Aside from the shooter and rest, what of the below elements contributes the most to accuracy in a rifle?:
Action
Barrel
Bedding
Bullet
Stock
Trigger
Printable View
Aside from the shooter and rest, what of the below elements contributes the most to accuracy in a rifle?:
Action
Barrel
Bedding
Bullet
Stock
Trigger
All of the above...if they are not living together in perfect harmony you will rapidly lose interest in your rifle....
Yeah but surely some are more important than others in regard to accuracy...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mangle
Yeah some are but any one of those components not being up to scratch will scunner you in the quest for accuracy...
The guy building the rifle. This is also a very good read. https://precisionrifleblog.com/2013/...ifle-accuracy/
Shooters abilities...
That is somewhat like asking what organ contributes most to the quality of life of a man.
Brain
Heart
Lungs
Liver
Kidneys
Anal Sphincter
As Mangle has said, I suggest (for your rifle) that all have their part to play and if one fails then just as if the anal sphincter had failed in a man the result would be rather shitty.
Most custom rifles will need all, some factory rifles only need ammo or a trigger job or replacement, some stocks need bedding.
All depends on rifle combination?
And some people just can’t shoot with all the best gear in the world.
Barrel. Read up on the Houston Warehouse. If a rifle has a crap barrel none of the other factors can make up for it. If a rifle has a shit trigger and a good barrel it can still be shot well with practice not so the other way around.
The 3 most important factors affecting accuracy in any rifle:
1) the shooter
2) the shooter
3) the shooter
Yes realized but...Quote:
Originally Posted by ebf
Quote:
Aside from the shooter and rest...
If you insist on keeping it to the hardware side, it would help if you break it down into bits that really matter.
So for instance instead of saying "barrel", you might want to have distinct items for chambering and the crown, both of which affect matters.
It also depends on what rifles you are talking about. In general bedding the action in the stock makes a huge difference, but for most of the Tikkas this does not seem to be as much of an issue as with other makes...
Hmmm I don't think I need to break it down too much. Let's try it this way:Quote:
Originally Posted by ebf
I know you like Barnard actions @ebf, but if I was short on funds and the action doesn't affect accuracy that much (but a match-quality barrel does), then why should I not just thread a match barrel onto a 2nd hand Rem 700 rather than shoot a Barnard with a less quality barrel?
IMO, barrel is the most important - followed equally by a stock that is stiff enough and a good bedding system. Its not going to perform well without those pieces of the puzzle. A trigger makes a rifle easier to shoot more accurately, but does not change the fundamental accuracy of the rifle.
# 1 =Using a Night Force Scope
You can take a cheap ($ 400) action like an Omark, and provided it is trued and the barrel is chambered correctly, it will shoot just as well as a Barnard.
You can take a match grade Krieger, and if the gunsmith is a numpty, it will never shoot as well as a factory Tikka...
Chamber and barrel alignment / trueing is probably no 1 on my list, very closely followed by bedding.
Those 2 issues will solve the vast majority of accuracy problems.
A competition rifle might shoot incredibly well and then groups start to open up as the barrel is shot out. Nothing else has changed and non of the other factors can compensate for the shot out barrel. A new barrel is fitted and accuracy restored.
There seems to be a growing consensus that the barrel is the most important element in regard to the accuracy of a rifle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moa Hunter
Barrel number one and Bedding number two in regards to accuracy?Quote:
Originally Posted by ebf
Does this sound about right?
Barrel ?? Hmmm. I once rebarreled a 6.5-06 that had been shooting well (it was a Mauser 98, there were always several factors at play getting these to really shoot, unless your name is @nor-west who is the tinniest bastard with Mausers I know, or is it that he associates with @Brian . . . ).
I chose a Kreiger cut rifled barrel and had Din Collings fit and chamber it (a grandson actually did the work). Shot like shit. I tried a lot of things, loads, bedding all sorts. Shot like shit. Probly put 250-350 rounds through it.
