Pennsylvania Game News - September 2022 - 60

At the end of every season, or after a
very wet day, taking the barreled action
out of the stock and cleaning up both can
go a long way toward avoiding that and
maintaining accuracy.
Another way to treat a warped stock
is to carefully sand wood from the barrel
channel, removing enough to free-float
the barrel to the point where a folded piece
of paper can slip between the barrel and
channel without any obstruction.
Sometimes, I'd even fiberglass the
action and chamber areas of the barrel
and leave the rest of the barrel free-floated.
Then there's the condition of the bore
and chamber. It's important to keep these
both clean, yet I worked on many firearms
with surface rust in the rifling and
chamber area.
The solution, if that rust is the result
of seasonal neglect, is to pull a patch
soaked with WD-40 or some other waterdisplacing
cleaner through the barrel and
chamber. Follow that up with a dry patch,
then a lightly oiled one.
If the rust is due to longer-term oversight,
a very thorough cleaning is in order,
at least.
AMMO ISSUES
Ammunition can cause accuracy
issues, too. Changing brands, or components
in the case of handloads, can lead
to surprising differences in velocity and
accuracy.
A few years ago, a friend brought over
a Ruger Model 77 .300 Win. Mag in mint
condition. He bought it for a song, along
with five half-full boxes of 150-grain
factory ammunition. The previous owner
couldn't get it to group well and wanted
rid of it.
After checking the rifle inside and out,
I took it to the range and fired a couple of
60
rounds from each box through a chronograph.
Speeds varied from 2,700 fps to
3,200 fps. Each box grouped well itself,
but when changing brands, there were big
differences in point of impact at 100 - and
especially 200 yards.
Two brands shot 1-inch groups. The
third brand was OK, but not as good,
while the other two grouped poorly.
Clearly, the previous owner was
mixing ammo and getting lousy results,
leading him to believe the issue was the
rifle itself. Instead, it was a good gun, but
a picky one.
The lesson is to shoot one load at a time
rather than mix loads until you find what
works best in a particular rifle.
As for handloads, thoroughly read
and understand the instructions in your
handloading manuals. I had a gentleman
bring in a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357
Magnum handgun that he said wouldn't
hold a group at 15 yards. When I opened
it for inspection, the chambers seemed
OK. The action was a bit stiff, but sound.
It was, however, really shiny at the
forcing cone. A closer look revealed the
mouth of the cylinder was scraping on
lead build-up. Likewise, the barrel was so
full of lead that I couldn't see the rifling.
When asked, he told me he was shooting
a mixture of handloads, alternating
between 158-grain jacketed bullets and
148-grain lead wadcutters, both at 1,100
fps.
His handloading manual didn't have
a recipe for lead wadcutter loads beyond
850 fps. But he figured that if you can
drive a jacketed bullet at certain velocities,
doing so with a lighter lead load at the
same velocity should be fine, too.
It's not. Had he read his manual, he
would have learned that soft lead wadcutters
can't be driven over 850 fps without
Pennsylvania Game News - September 2022

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