Need some advice here or a sanity check. I’m shooting 165 grain winchester power points from a Ruger M77 (leupold 3x fixed). Bought the rifle used a few months ago, its manufactured from the 70’s according to the serial.
I can group 5 shots at 100 yards with 4 holes damn near touching, one flier (might be my fault but who knows). I go out to 200 yards and its grouping terribly at like 6 inches or so. I go back to 100 to shoot 3 more and damn near all holes touching again. What the hell is that about? I really dont get this. I’m not a sniper sharp shooter by any means but I would expect better from myself at 200 yards. I sometimes take my SKS or Mauser out to 200 yards and might get a slightly worse grouping with iron sights. But I cant usually get holes to touch at 100 yards with an SKS or Mauser. So it just doesnt make sense. I really hope its not the rifle but I’m convinced its the ammo. Any ideas? Hoping someone can talk me off the ledge because I love this rifle and would like to dial it in as later this year will be my first deer hunt. Thinking of trying 150 or 180 grain loads to see what happens.
Im assuming you are zero-ed at 100. Have you tried a 200 yrd zero? Adding another 100 yards starts to make things like wind a bigger factor. I also would try some different ammo (maybe match grade) to see if it is ammo related.
I only took the rifle out 3 or 4 times since I bought it. I know the rifle is dead on at 50 yards. Its an inch high and to the left at 100 yards. At 200, the groupings were so big it would be futile to zero in my opinion. I mean it was hitting around the center and a little low. Windage and elevation weren’t that much off as far as the scope.
I took some of those factors in to consideration that the groups would open up at 200 instead of 100 but I’m frustrated and disappointed they were as big as they were at 200. The groupings a comparable and only slightly better than my surplus rifles which have crappy iron sights.
Do you still have this rifle and having problems zeroing it? If so try different ammo. Just because your rifle likes a certain ammo at 50 or 100 yds doesn’t mean that it will group the same at other distances.
If you have the same problem with multiple different brands or grain ammo then I would start looking at the barrel. Check the crown on the barrel to make sure that it isn’t worn or nicked and look at the rifling. Check to make sure that you don’t have a bunch of copper fouling. Many times people get carbon and lead fouling out of a barrel when cleaning but never really use a specific cleaning solution designed to clean out the copper fouling. I use Sweets 7.62 and a little better cleaner is Montana Extreme Copper Killer. If it is really bad then I use JB Bore Paste. These will get the copper out. As long as your patch still comes out looking blue then you are still removing copper fouling. Hops No.9 or other regular bore cleaners will not remove copper fouling.