the barrel opens up even .001" from the breech diameter, it will negatively affect accuracy. Turning down the muzzle diameter in order to thread it for muzzle brakes or suppressors can relieve stresses in barrels, especially button rifled barrels and cause the barrel diameter to open up at the worst possible place - the muzzle/crown area. Since a lot of .408 bullets are solids or bore-riders, this aggravates the condition.

Other things that can affect barrel harmonics are devices attached to the end of the barrel. I have only one rifle that screwing on the suppressor does not change POI. Last, barrels vibrate like strings, with nodes of little/no vibration and areas of higher amplitude of vibration. If your barrel was cut and crowned at an area that experiences a degree of vibration, it will not shoot as well as if it was cut and crowned at a node of no vibration.

Scope: What optics are you running? Have you tried a different scope?

1 MOA from this rig at 500-600 yards is nothing to sneeze at, and .1" difference between bipods is essentially no difference. I don't remember if you told me what platform you are resting your rifle on - concrete, ground, etc. Before I started changing things, I'd clean the barrel as clean as possible with SLIP 2000 Copper and Carbon cutter, check to see that the barrel crown is still crisp, and start weighing and sortiing your bullets by weight and OAL from ogive to rear driving ring; don't forget that hinky bullets and brass give you hinky groups. Clean your chamber and dry it with alcohol and make sure your loaded rounds don't have lube on the outside. The final bit of advice is to take a fired piece of brass and try to slip a bullet in the neck. If it won't go it, that's a problem and needs gunsmith attention right away. If it slides in smoothly without noticeble wobble, you're about where you need to be.

That touches on the more common problems that could be affecting your accuracy, but man, 1moa doesn't suck. Do the math on the minute deviations in point of aim that make the difference between 1 moa and .5 moa. Your heartbeat is enough to open up groups that much. If I were you, I'd keep shooting and be happy. Good luck and good shooting.


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Oh, hell, I may have just stumbled on part of your problem. You said that when reloading your last batch of ammo there was a wide variance in pressure needed to seat the bullets. This is an easy, inexpensive fix almost guaranteed to improve your groups.

If you don't have one or use one, get a Forstner Magnum Case Trimmer. Call Forstner and ask them to grind you a custom inside neck reamer 0.0015" less than the diameter of your bullets; I'm guessing it will be 0.4060 to 0.4065"; costs about $25 for the custom reamer. Install the inside neck reamer in place of the turning pilot. Full length resize your FIRED brass, then use the Forstner to both trim to length AND give you uniform neck tension. You should feel the difference when you seat the bullets with a smooth uniform seating pressure no noticeable variance round to round.
I guarantee this will improve your groups.
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I hope it helps, GE; i hope to get my 375 down to moa. Good luck and let us see those targets; and like one other poster said, stretch out to 1000, 1500 meters or more; lets see if those bullets just need some extra time to settle down into nice, stable flight.

Wes

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My 375ct has one bullet, one powder, and a very narrow range of powder that works. Oddly, when the barrel coppers up to a certain point, I get a 1/2 moa out of it. Fairly often I clean the powder residue out and that effects it a little. However, my barrel needs a complete cleaning after about 100rnds. Then it takes 20rnds to copper back up to tighten the group. Therefore I get about 70-80 tight shots out of her per 100 shots. Maybe, this will help... this is discussed on youtube. Search sniper 101 and one of his vids talk about this procedure. RU
 
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