Some of you may have seen my post a couple weeks back about the Belgium made Browning BAR I recently acquired.
I took it to the range for the first time last weekend and was getting poor accuracy even for a semi-auto. Once I got it on the paper, about the best 5-shot group I could claim at 100 yards was 6 inches, most of them more like 8 inches, and that was using a lead sled. I was using Federal Fusion 165 grain (30-06), which has a decent BC and a good reputation for consistency.
I took it home and cleaned it and noticed that it had probably never been disassembled before. The reason I believe that is because the gas cylinder was filthy, looked like several hundred rounds worth of powder residue, and dirty enough that the gas piston wouldn't drop out of the cylinder on its own, I had to coax it out with a piece of plastic tubing.
I've heard that a dirty action can impact a semi-auto's accuracy, but I am not too familiar with that because my guns NEVER get that dirty.
The gun is all cleaned up and the gas assembly including the piston and cylinder are like new clean. Everything is as slick as wet duck droppings.
The only other thing that might be impacting the the rifle's accuracy is that the scope is a low-end Bushnell, and I don't know how much putting a nicer scope on the rifle would make a difference. All of my rifles have either Nikon, Leupold, and even a few Swaro's, and all of them shoot way tighter than this rifle, no comparison, 1.75 or tighter at 100 yards, a couple my Remy 700s are consistently under 1 inch.
The first thing I will do is take the rifle back to the range and see how it does now that its all cleaned up. I'm wondering if that will tighten up the groups.
After I see the difference that makes, I may try a nicer mid-range scope like a Nikon Monarch or a Vortex.
Any ideas? Suggestions?
I took it to the range for the first time last weekend and was getting poor accuracy even for a semi-auto. Once I got it on the paper, about the best 5-shot group I could claim at 100 yards was 6 inches, most of them more like 8 inches, and that was using a lead sled. I was using Federal Fusion 165 grain (30-06), which has a decent BC and a good reputation for consistency.
I took it home and cleaned it and noticed that it had probably never been disassembled before. The reason I believe that is because the gas cylinder was filthy, looked like several hundred rounds worth of powder residue, and dirty enough that the gas piston wouldn't drop out of the cylinder on its own, I had to coax it out with a piece of plastic tubing.
I've heard that a dirty action can impact a semi-auto's accuracy, but I am not too familiar with that because my guns NEVER get that dirty.
The gun is all cleaned up and the gas assembly including the piston and cylinder are like new clean. Everything is as slick as wet duck droppings.
The only other thing that might be impacting the the rifle's accuracy is that the scope is a low-end Bushnell, and I don't know how much putting a nicer scope on the rifle would make a difference. All of my rifles have either Nikon, Leupold, and even a few Swaro's, and all of them shoot way tighter than this rifle, no comparison, 1.75 or tighter at 100 yards, a couple my Remy 700s are consistently under 1 inch.
The first thing I will do is take the rifle back to the range and see how it does now that its all cleaned up. I'm wondering if that will tighten up the groups.
After I see the difference that makes, I may try a nicer mid-range scope like a Nikon Monarch or a Vortex.
Any ideas? Suggestions?