Thread: All in the trigger.....

Took a mate out to check zero on his rifle today, he owns a lovely rem 700 xcr 2 chambered in the timeless 270win.
Nothing to flady but a very nice slick action.
He reckons his scope took a knock about 6 months prior so he wasn't confident it was still on target.
While at it he wanted to change from 150gn hornandy whitetails to 130gn whitetails so perfect timing, he only shoots factory ammo so both offerings being good options just he was able to lay his hands on multiple boxes of the 130gn for a good price.
I got him to put a couple rounds through it and went to check his grouping.....around 6-7" high but centered, however about 3" either side of the center so a rather poor 6" group.....we were both shocked my mate was quite concerned his rifle was suffering some sort of catastrophic failure or the ammo was not suited to his rifle.
I asked if I could try put a few rounds through it, he agreed so I got comfortable behind his rifle, chambered a round and set about trying to send a 130gn whitetail down range, gently squeezed the trigger.....nothing, applied significantly more pressure on the trigger.....still nothing.
Looked at my mate and asked if he had put the safety on....."no its good to go" I opened the bolt and carefully ejected the unfired round and then asked if I could try a dry fire with a spent case (mate is an engineer and doesn't like dry firing) he agreed and so I set about chambering a fired case and trying to squeeze the trigger off.....fuck me this thing must've been in excess of 12lbs I immediately suggested to my mate that the trigger was likely the culprit for his poor group and we could easily sort that out, he was a bit non plussed about it but was willing to let me look at it as long as I didn't make it like my trigger (sub 1lb), no tools at the range so with the stupidly heavy trigger now a known issue I set about loading and sending a couple rounds down range making sure I had a solid rest and a good idea of how the trigger broke.
I also dialled the scope down 4.5"
Job done 2 shots within 1/2" more than acceptable, handed over rifle to my mate again to have another crack and he shot about 3" but similar poi to my group.
Went home cleaned and dried the rifles and reset my mates trigger to a very acceptable 3lbs, will get back to the range when the weather improves but have told my mate that I suspect his grops will improve greatly with the lighter trigger.
Sounds like I'll be loading for him when his supply of hornandy ammo drys up
Here is my group circled in red vs his group circled in yellow, you can see if his shots were stacked on the same vertical plane as my 2 shots he would have shot a very similar group to mine.
It certainly is possible to shoot good groups with an excessively heavy trigger, but shit it requires a bit of effort.
Before anyone points out, yes I normally shoot 3 shot groups when zeroing a rifle, but only shot 2 shot groups as I didn't wanna burn through my mates factory ammo.
Good times making stuff go bang in the freezing cold and wet