Problems with youth 7mm-08

[mardrobe]

I tried to sight in a youth 7mm-08 yesterday which was a disappointing experience.  Trigger pull is very hard making it difficult to shoot.  Groups were good vertically, but spread over 4 inches horizontally at 100 yards and 10 inches at 200 yards (this may be a cheep scope problem).  The most worrying problem that I ran into was the gun not wanting to open after some shots unless I worked the safety a couple of times.  When I had asked the salesman if they had had any problems with the Rossis, he indicated they had to send off a couple for this same problem.  Any suggestions on lightening trigger pull or fixing problem with opening gun?
Bob

[trotterlg]

Horizontal stringing is almost always due to trigger pull.  You are lucky vertical is OK, vertical stringing is a break action type of problem, if yours is OK then things are good.  Hard to open is sort of a normal thing with these, the action flexes some when fired and it is very hard to push down the lever, it will probably get better with some use.  Good luck.  Larry

[mardrobe]

New scope took care of Horizontal problem and accuracy is now acceptable though not great.  Gun continues to be hard to open, and sometimes requires working the safety lever to open  action.  I bought this as a light weight deer rifle for distances up to 200 yards and believe it will fill that roll okay.

[SteveHawaii]

I had the problem with difficulty opening the action too with my .243 in youth.  Narrowed it down to using Winchester 100 gr factory ammo.  Now I mostly shoot handloads, so no more problems.  But I was shooting Winchester ammo when the gun was new.  It may be better now that I have a few hundred rounds through it.  Maybe I'll try them again the next time I take it out.  I've also had problems with it giving me rather large groups.  Even with hand loads I can't seem to get better than 2" groups at 100 yards.  Still working on it, and I've had the gun for two years now.