Reloading accuracy help

[Ketch22]

Describe your cleaning routine and the products used. Are any copper foul cleaners?

The only things I could get my hands on in short notice were Hoppes 9 bore cleaner and Remington bore cleaner.

I ran a patch soaked in cleaner through the bore, let it work for 3-5 minutes. I ran a bore brushy through the rifle 2-3 times, and then ran dry patches through until it was just about clean. I continued this process over again until the dry patches came out **** near perfectly clean on the first or second run through. I could have kept this process going but I was on a time crunch.

 

[Jester896]

I don't think either of those strip copper..just carbon.
if you run a very wet patch through the bore on an undersized jag do you feel the patch drag or catch on anything? If you do it isn't clean.
Your brush strokes are inadequate for the round count.

 

[Ketch22]

The Remington Bore Brite says removes copper right on the bottle.

 

[Jester896]

didn't know if you used 40X or that...I just prefer different products

The Remington products require scrubbing which you clearly haven't done.
Here are the instructions for their product.
https://www.remington.com/support/safety-center/safety-and-shooting-tips/rifle-cleaning-tips
I imagine either one would require the same process.

That bore snake is good to remove the excess oil you applied to the rifle bore when you put it up for an extended period of time

if you made 40 shots you need 40 passes

 

[sleepr71]

I’d clean that barrel good,getting all the old Copper out,etc. Shoot a few rds thru it to re-foul it,then start shooting for accuracy.My gut feeling is:
(1) Scope Mounting needs to be re-done..from scratch..by YOU.
(2) Action Screws...need to be loosened & tightened in whatever sequence + torque recommended.
(3) Load velocity is inconsistent,or weak..or both..resulting in that much drop at 200. I’d HAVE to Chrono 1/2 dozen or so of my “pet” handloads! I suspect they may be part of the problem?

Like you said...ya gotta leave your ego at the door to solve some of these things?

 

[Ketch22]

Thanks for all of the advise guys, I still need to clean it more, but the cleaning I’ve done so far has helped to tighten the groups of the factory rounds back up a bit. I’ll clean her again and get one last chance to shoot before the season starts.

I’ll be purchasing a chrono in the future and reworking my hand loads.

 

[Darkhorse]

All I use is Hoppe's #9 and it does remove copper. My process is to soak a patch in #9 then work it back and forth a few times and let it sit 15 or 20 minutes then run another clean patch through. That green stuff on the patch is copper. I do this until the patch comes out with almost no green on it. After that I wrap a patch around a brush and soak it in #9, then run the brush back and forth at least 10 times. Then wipe it all out with a patch soaked in gun oil followed by clean dry patches.

 

[JeffinPTC]

Just a Follow up
I took my own advice in #14 and cleaned my rifle after getting it wet yesterday AM.
Rather than just running the Viper Snake with CLP thru it I got out the Hoppes 9 and brushes.
I ran the Hoppes soaked brush back and forth 5x, then patches on a jag.
Up thru 5 cycles of this, I was getting a filthy black patch. I went to 10 cycles and got some semblance of clean.
This was from a 300 Win Mag which I clean with a Viper Bore Snake every time I fire.

I now appreciate the Army going back to issuing cleaning rods and brushes rather than bore snakes.
I plan on doing this with all my guns as I fire them or get them wet.
Jeff

 

[JeffinPTC]

I've experienced great groups at 100 and bad at 200. I think it's a bullet stability issue. I.e. it's stable at the velocity from 0-100 and loses the stability

If you're using a plastic tip, Hornady says it can melt and effect accuracy also:

IDENTIFYING A PROBLEM – AERODYNAMIC HEATING
While analyzing the radar data on the new bullet, Hornady engineers noticed something right away that was puzzling. In Drag Coefficient versus Mach (Cd vs Mach) graphs, they saw that the new projectile was gaining drag shortly after leaving the barrel, which affected the performance of that bullet for the rest of its flight path. Simply put, the bullet acted like it had one particular BC for the first 100 to 150 yards, then transitioned to a lower BC for the rest of its flight path. Further testing was done with other bullets including BTHP match and A-MAX® bullets. While the BTHP bullets Cd vs Mach charts looked as expected, the A-MAX® bullets were showing the same increase in drag that the prototype hunting bullet did. It was as if the bullet was changing shape in flight.

Further testing was done to confirm suspicions that the polymer tip was the culprit. Aerodynamically efficient, high BC bullets at high velocity were suffering from polymer tips softening and deforming in flight. Further testing proved that it happens to all conventional polymer tipped bullets, regardless of manufacturer.


https://www.hornady.com/heat-shield

 

[JeffinPTC]

Above Hornady post is about Selling ELD and ELD-X bullets.

Midway has some on "Clearance" now, and I got a new Hornady poster in the mail yesterday with the "A-Tip" Aluminum tip bullets

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1018874583

 

[bighonkinjeep]

Being distance dependent, sounds like a very good chance of a parallax problem to me.