winchester wont shoot

[michael word]

I have a winchester 94 in 30-30 and the best groups I can acheive with it is about 8" groups at 100 yards with speradic impact location with a scope regardless of the load.  There are some machineing marks at the muzzle and the bore is extremely tight just past the throat. what can i do to make this shoot without having to replace the barrel.  It has less than 300 rounds through it.

[Kurt]

Might have to lap it Michael. Again I must refer down to the forum "ask Veral Smith of LBT" Good info all around.

[Randy_che]

Try shooting it without the scope. That sounds like a busted scope to me.
Could also be a bad crown.

[michael word]

The scope is brand new and has improved the groups from the iron sights.  I have been thinking about lapping since after less than 20 shots there is visible heavy deposits of copper fouling but don't know how much it could help since I have never done it before.

[Kurt]

Sounds like it might need some real good cleaning. I like Hoppes Bench Rest, and a brass brush. there are other ammonia cleaners. I like to wet the bore well then wait a few hours and run tight patches, then repeat. As long as they come out blue there is still copper in there. I  keep the bore horizonal, changing positions each cycle, and stuff a cloth in the chamber to keep the solvent out of the action. I've had it take a week or more, three or four cycles a night to get all the copper out.

[John Y Cannuck]

8"  :shock:  that's the worst shooting '94 I've run across to date. There should be something obviously wrong to get that bad a grouping.
You didn't say if these were handloads or factory. If they are handloads, then for the purposes of finding what's wrong, use the factory load, to eliminate the human error concept.
That tight spot bothers me. Because it's a 30-30, and Winchester barrels are not prone to be that way IMO. Could the tight spot be a lead build up? Has the rifle fired lead bullets in the past? If it has, the tight spot may be visible to the naked eye, as a spot where the rifling doesn't look as deep as it should, or even disapears.
A thorough cleaning and brushing will remove lead, but it may take you some time.

[michael word]

I have shot both factory and handloads and the handloads gave me the better accuracy.  I have only shot 2 lead bullets through it the other day.  This is a problem that has been happening since I first bought it.  I give the rifle a complete cleaning of copper and nitro fouling every time I clean it.

[Sky C.]

Hi Michael-

It's a little tough to troubleshoot by remote control but I think you'll get some good suggestions from the folks posting here.

I'll ask questions as the starting point:

1) the 8" groups...  
How many shots?
How quickly fired?
Do you notice any specific kind of pattern... horizontal vs. vertical? , generally round?,  throwing flyer evey "x" number of rounds?

2) What's the history on the gun?  New? Used?  How many rounds thru it?  Condition of the bore? etc.

3)  You noted that you've cleaned it...  What specifically have you done?  If the gun was used prior to your getting it - have you verified that it isn't leaded.  A quick pass of a bore brush wrapped with a couple strands of a "chore girl" will peel out any leading left in the bore right quick and do no damage to the bore.  I personally abandoned "chemicals only" some time back after having gone that route for a while when I for some reason decided to run a bronze bore brush down a "clean bore"  The cloud of crud that came out surprised the heck out of me.  Now the guns get a good cleaning with a snug bore brush.

4)  Please don't take this wrong (You may be a distinguished marksman - I don't know.) - but are you sure it the rifle and not you?    Have you had someone you know to be an accurate shot shoot the gun?  Sometimes shooters have a flinching problem without knowing it and it plays hob with getting any kind of reasonable group.

5)  Bench set-up?  Are you shooting off sandbags, hard object, elbows?  Bench technique can be a big factor.  I'd recommend shooting of sandbags from a solid bench.  Place the bags rught up under the receiver so it's butted against the finger lever.  get the gun pointed on target without horsing it around so you have a consistant condition for the rifle to recoil "from".  Reach around the front bag and grasp the forend firmly and pull it back into your shoulder snug and with as close to the same pressure from shot to shot as you can.  If the gun has sling swivels - be sure they are not nestled into the bag - it can cause variations in how the gun responds during recoil.  Don't fail to grasp the forend firmly and pull it into your shoulder.  These are light guns with some recoil and they don't respond well to a free recoil approach like used on bench guns.

6)  Barrel bands or forend cap..  Screws snug?  Are the screws binding against the barrel?  That could be a problem.  How about buttstock - is it snug with the action.  Tang screw needs to be tightenen so the buttstock is not loose.

7)  How's the trigger?  That shouldn't be the root cause for groups that large but a poor trigger is no help.

These are just a few ideas.  Once you fill in some of the blanks - maybe someone can help with other ideas.

Best regards-

Sky C.

[Jeff Vicars]

Box it up and send it back to Winchester, they'll make it right.

[michael word]

1.  Groups were 5 shot, about 1 per minute, and all groups had no general pattern.

2.  Bought new about 3-4 years ago with less than 300 rounds.  Bore has sharp rifling and machine marks at muzzle with small machining marks throughout the inside that look like they were left over from the making process.

3.  Cleaned with patches, brush, hoppe's #9 and birch-wood 2-n-1 for copper fouling. Cleaned after every trip to the range.

4.  Others have shot about the same.

5.  Shot off bench with front and rear sand bags.

6.  All screws are snug.

7.  Trigger has been reduced to about 3-4#.

Also, would winchester take it back and fix it.  I have been thinking about calling them but haven't gotten around to it.

[Sky C.]

Hi Michael-

When you're confident that it's not the shooter or technique (sounds that way to me)...  Default is the rifle.

Rifles aren't that complicated.  They are pretty simple mechanical items.  There's a good chance that a rifle spraying shots like that boils down to having a problem with one of the following:

Sighting equip problem:  loose sight in dovetails, loose scope mounts to the receiver or rings gripping scope, or broken scope (I've had 3 break from a top end manufacturer).

Something loose:  Stock to receiver, barrel to receiver, loose forend tennon in barrel, etc.

Something binding:  Forend wood binding unevenly on bbl, warped, etc. Barrel band going through a bind-shift-change pressure point, screw putting pressure on the barrel somewhere.  

Shots spraying indicate something changing.  The above are some of the most likely suspects that can lead to the mechanical condition of the rifle changing from shot to shot.  If you don't see anything obvious that you can fix easily - send it back to Winchester and explain what's going on.  Odds are they'll fix it up and you'll be in business!

Good luck getting her shooting-

Sky C.

[Castaway]

Quick question, where is the front sandbag resting?  If under the barrel, you're luck to get 5 shots on paper at 100 yards,  I rest the forward bags as close to the receiver as possible.

[michael word]

it is resting as far back on the forend as possible, just infront of the receiver.