I recently acquired a blue TC Super 14 in 223. Having tried about a dozen different handloads and 3 factory loads, I just can't get the accuracy I need or expect out of the barrel. Yesterday my best five shot group at 100 yards was 2 7/16 inches. I shot the group off a bipod, prone with a sandbag under the grip. I am using a 2x7 Simmons scope set on 7 power.
I can shoot better groups than this with my 7X30 waters and 358jdj. Does nayone have any suggestions other than sell the barrel and try again?
Since this barrel has never shot to your expectations I would suspect a couple of things.
#1 would be a terriblly copper fouled barrel. Get some Butches Bore Shine or Shooters Choice and run about a dozen patches soaked in this solvent through the bore. Follow this with a dozen passes throug the bore with a proper sized phospher bronze brush. Once the brushing is done then keep pushing patches soaked in solvent through the bore until it is clean, the dry patch until clean and dry. Granted this is just my opinion but I do not think a Bore Snake can replace cleaning with a good solvent, patches with a proper sized brass jag and a bruch when needed.
(I also like to polish the bores with FLITZ BORE POLISH but a lot of guys are really queezy about putting any kind of abrasive in their barrels. The idea behing this poilshing is to smooth out any imprefections. You can generally feel the difference in 3 or 4 patches coated with FLITZ BORE POLISH run thorugh the bore on a proper sized brass jag. I generally coat a patch with FLITZ BORE POLISH and push it from breech to muzzle without exiting the muzzle and then back to the breech. I generally do this from 10 to 20 strokes per patch. Like I stated you'll know when you are done as you'll feel the difference as you push the patch through the bore. I have found that by doing this my barrels do not seem to foul nearly as quickly.)
#2 might be a dinged up muzzle crown. With a magnifcying glass and under a good light source hold the muzzle at a 45 degree angle to you and examine the muzzle crown really good. I actually had a T/C Barrel that was only radiused on one side. The other side of the crown actually had a raised burr on it. A simple 10 minute muzzle recrowning job made it shoot like a champ.
#3 I am assuming you have used this scope on other Handguns, but you may well be experiencing Scope Parallax. With the Handgun sitting on a solid rest align the crosshairs on a target. Without touching the gun move your eye left & right and up & down. If you get any movement at all of the crosshairs on the target you have Parallax.
Since you just aquired this barrel I am assuming the scope mount is tight. Prior to mounting the scope mount did you check to ensure you scope mount screws are not bottoming out in the holes before they are tight to the mount? I have run into this before also in that I thought the mount was tight, but in reality the screws were slightly bottom out in the bottom of the screw holes in the barrel and the mount could / would shift ever so slightly under recoil.
There are a lot of possibilities that could cause this. One thing to also check may be if the chamber is oversized and you actually have an excess headspace condition.
Good luck. I know a lot of people that have not had good luck with T/C .223 Barrels. I am not one of those people. I have had several T/C .223 Barrels over the years, Blues and Stainless, 10" and Super 14's. Granted some were a bit more finicky about what they wanted to shoot good but the bottom line is I was always satisfied with the accuracy.
Larry
