T/C Pro Hunter Rifle - 7mm Remington Magnum

[DeBois]

I've owned and shot Contender rifles and handguns for years and have had good accuracy results.  I have an Encore rifle with a 308 Wnchester barrel that shoots accurately enough for hunting out to 200 yards or so.  Last summer I purchased a Pro Hunter rifle with a 7mm Renington Magnum barrel.  I am having fits trying to get the thing to shoot accurately.  Right now I'm getting about 4" groups at 100 yards from a bench.   I have never owned a 7mm Remngton Magnum other than the Pro Hunter.  I am using 140 grain bullets and reloading using data from a number of the standard manuals.  Anyone ever had similar problems with the Pro Hunter.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[acearch72]

I've had similar problems, but not as bad as 4".   There have been several posts on here about it.

I determined that my fore end screws were loose and the fore end was hitting the barrel pretty hard in one place.  I have fixed this but have not had a chance to go to the range since then.  Once I do, I will post the results.

However, in my experience the 7mm RemMag shoots the 160gr bullets better than the lighter weight bullets.  I have tried and tried to get my 7s to shoot the 140gr Barnes TSX with no luck.

[ccoorreeyy]

Hope you figure out whats going on here.  I have a encore 7mag that did not shoot as good as i thought it should (about 2.5 inches at 100yds)  I cut a new 11deg crown on the muzzle and groups shrank down to under 1in.  I am very very pleased with it now.

[Davemuzz]

DeBois,

I had a problem similar to yours with my new pro-hunter 243. I was handloading with various powder\bullet combo's and just could not get anywhere near acceptable 100 yard groups. There were times when 3" groups started looking like a good day.

A muzzle crown may help any barrel, I don't know, but you may want to try some simpler matters first. This is what I did to get sub-MOA groups from my pro-hunter 243:

First I floated my forarm. I didn't do a small float, but I did one that was solid yet got the forarm a good 1\8" away from the barrel. The only "pressure points" or parts that now touch the barrel are the two uncle mikes spacers that are between the forarm and the barrel. (see the picture). Actually, I took an Uncle Mikes Contender spacer, cut it in half and Dremmeled the barrel contour...then gouped\superglued the spacer onto the forarm.

The next thing I did was to make sure the forarm did not touch the frame when I locked up the gun. I made sure upon lockup that I could slide a business card inbetween the forearm and the frame on each side. Also, be careful when you change barrels that your forearm doesn't "shift" and one side is touching. This only takes a second to check, and only a second to fix when you change barrels.

These "little" fixes made my pro-hunter a forever keeper. It pops those 70 and 80 grainer Nosler's down range like they were on a lazer.

Oh, in order for the float to work, I had to get longer screws from Brownells to make it work. I don't remember the screw size....but it's not the "standard" contender size (go figure).



I have some pictures for reference:

[DeBois]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I thought the problem may be with the forearm so I will try floating the fore end to see if that solves my problem before the muzzle crown solution.

[crawford769]

what powder and bullets are you using?  mine shot horribly with 4350, i switched to h1000 and the groups were cut in half.  it also wouldn't shoot 154gr sst's under 2" and 140 nos bt's were under 1 1/2",  i tried some remington 140gr psp flat bases and it shoots them under 3/4".  right now it's being recrowned.