Several years later I decided to take a second punt on it, and had it fitted it to a Ruger Precision rifle (by Mark at Waitaki engineering). He set it back and chambered it in 6.5 Crudmore. Shot like a demon, despite being a hunting weight profile I shot possibles at 300, 400, 500 and 600 yards with it.
Figure that one!
Depends on the rifle, see my comments in post #17Quote:
Originally Posted by zarathustra
Bedding would probably be my first call. That alone could give you the accuracy gains you need/want.
Trying to gauge exactly what your looking for, I've built a couple of "F" class rifles on 700 actions and yes they work but your limited to palma profile as the action isn't strong enough to hold anything heavier reliably. Barrel making is a 'art' to get it right requires a high degree of technical proficiency in heat treating, boring and rifling. Some factories do it better then others. When it comes to accuracy 'factory' rifles are all built to a price point, some are better then others and as the saying goes you get what you pay for, except with savage which seem to all shoot really well. If your looking for ultimate accuracy look at benchrest rifles. If you want to play PRS look at ruger precision rifles. There is no ultimate one rifle, you'll need about 6 to do everything
To put these elements into some sort of 'accuracy rating order' is difficult but just going off the posts on this thread I probably can make a 'top 3' (with a tie for 3rd):
1 - Barrel: the most important factor is the quality of the barrel.
2 - Bedding: next comes the bedding of the rifled action
and that indirectly leads to/means a rifle needs
3a - Stock: a firm wood, fiberglass or laminate stock for the bedding to be stable in.
But equally important is also:
3b- Bullet: the quality and consistency of the factory/hand-loaded ammunition
As for the last two elements in regard to an accuracy rating order, I have no idea:
Trigger: quality and amount of trigger pull required.
Action: concentricity
Lets call the last two a tie as well...:thumbsup:
the bit that flys out end of barrel is the bit that gets MEASURED to determine accuracy....... it doesnt matter how friggin good your rifles action ,barrel and muzzle are or if its got a zillion power scope on it...if your loads have inconsistant powder weights ,the projectiles are seated wonky and you have used mixed batches of brass....with wrong bullet weight for barrels twist....you are on hiding to nothing before you start.
and while on subject...what IS accurate enough???
my 30ish year old poohseventy is a classic for this....with good reload where Ive dotted the Is and crossed the Ts it will group under an inch happily,no matter if its a 110grn loaded mono splitzer or a 170grn round nose cup n core....
I can put ANY and ALL loads into a playing card group combined....have done it off bench to eliminate the me factor.
so for bush hunting where 90% of shots are sub hundy its plenty good enough and what load doesnt matter.
I owned a 7.62x39mm and never bothered to try to develop accurate load for it...2-3'' was plenty good enough as it was a short range bush rifle.
my .223 on other hand I are a little more fussy with the reloads and she pokes little holes close together as a result.
good trigger and reasonable glass help no end...speaking of triggers that poohseventy came from factory with trigger set at what seemed like 25lb and no way could I group it properly...it booted like a bastard too with thin recoil pad so I started to flinch...fought that for 20 years before suppressing which finally sorted it out for once and for all.
#1 nut behind butt
#2 everything tight so not changing between shots
#3 ammunition
#4 any thing else rifle or scope related.
^^^ Lots of wisdom right there for the absorption of . . . . but the young fella's never listen/don't want to hear, I just wish they'd spend their considerable $$$ with me (but I don't make gun stuff!!).
Thought about this thread some more...
Here's my take. Assuming a competent shot, with stable rest, calm weather blablabla.
1) If the action is not bedded, do that first, then shoot and see how accuracy improves
2) If the action is already bedded, get a competent gunsmith to clean up/refresh the crown, then shoot and see how accuracy improves.
3) If both above have been done, put some quality reloads, tuned for that specific rifle on target.
4) If all of the above fail, start thinking about a new barrel. While the gunsmith is at it re barreling the rifle, get him to check the action threads are true etc.
The interesting thing would be define accuracy and in what context and shooting discipline and or distance.
