SmallCaliberCentral

Took my new Rem LV SF to te cabin Saturday. It's topped with a Nikon Monarch 4-16x42 on Leupold low mounts. Sucked it down so low that teh bolt just touches the rubber ring on the fast focus ring.


I started with the gun out of the box stock, just a quick cleaning and the bore sighting from the dealer. I used Federal Premium and the 39BK. Shooting conditions were terrible. I tried a sandbag across the corner of the tailgate of my truck with limited success. Hard to get comfortable and get a decent cheek weld and view, but it's about all I had short of across the hood which I will not do to my truck. Temps in upper 20's, but the winds were pretty mild. With just the Bore sighting by the dealer, I was about 3" low and about 1.5" right at 50 yds. Ran 5 rounds, cleaned, 5 more etc. After I settled in and got comfortable (as comfortable as could be considering) I got a fairly decent 5 shot group. Probably cover it with a dime. Couldn't resist the temptation to try my hand loads for my Sako (which I was strongly cautioned against) so I did run a group with these too. What really surprised me was that my zero did not change. With my Sako, the factory ammo drops down and to the right quite considerably. I think that this one is going to be a shooter.

Backed the truck down by the cabin and a red squirrel was there waiting for me. 50' shot and there were pieces wrqpped aroung twigs etc. For those who aren't familiar, a red squirrel is a reall piece of crap. They like to get inside buildings and chew stuff up. They also chatter like a rattle snake on a PA system when something bothers them like a deer hunter etc. They are my favorite WI rodent to blow up. By then the battery was charged in my Ranger so I decided to load up some cord and head back to try and feed the critters. Bad move. I bucked snow along the edge of the field and hit the woods OK scratching all the way. Hit the first clearing on the trail and I was buried. There is a crust midway through and it hung me up something terrible. I had some friends coming to pick up some stuff so I called them to bring the skid steer with tracks. While I was waiting I walked the rest of the way to the stand carrying the Remmy, a 2 gallon pail of corn, and a small shovel. I was quickly reminded how badly out of shape I am. The snow was about knee deep (I wasn't sinking to the bottom) and it was sugary loose like washed sand. Every 100' or so I'd have to stop for a breather. I only had about 1/8 mile to go, then down the bank, then back up, then over to the second pile, then back. Thank God I was smart enough to bring a bottle of Gatorade! Well, the skid steer arrived (biggest Deere model complete with tracks and a 8' snow bucket) and we cleared to and around the Ranger Then on to the rest of the trails while we dug out under the Ranger. We have about a mile of trails mol in our 40 wooded acres and now have more than 1/2 of them Ranger ready. It still works in areas, but I need to turn up the springs and get rid of the squat for more clearance.

I'm heading back there today as the pilot in the heater keeps shutting down out and I need to investigate the pilot flame height and thermocouple placement. Figure I'll hike in to the stand whick is only 150' off the trail. If I'm really ambiyious I'll hike it all as the trails are still 12" deep with snow in most places and it will be another good workout...

Last night I started my trigger adjust, and barrel float. I hope that the float doesn't move POI too bad. I hope to get a couple more red squirrels...

TD-Max,I hope you enjoy the new rifle as much as i enjoy my LVSF.Noticed you said you were floating the barrel on it,and you hoped it wouldn`t change P.O.I to bad.I think it probably will,as the LVSF is built with the stock touching the barrel for some sort of pressure.Some people have free floated these before on this forum,but i dont think they have allways ended up with a better shooter!Personally i`ve left mine alone,apart from a trigger job as i`ve allways felt if it aint broke why fix it.Without floating the barrel,my LVSF will shoot rabbits out to 345yards.
Good luck anyway,Jamie.

Probably should have left it alone like you said. It definitely made a difference. I need to get to shoot it from a rest. I'll have a trigger and bedding job done and see what goes from there...

TD-M: If it doesn't shoot as well after floating, try this: Bed the recoil lug area and the front of the receiver (only having the rear of the lug touching the bedding surface), the tang, and about 2" directly under the chamber. Usually this does the trick.

If it still does not shoot to full potential, it's an easy matter to just put another 2" bedding pad at the tip of the forearm to give it some dampening effects. You may have to sand and shoot to find the sweet spot, but the first method above usually always works for my lighter barreled varmint rigs.

A quick way to determine how much forend pressure is needed, is to just use matchbook covers, adding or subtracting layers while shooting to find that sweet spot. Once you've found it, mic the thickness of the matchbooks, and then bed it at the same height. I just use my dial or digital caliber end as a depth gauge while bedding/sanding....easier than it sounds.

I'm tempted to take on the bedding myself, bit I have a semi local Gunsmith (Randy Gregory http://www.accuracyunlimited.com ) with some pretty good credentials that I think I'll have do it to make sure that it's done right. Then I'll set up my BR pivot Lite and do some real testing.

I have to say that I really do like the stock on this thing. It's like a piece of balsa wood weight wise, and the barrel contact point was very easily taken out with a rond file. I've seen some complain about the LVSF stock being a noodle, but they must have changed it.

The bolt is raspy to cloase and kinda creaks when closing. I sprayed Rem Dry lube in with no success.

I can carry my Sako in to the woods while the Rem is down. Besides, with the amount of snow we have there was nothing moving but crows and woodpeckers. Of course the crows were flying and even if they did roost I won't shoot at the treetops with a high powered rifle.

TD-Max wrote:
The bolt is raspy to cloase and kinda creaks when closing. I sprayed Rem Dry lube in with no success.

Mines had about 350 rounds through it now,and the action is starting to smooth out a bit.

My 700ADL was a little like that on the bolt as well. Prolly not as bad but still crappy. I just cycled the bolt in the evening for a 1/2 hour at a time,, after that the wife was too annoyed to listen ot it anymore ,, and it lapped in fine on it's own. I did this for 3 evenings I think it was.

So what you are saying is you stroked it enough that it finally quieted down?