# Help with grouping issue



## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

I've been working on developing a load for my 6mm Remington. I've never done this before, but it has been really fun so far. I used three shot groups and the OCW procedure to come to my current load. Then I went and shot a 10 shot group the other day and this is what I got (the red circle is from a different group):









What causes the two distinct groups? I'm going to go and shoot another couple of 10 shot groups this weekend to see if it was a one time deal, but I'm pretty sure this is a consistent issue I've been having. Out of the many three shot groups I shot to find this load I'd say a little more than half of them were two shots close and one shot out. But, those groups were fired round robin. The process for those groups was: from a clean barrel, fire two fouling shots. Then fire the first shot from each group (10 total) and clean the barrel. Fire two fouling shots and repeat for the second and then third shot of the groups. I let the barrel cool as needed after every two shots.

The rifle I'm shooting is an older Remington 700 BDL with a 22 inch barrel in 1:9 twist. The stock is not bedded and still has that pressure point in the fore end of the stock. If I can't get the rifle to shoot more consistently, I'll look into bedding the stock and removing the pressure pad. I'm single loading each round, and I'm shooting off the Caldwell rock junior front rest and Protektor rabbit ears for the back rest.

I settled on 47.7 grains of IMR7828 and 95 grain Nosler ballistic tips. Right now I'm using Winchester LR primers because that's what I have. I may try other primers in the future but haven't decided yet. I don't have a bullet comparator or any other equipment to measure where my bullet should be seated, so I just used the spec 2.825 in. The magazine well won't allow too much more than that anyway.

Here's my reloading process:


Deprime using the Lee universal decapping die
tumble in stainless steel media (cleans primer pockets and case necks)
neck size with Lee neck sizing die
trim using the Lee case length gauge
chamfer and deburr
prime and charge - I use the RCBS digital scale to weigh my powder and for the loads I've been using for this work up I spot check 30% of the rounds. If any are off the target charge weight I check all of them and adjust any charge weights that are off.
Seat bullets using the Lee bullet seating die
Crimp bullets in place using the Lee factory crimp die
 I have noticed that when I'm seating my bullets, the neck tension is not as consistent as I'd like. But, since I'm using a crimp die, I didn't think that it would make too much of a difference. Either way, I'm working on a way to make the neck sizing more consistent.


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

BTW, I know I don’t need any more accuracy than this for a hunting rifle. However, I enjoy target shooting and can do that all year vs. limited hunting seasons. And, since I don’t have money for a fancy custom rig, I’m just trying to have fun with what I’ve got.


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## sagebrush (Sep 8, 2007)

i guess the stock is a Tupperware stock (plastic) factory one. if so that is your problem and you will not get any better than what you have.
it tends to put one shot here then 2 shot over here, if your lucky before it gets warm you might get all 3 in the same area.

not real consistent expect that your groups are pretty much in the same pattern.
i fought with the same problem for a few years until someone told me to change my stock and glass bed it.

i might add you do not need to crimp rifle rounds unless they go into a tubular magazine.


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## Loke (Sep 7, 2007)

Since your rifle has a nice walnut stock, I would look into bedding it, and free floating the barrel. Neck tension would be the next thing that I would look at. I have never been a fan of the factory crimp die for a bolt gun. Getting consistent neck tension is much more important. Then I would look try a different powder. The few times that I have used IMR7828 I didn't get the results that I had hoped for.
How is the barrel crown? and what cleaning procedures do you use? Starting with a clean barrel is helpful when working up an accuracy load.


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

Thanks for the input Sagebrush. 

The stock is wood; I didn't know the BDL came in a composite stock. Either way perhaps my best option is to bed the action and float the barrel. 

I crimp for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, I was getting really inconsistent neck tensions when seating the bullet. I couldn't figure out what was going on so I figured crimping would help with consistent tension. I'm working on the inconsistent neck sizing issue and think I finally got it nailed down. Second, I heard somewhere that if you don't/can't adjust your bullet seating depth, crimping was the next best option for consistent starting pressures. 

Uh... Come to think of it though, I may have read that in the marketing spiel for the lee crimp die... Maybe I'm just wasting time. perhaps I'll do a comparison of reloads including that step and reloads without it as well.


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

Loke said:


> Since your rifle has a nice walnut stock, I would look into bedding it, and free floating the barrel. I think I will look into doing this after hunting season this year. I'm sure the current grouping is good enough for hunting at the ranges I'll be shooting and I'd rather spend time practicing behind the trigger than working on bedding the rifle. After hunting season though when I have more time I think it could help and be really fun.
> 
> Neck tension would be the next thing that I would look at. I have never been a fan of the factory crimp die for a bolt gun. Getting consistent neck tension is much more important. I've just recently gone through all the my prepped brass and am in the process of prepping the brass again. I think I've got the neck tension issue worked out so hopefully that has resolved itself. I think I may do a 10 shot group of crimped and a 10 shot group of uncrimped and see if there's enough difference to warrant the extra step in reloading. It sounds like there probably isn't a good reason to do it, but in the hopes that I didn't waste money on a crimp die, I'm going to potentially waste time and components on comparing the two.
> 
> ...


Thanks for checking in Loke. Responses in blue above.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

willfish4food said:


> BTW, I know I don't need any more accuracy than this for a hunting rifle. However, I enjoy target shooting and can do that all year vs. limited hunting seasons. And, since I don't have money for a fancy custom rig, I'm just trying to have fun with what I've got.


