I have a brand new Remington BDL SS in 7mm ULTRA Mag that I bought about 1 year ago. Unfortunately, I have a very bad habit of continuing to buy new guns. What I should do is buy a gun, buy a scope, and then buy another gun, and then another scope. As a result of my bad habit, I had about 7 or 8 brand new rifles with no scopes. As a result, I was forced to go on a scope buying spree and purchased 6 scopes in the past year - roughly half from Jon at the opticzone and the other half from Chris at SWFA.
Anyway, I bought a Bushnell Elite 4200 4x-16x-50mm and had it mounted in Silver Leupold Dual Dovetail rings and bases on my 7mm Ultra. It had been sitting as a complete package for about 6 months now. Well, I finally took it to the range today and boy and I glad I did!
Let me first start out by saying that I live in Miami and that it is downright HOT down here. I don't know what the exact temp is, but it must have been close to 90 degrees - which is not exactly perfect weather for sighting in a rifle - especially one with as much powder as an ULTRA Mag.
Based on the foregoing, I only shot 12 shots, and it took me about 3 hours! :eek: Why? Because I wanted to make sure that the barrel would not overheat. I'm not sure how many minutes each shooting session was, but I don't think that I shot more than 2 shots per session. And what I also did was, since it was soo hot, I used the time to clean the barrel after every shot or so, except for the last three shots.
The results? Well, it took me 3 shots to bring the gun to the middle of the target. Thereafter, although I was cleaning after every shot, I was somewhat shooting for groups. I don't expect groups to be tight, but I do want some kind of indication of where to adjust the scope. What I stopped doing a long time ago was "chasing the holes." By this I mean the following: Lets say that I shoot a bullet on the NE portion of the outside ring. Well, if I shoot 3 shot groups, then maybe the overall group may be moved a bit toward the SW direction. Thus, if I "chase the holes" - meaning the first bullet in the NE section, then the following bullets may also move toward the NE section. Does this make any sense? :?
Anyway, like I said, when you clean after every shot, even if you are somewhat trying to group 3 shots, don't expect best groups because the cleaning residue in the barrel cause somewhat of fliers.
However, I did not clean the barrel after the last 3 shots. The result? Guys, let me tell you... I GOT 3/4" GROUPS and the LAST TWO SHOTS OF THAT 3 SHOT GROUP were 1/4"!!! :eek: :-D :grin: :eek: :-D :grin: That's awesome, especially considering that I was shooting a stock, factory NIB rifle with NO ALTERATIONS.
I was planning on, and eventually will, have a trigger job done on the gun by a professional gunsmith and have the trigger pull adjusted down to 3 pounds, but these groups are very very good.
Oh, and BTW, I was using factory ammo. Yup, factory ammo. It was Remington Premier 7mm Ultra Mag with 140 grain Nosler Partitions. I would have liked to use the 160 grainers, but the store was sold out of the 160s. But heck, with results like this, I just may stay with the 140s - which should be fine for whitetail and wild hogs. If I go after bigger hogs, or even elk, I have a couple of 300 Win. Mags, one .338 Win. Mag., and one .375 H&H. (Yes, I AM planning on using my .375 H&H on some MONSTER PIGS! :twisted: )
Again, 3/4" groups, and the last two shots were 1/4". I would imagine that the last two shots were tighter as the residue in the barrel was diminished.
Okay, I know. Let me shoot numerous 3-shot groups and then average them together because this may be a fluke. There is no doubt that more extensive shooting will produce more precise results, but let's not take away from what happened either. Why? Well, remember my previous three shot group when I was cleaning after every shot? Well, in those groups I got a 1" 3-shot group. That's still a great group for such a super high velocity, factory rifle, and it supports the credibility of the subsequent much tighter shots.
So and I happy? Yes. Will I throw away all of my Tikkas? No. :grin:
Zachary