From my experience the most important thing is confidence in the setup and your ability. Your ability plays a big roll. Its easy to sit on a bench and master the art of shooting groups, but to be accurate in a hunting environment or even some other disciplines you need to get your ass of the bench seat. The ability to be accurate and savvy enough to tick the fundamentals in different situations requires practice. Stock design, grip and how the rifle is rested also plays a role here.
You also need to have a very good understanding of how weather affects the internal and external ballistics of your setup and more importantly how to compensate for them or reduce the influence. Short distances with high BC bullets helps, but the best marksmen I know are all good wind readers.
You need a barrel twist that stabilizes the bullet and clean and constant bullet exist all centered around the crown.
The next thing would be internal ballistics. A top notch rifle will most likely increase/assist with a wider accuracy node, but a top notch rifle will no be accurate with inconsisant ammo that doesn't shoots to one of the nodes. For long distance shooting you will be more accurate with a load that produces small SD or ES velocities ( reducing vertical) compared to a load that shoots small groups with a high ES/SD. The ideal would be one hole groups with very low ES/SD, but this is not always possible. This is where chamber and the metal work come in.
You need a barrel that is able to provide constant surface for the bullet to travel against. Inconsistencies and especially buildup of copper and carbon. Some barrels provide a larger shot count in which they are able to deliver it, while others don't. Throat erosion in fire cracking (shot out barrel) contributes to these inconsistencies and thus accuracy challenges.
Cutting the rope short here, most of us aren't able to constantly utilize our rifle, even factory rifles, to their full accuracy potential. I sometimes think we chasing all these small little gains in the hope that it will make us better marksman, but we aren't willing to put in the practice.
Suppose accuracy to be a woman ...
You are being far too sipholofical sir :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Bagheera
Saw a video once where they took an off the shelf rifle and modified it one thing at a time. Shots a group , factory gun and basic hunting ammo. Changed barrel, shot a group. Changed stock,shot a group. Off the shelf high quality match oammo, shot a group. With each mod the improvements in accuracy were about the same in group size reduction for each change, none seemed anymore beneficial than others in themselves but each made a significant difference. Very good video to watch and the rifle was a true tack driver in the end but if nothing else it showed any of the mods made a big difference but the true potential wasn't found until all the mods were done
Assuming you are talking about modern rifles with modern designs and reasonably well made parts, that is anything made in Europe, North America, and Japan, then:Quote:
Originally Posted by zarathustra
* Action plays a relatively minor role. All modern rifles have good enough action. High end single short actions still makes a difference but that difference will not be noticeable before you have a good barrel. People often put a custom barrel on a factory action to get good results. For example, Shilien makes barrels that can be installed into a Savage action by any average shooter, and it is a popular upgrade for many savage owners in the States (oddly, no one seems to do it here). alsmo many people put Lilja barrels on CZ 455 actions. The contrary is not true. No one puts a factory barrel on a custom action. I have never seen a Ruger factory barrel on a Volquarsen or KIDD action, for example. quite simply it would have sucked just the same.
* Barrel plays a major role. Not all modern rifle makers make equally accurate barrels. Quality of blanks, method of making of the rifling, precision of fitting , lapping the barrel all makes a difference -
- You will see that some guns makes and custom barrel makers advertise the material of their barrels, or that they use well known branded blanks.
- super custom barrels make rifling by cut rifling, it is slow and expensive, but you can make rifling of any twist rate and number of grooves. Rifling of most mass produced modern barrels are hammer forged. It is relatively less precise and less accurate method. It also introduces stress to the metal. Tikka is the only one that makes consistently accurate hammer forged barrels. Button Rifling is the middle ground. It results in more accurate barrels than hammer forge. Custom barrel makers tend to use button rifling, for example Lilja, Trueflight, and Shilen. Savage is the only mass production maker that uses button rifling.
- In terms of barrel fitting, thread fit is generally better than press fit. Press fit can be very good too - if super tight tolerance. Anschutz uses press fit and wins more Olympic gold medal than everyone else combined. Cheap Remingtons also press fit their barrels and they are apparently pretty bad.
