D'oh, That's why I couldn't hit anything.

[Chuck Anderson]

So for the last year I've been struggling with my rifle. Pretty much unable to hit anything past 100 yards, sometimes closer, since around the time of the Pro-Am. Previously I'd been pretty decent with the longer range rifle stuff. Well it was so bad I decided to buy a new rifle from a new maker because I couldn't figure out what was going on. Well in the process of stripping my old one down to sell I realized why it was giving me such weird results. Around summer last year I put on a fancy new 15" handguard, lo-pro gas block and a couple accessory rails at the end. I was mounting up different things on them like thumbrests, flashlights, etc. Well I finally looked today and the bearing plate for one of the rails was pressing up against that new gas block. It was actaully tight enough I had to take the handguard off to get the back plate to move. Found the same thing with the sling swivel stud but to a lesser degree. I'm guessing having random things in random contact wtih a part of the barrel that tends to heat up might have an effect on accuracy. I'm also guessing that using a bipod since it's an open gun probably had a similar negative effect which might explain why some positions it shot just fine and others not so much. It's interesting, now that I took all the stuff off, the gun sounds like it used to with a little twang from the forend with the charge handle is racked.

So a couple lessons, first only add one item at a time when making changes, then check the gun to make sure it does what you want it to. Second make sure you gee whiz gadgets don't screw up a perfectly good rifle.

Oh well, at least now I have a backup rifle.

[CJW]

My g/f's first competition rifle was a Kel-Tec SU-16---not a free-floated handguard. Through experimentation we found that the effect or leaning on the handguard was as much as 8MOA deflection. If your rail or swivel stud was touching the gas block, and you basically stopped having a free-float tube, I'll be you were in that same ballpark. That sucks.

[Sleepswithdogs]

So for the last year I've been struggling with my rifle. Pretty much unable to hit anything past 100 yards, sometimes closer, since around the time of the Pro-Am. Previously I'd been pretty decent with the longer range rifle stuff. Well it was so bad I decided to buy a new rifle from a new maker because I couldn't figure out what was going on. Well in the process of stripping my old one down to sell I realized why it was giving me such weird results. Around summer last year I put on a fancy new 15" handguard, lo-pro gas block and a couple accessory rails at the end. I was mounting up different things on them like thumbrests, flashlights, etc. Well I finally looked today and the bearing plate for one of the rails was pressing up against that new gas block. It was actaully tight enough I had to take the handguard off to get the back plate to move. Found the same thing with the sling swivel stud but to a lesser degree. I'm guessing having random things in random contact wtih a part of the barrel that tends to heat up might have an effect on accuracy. I'm also guessing that using a bipod since it's an open gun probably had a similar negative effect which might explain why some positions it shot just fine and others not so much. It's interesting, now that I took all the stuff off, the gun sounds like it used to with a little twang from the forend with the charge handle is racked.

So a couple lessons, first only add one item at a time when making changes, then check the gun to make sure it does what you want it to. Second make sure you gee whiz gadgets don't screw up a perfectly good rifle.

Oh well, at least now I have a backup rifle.

Yep, same in medicine and racing, only change one thing at a time if you can. If you make a bunch of changes at one time and have something go wrong, it takes a big effort to find out what happened.

Also, I'm seeing a trend here. When missing targets, seems most people start out blaming themselves first. Same thing happened to me when I had some work done on the crown and brake and I started missing easy targets. I thought, oh well, I'm not shooting very well lately." Never even occurred to me that it might be the rifle and not the dope behind the scope.

Tar

Edited August 13, 2012 by Sleepswithdogs

[Sleepswithdogs]

Chuck, glad you got it worked out. Funny how such small things can make such big problems.

Tar

Edited August 15, 2012 by Sleepswithdogs