Tweaking for accuracy.

[lilabner]

If you have a bolt gun that isn't performing up to expectations in the accuracy department, there is an interesting article at www.chuckhawks.com/affordable_accuracy.htm. The moral seems to be try the cheap fixes first. I have replaced triggers and fooled with bedding on many bolt guns. The farthest I've gone was with a nice old high number 1903 Springfield sporter I inherited from my father. It got a new trigger to replace the military two stage job, glass bedding, speedlock and barrel recrown - not all at once, one a time. It will now do three shot groups averaging right at one inch.The author took an out of the box Remington 700 shooting 1.6 inch groups and brought it down to half inch groups.

[beemanbeme]

He has some good points but ain't no way I'm gonna shoot a sandpaper bullet thru my bore unless its one step away from becoming a tomato stake.

[lilabner]

Yeah, that is something I've never done. I thought the sequence was a bit odd. I start with the trigger because I can't shoot well with a bad one. Some people can. Then I check for wood to barrel contact if the barrel is supposed to be free floating. That is easy to clean up. Glass bedding the action comes next if I'm still not satisfied with the groups. I'm not a bench rest shooter or a serious varmint hunter. I'm satisfied with MOA on my light hunting rifles.

[beemanbeme]

Sounds like LilAbner and I are on the same page.  First off, I take the rifle apart and check for any stray wood chips or rough edges.  While I'm in there, I adjust the trigger and clean the bore and the reciever.  I wipe down all the unseen portions of the reciever and barrel down good with an oil rag and put it back in the stock.  Even if it has a pressure point near the front of the stock, I still make sure a dollar bill will slide easily from the receiver to the pressure point.  Next I mount an old steel tube T12 weaver that I keep around just for this purpose and bore sight it. I do this before I have fired the first shot as its easy, cheap and it assures me that I don't pay for a $1200 engine overhaul when all that's wrong is a loose spark plug wire.
I've never had to resort to a re-crown or a "blue printing".  I kinda wonder if that "blue printing" is sort of like the $1200 engine overhaul for a loose spark plug wire.  One time, over in the bench rest room, a fellow ask exactly what was blue printing. Of the dozen or so smiths that responded, none could agree on what it entailed.  One smith admitted that he shot the rifle and if it shot okay, he returned it.  (I assume a bill went along with it)

[charles p]

The gunsmith that did nothing to a rifle that he could shoot well, is a good smith.  If it already shoots to the expectations of the owner, there is no need to mess with anything.  The problem is elsewhere.  Maybe the owner just needs a mirror to see the problem.

[beemanbeme]

You make a good point Charles.  We are too quick to say this rifle is a dog and that new tool is a POS when its really us.  Of course, no one wants to take blame for anything anymore but the fellow that complains (loudly) that xxx rifle won't shoot a MOA group may not be a MOA shooter. 
I also wonder about these folks that will send a new rifle off to be "accurized" or blueprinted and spend hundreds of dollars on the thing without having ever shot it a single time.  'Course if I was a smith that make my living doing that sort of thing, I'd want everybody believing that every factory rifle was a POS until I put my healing hands upon it.