As someone who builds my own rifles, I've become pretty spoiled when it comes to accuracy, with both CF & RF rifles. I built myself a very nice rifle on a Stiller 2500XR action/Krieger sendero contour bbl that I chambered with an EPS reamer, and put into a Manners EliteT4A stock. Not long after getting this rifle together, Mike Bush made drawings & CNC files available for the repeater conversion of 40X actions to use his V22 magazines; I had a couple of CMP 40X & 40XB rifles that were just taking up space in a closet, so I pulled the bbl on the 40X & sent it out to Jonathan Elrod at Modocam Rifles for the repeater conversion, and then barreled that action with a Benchmark 3-groove bbl when I got it back (the two rifles in the attached photo). As much as I liked the Stiller action, the converted 40X shot at least as well as the 2500XR, and reloads with the bigger V22 mags were infinitely faster & easier, so I sold the Stiller to a friend, and used the cash to pay for another complete build on the remaining 40XB action. I barreled it with a Lilja titebore blank, and was really happy with these two rifles for a few months - until Mike partnered with Vudoo Gun Works and started building & selling barreled actions or complete rifles. So I sold my 40X repeater and bought an early V22 action in 2017 & barreled it with another Krieger blank. The resulting rifle was & still is a really great 22RF rig, running a bit smoother than the 40XB conversion, which I still have. Over the intervening years, I've bought several more V22 repeaters, all but one of which I've barreled myself, plus a couple of the V22S single shot actions, with Shilen ratchet & Benchmark 3-groove barrels, both of which are capable of shooting even tighter groups than some really good ones that the repeaters can produce.
I also was very taken with the design features & appearance of the CZ 457, and wound up buying an American, a Varmint MTR, and a VPT in the Manners stock. The American's factory bbl was a disappointment, never coming anywhere close to the accuracy that I'd gotten used to with the custom rifles I'd built - none of the known good quality SK or Lapua ammo that I tried in it ever produced anything better than 1.5-2 MOA groups at 50yds. The MTR was much better, but still no where near as consistent as any of the custom barreled rifles. The VPT's factory bbl had issues from the beginning, but after 500+rds, its 50yd groups were usually respectable. However, it fell on its face when I took it out to 100-200yds - couldn't keep 10 shots on an 8" round plate at 200. I eventually sold the MTR, but liked the 457 actions & stocks of the American & VPT so much that I did glue-in installations of Shilen ratchet rifled blanks on both these, and still have them. To sum my experiences up, I think it's asking an awful lot of any medium priced factory barreled 22RF rifle to shoot good enough to satisfy anyone who's had the pleasure of shooting a custom barreled rifle - whether built on a 457 action, or a custom Vudoo. Buy what you can afford, and enjoy learning to shoot it to its potential - but understand going in what the limitations of a mid-priced factory are, and start saving for the day when you can afford a custom barrel job on it, or better yet, the purchase of a Vudoo.