- Lapping barrels makes the bore smooth and shiny, the bullet travel through the barrel uniformly and consistently, improving accuracy. But to do this right it has to be done by hand and it is time consuming and therefore costly. This is similar to high end knife makers always sharpen by hand while mass produced knives just get grinded. I think CZ is the only factory rifle maker that hand laps their barrels, which is probably why it has enjoyed a reputation for accuracy. Lilja hand laps every barral. True flight only hand lap their highest grade barrels.
* Bedding is a controversial topic. I personally think that bedding is similar to action in terms of how much it affects accuracy. Most modern rifles has good enough bedding. Most Tikka with plastic stock and no bedding can do 1 MOA easy. Some modern rifles use alternative method to achieve better stock / action surface rigidity. For example, Savage has been doing this aluminium action/stock fitting thing that they call accu-stock and it is fitted in most of their rifles with cheap plastic stock.
* Bullet makes a big difference, especially between the bulk ammo or mil surplus ammo and proper high end ammo or hand loads. An Olympic grade single shot shooting Winchester 555 pack will be out-shot by a CZ452 shooting Eley Ten-x.
* Stock to me ranks below bedding and action. I feel most people upgrade stocks for better customization, or lighter weight, or better carrying ergonomics, or aesthetics rather than inherent accuracy improvement.
* Trigger ranks above barrel in accuracy impact for free hand shooting. I do free hand shooting 95% of the time. Personally I shoot far better with a super light trigger and average barrel than i would with a super accurate barrel and average heavy trigger. But if you shoot off a bipod, then trigger makes less of a difference once it is below a certain threshold. For example, I think going from 7 pound to 3 pound would make a much bigger difference than from 3 pound to 1 pound.
A great comprehensive reply Ultimitsu...the exact information I was looking for.
Cheers :thumbsup:
I don't think you can answer the question properly without a little more context, are we talking a rifle that already shoots well but want to improve upon, a custom build from the base up or a rifle that doesn't shoot well.
A rifle with either; poor bedding, crap barrel, crap action or bad ammo will not shoot well.
A un-ergonomic stock or crap trigger can be overcome but the above factors cannot.
If you have a rifle that shoots well but you are wanting to squeeze more accuracy from it, the first thing to do is always hand loading ammo.
99% of the time a good hand load will out shoot factory ammo.
A lot of rifles come out with good barrels these days and in many cases you don't need to replace the factory barrel for the rifle too shoot well but that doesn't mean the rifle wont shoot better with a custom barrel. Tikkas are well known for having good barrels and being accurate right out of the box, but in the USA it's pretty common for guys to rebarrel them with a quality custom barrel and the accuracy does improve along with the velocity as it's common for Tikka factory barrels to produce lower velocities that other barrels.
Some rifles respond well to being glass bedded or but in an aftermarket stock but these days it seems less common, or at least is required less often.
It's very common for folk to replace the stock on target rifle with a chassis that has a built in bedding block, majority of the time this is done for ergonomic reasons or for attaching bipods and other shooting aids that help them to shoot better. Often they get increased accuracy but it's not always a given.
So in the absence of any context and assuming there is no factor that is bad, I'd place things in this order to improve accuracy;
Hand loading
Re-barrel
Bedding
Action
Stock and trigger are both last with the caveat they don't effect the mechanical accuracy of the rifle but in many ways will make a rifle easy or difficult to shoot well.
Thus if I had a rifle that shot well already but wanted to improve, I'd do it in this order.
Hand load
Stock with bedding block
Trigger
Barrel
Action
I remember seeing a video years back. It was somewhere in Russia, a long range gong competition shoot I think. There were guys with flash 4WDs and very expensive looking rifle/scope setups.
Up rocks this rough as russian, he had a swagger about him that suggested regular force guy with a lot of experience (or maybe more). He pops out one of those $10 foldup picnic stools, and has a Baikal IZH 18 with a long legged bipod. Don't think the scope was anything to flash. Anyway this guy absolutely cleaned up.
I tried to find the video but it's got a russian title, so didn't have much luck. It always impressed me as it showed that a consistent shooter with a good shooting style can such a difference.