I never use the terms 'reloading' and 'fun' in the same sentence.

I'm for bedding the firearm.

How does it shoot factory loads?

Does it have the original trigger?

.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

sagebrush said:


> ..................................
> 
> i might add you do not need to crimp rifle rounds unless they go into a tubular magazine.


Yeah. And I crimp for semi-autos and pumps too. Can't think of any regular bolt firearms I crimp for.....anymore.


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## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

Two groupers are generally caused by bedding issues not a load problem.
Try different torque setting on the action screws first.
Then free float the barrel.
Then glass bed the action.
Shoot it between fixes to see if you're getting anywhere.


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## longbow (Mar 31, 2009)

Cooky said:


> Two groupers are generally caused by bedding issues not a load problem.
> Try different torque setting on the action screws first.
> Then free float the barrel.
> Then glass bed the action.
> Shoot it between fixes to see if you're getting anywhere.


Ding, ding, ding! I bet Cooky hit it in the head. Bedding issue.


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

Thanks for all the replies.

Goob - I've never shot factory loads from this rifle. I got it from my Grandpa and he had a lot of once fired brass with it, so I started with reloads. I am planning on getting some core-lokts soon for more brass, so I'll see how that goes. Also, the trigger is the original. When I first got it there was A LOT of creep. I broke the factory seals and adjusted it, but there's still the tiniest hint of creep right before the trigger breaks. I may take the trigger apart in the future and polish the connector. (The sear already looks really good.) But the creep doesn't really bother me too much so I haven't bothered with it.

Looks like I'm in for a bedding job after this next hunting season. Maybe before... gotta assess how much time I realistically have to work on it. I'm leaning toward pillar bedding along with bedding the action. Any reason this would be a bad idea? If I do, I'll probably use this kit from MidwayUSA. Alternatively there is a kit without the epoxy and release agent that is about 25 dollars less. I can get Devcon for about 8 dollars (also from MidwayUSA) which I heard is the best epoxy for bedding. I'm not too concerned with one epoxy over the other since for my rifle I don't see noticing any difference. But, if either epoxy will work fine, saving 17 dollars would be nice. Does anyone know of better options out there?

Again, thanks for all the input.


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## longbow (Mar 31, 2009)

willfish4food said:


> Thanks for all the replies.
> 
> Goob - I've never shot factory loads from this rifle. I got it from my Grandpa and he had a lot of once fired brass with it, so I started with reloads. I am planning on getting some core-lokts soon for more brass, so I'll see how that goes. Also, the trigger is the original. When I first got it there was A LOT of creep. I broke the factory seals and adjusted it, but there's still the tiniest hint of creep right before the trigger breaks. I may take the trigger apart in the future and polish the connector. STOP!(The sear already looks really good.)  But the creep doesn't really bother me too much so I haven't bothered with it.
> 
> ...


I'm not sure what you're calling a connector on a rifle trigger [as apposed to pistol connectors] but be careful. If you're going to manually polish any surface in your trigger please get a perfectly flat honing stone and a jig to hold your trigger parts. The edges of your sear MUST remain sharp and square not rounded over. If you get rounded-over sear edges you will have inconsistent sear drop. Also, most contact points in your trigger are just lightly surface hardened. If you get through that, you'll start to gall the metal underneath.
Actually it sounds like you know what you're doing so this bit of advice may not be warranted. Maybe you should dab some Flitz on the surface and dry-fire the crap out of it until it's a nice smooth trigger. Be sure and douche it out and oil it each time you test it to see if it's just right.


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

longbow said:


> I'm not sure what you're calling a connector on a rifle trigger [as apposed to pistol connectors] but be careful. If you're going to manually polish any surface in your trigger please get a perfectly flat honing stone and a jig to hold your trigger parts. The edges of your sear MUST remain sharp and square not rounded over. If you get rounded-over sear edges you will have inconsistent sear drop. What you're talking about here is exactly what has kept me from messing with it in the past. I don't have enough confidence in a) my ability to just polish and not take too much metal off and b) my ability to keep the angles exactly the same.
> The beef I've got with the connector is the edge that causes the sear to drop is not finished clean. It looks like it was sheared off of some steel stock, bent to from, and installed without any cleaning up; the surfaces are rough and gritty. But like I said, I probably won't mess with it since it doesn't really bother me much. And I certainly wont mess with it unless I have money to replace the trigger should I screw something up.
> 
> Also, most contact points in your trigger are just lightly surface hardened. If you get through that, you'll start to gall the metal underneath.
> Actually it sounds like you know what you're doing so this bit of advice may not be warranted. Maybe you should dab some Flitz on the surface and dry-fire the crap out of it until it's a nice smooth trigger. Be sure and douche it out and oil it each time you test it to see if it's just right. That may be a good safe alternative. I'll give it some thought.


Here's a picture of the trigger assembly that shows the "connector".


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## longbow (Mar 31, 2009)

willfish4food said:


> Here's a picture of the trigger assembly that shows the "connector".
> View attachment 63938


Ah, gotcha now. I'd never heard that called a connector.
Probably your easiest thing to do is put some Flitz on it with a toothpick through the inspection hole on the side and dry fire it. It's faster, (if you're handy), to take it apart and buff those surfaces with a soft cloth and toothpaste or Flitz. Jewler's rouge works good too.
Or, just leave it alone.

If you decide to remove the pressure point on your for end, let us know how it works out. I bet that will make a difference.


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