SmallCaliberCentral

I know that I have seen it somewhere before, but can't remember where. My Savage 204 shoots groups that are great (1/4" @ 100 yd) but strings the bullets horizontally. Usually about 1" CTC. What causes this problem?

Windage 'errors' are usually a factor of three things, either the gun's not tracking straight back on the bags/rest, trigger control is suspect, or the wind is blowing.......... If there are very minor errors in all three, it can add up.


As for myself, I always blame the wind though it's probably the trigger squeezer.

Could be the wind..... could be your breathing.... could be a lot of minute different things. I use the same routine for every shot and it seems to help me. Try your breathing and do the same thing for every shot of your 5 shot group and see what happens. Try it when the wind is totally calm also.... I would say that it isn't your gun as you know it can shoot 1/4" groups. Try different things. Just my 2cents. -Dan

E-Texan Shooter wrote:I know that I have seen it somewhere before, but can't remember where. My Savage 204 shoots groups that are great (1/4" @ 100 yd) but strings the bullets horizontally. Usually about 1" CTC. What causes this problem?

Can you be more specific?
Are you shooting .25 moa vertically at 100yds with 1.00" horizontal dispersion?

Taking everything else out of the picture such as wind, bedding, rests and shooter error horizontal can be traced to too high a powder charge or seated too shallow (to close to lands)
This can be corrected by lowering the charge or seating the bullet further in with very small increments or both.

Most likely that much horizontal is not caused by load error but more along the lines of everything else I took out of the picture.
I have seen accumulating fouling in a clean barrel walk rds to the right in sequential order before. Many times actually.
Do you have enough optics to see the group develop at whatever distance your shooting?

Could be a heavy trigger pull too.

It's probably not the gun, sorry. My son, who was retrained by the military for spray and pray, will shoot 1 to 1 and 1/2 inches to the right of where I shoot with the same rifle while I'm making a 3/8 inch group and this is off a benchrest. His excuse is that I give him the bad ammo and besides that he's close enough. Not saying you have a heavy finger, but something is'nt consistent with your form, be it breathing, finger, same eye relief to the scope, or a rifle that likes to be pulled in hard or a soft touch.