I think CNC machinery has gone a long way towards making most new centerfire rifles MOA. This wasn't the case even 10 years ago as some companies were still using worn out machinery that dated to the 1920s & 30s. Since my gunsmith charges $55.00 to even look at a gun any work that I can do myself, I do myself.
Since I try to buy used guns when I can I'm very careful about getting into something I can't fix myself.
I passed on a nice .32 Winchester Special Marlin the other day because the cost of having it drilled and tapped for a scope and a hammer that would accept a hammer spur would have added another $100.00+ to the rifle.
Doh!! I see the "Magic CNC" is mentioned again
Yep CNC can be more consistant, note the CAN but it depends on a lot of things. Please note not all CNC controlled machines are equal and not all are capable of high accuracy and if the base machine is cheap junk putting a CNC control system on it will not improve things. Not all CNC control systems are capable of producing the same accuracy, if you want to get into the higher accuracy maching then the cost quickly escalates and it seems a lot of the aquistion of CNC machines is to save money they tend to cut corners when buying them so accuracy suffers. Once you have the basic machine and control system then you neeed tooling for the machine again this is where they cut corners and costs. I remember when the Carbide inserts first came in use for mainstream machining and Sandvik was the name. Their Tip when indexed in the holder would keep the set size to within 0.0001" but now they are just pressed and sintered they only claim accuracy when indexing the tip to 0.1mm 0.004" if you want the former accuracy you need to buy qualified tooling which costs about Five times the price.
Then we come to the programmer, and if they are good then it makes the job easier but if the programmer is bad and there seems to be a lot of poor of mediocre ones out there then the job is not a good one
and finally the operator if they are on the ball they keep an eye on the sizes and tooling and make the small adjustments needed to keep everything in tolerance again cost cutting rears it's ugly head and they make an operator look after three of four machines. Which means of course that it's not really possible to keep the inspection by the operator as it should be.
So just because a CNC machine is used does not mean the finished product is better. A lot of these modern firms would do well to even get close to the accuracy obtained by Mauser at Obendorf of BSA at Small Heath using their old manual and cam opperated Auto machinery
