Accurizing

Your rifle may not be performing to the accuracy of which it is capable. Accurizing is the process of improving the accuracy of your rifle by doing some (or all) of the modifications listed below. Even when these modifications have been completed, you still may require hand loaded ammunition to obtain the most accurate performance from your rifle, as the example below shows.

1. Bed the action
2. Work the trigger
3. Recrown the barrel
4. True all surfaces
5. Rechamber the barrel

Bedding the action is the the first and most effective step in accurizing your rifle, We use various compounds in epoxy to bed the action including metal, carbon fiber, Marine Tex, and Pro-Bed. When the action is bedded, the stock and the action are rigid and the barrel floats, eliminating distortion that affects the path of the bullet.

Working the trigger reduces the force of the trigger pull and eliminates any rough spots in the trigger assembly. This provides a smooth, firm trigger pull that eliminates any "jerk" when the trigger releases.

Recrowning the barrel insures that the bullet touches the lands in the bore of the barrel uniformly as it leaves the barrel, insuring that there is no unbalanced force on the bullet that will affect the path of the bullet.

Trueing all surfaces (blueprinting) insures that the receiver, the bolt face, and the barrel are all concentric and all faces are perpendicular to the axis of the bore, and the locking lugs mate completely and squarely in their recesses. The machining of these components is critical because the tremendous pressure generated inside the action and barrel of the rifle will distort them, affecting the path of the bullet.

Rechambering the barrel insures that the chamber is true and perfectly aligned with the axis of the bore. It also allows you to use a different cartridge of the same bore diameter than the rifle was originally designed to use.

Hand Loaded Ammunition

When the rifle has been made as accurate as possible as described above, it still may not shoot perfectly with factory ammunition because each rifle can perform best with different cartridge and bullet configurations. For example: some rifles shoot best with the bullet 0.001" off the lands while others shoot best when the bullet is 0.050" off the lands. This means you must determine the optimum configuration through trial and error, essentially "tuning" the ammunition to the rifle. That is illustrated in the three-shot patterns shown below, shot from a distance of 100 yards.

The group on the left has a spread of 1.142" and was made with the bullet 0.001" off the lands. In the center group, the bullet was 0.007" off the lands and the spread was 0.735". The group on the right has a spread of 0.073" and was made with the bullet 0.013" off the lands. To achieve the best accuracy, this rifle wants the bullet 0.013" off the lands.