Originally Posted by
cayugad
That really is strange. When you take the rifle out of the stock, is the bedding of the barrel bad? I mean when you put the barrel back in.. can it perhaps shift and move around some? I know some of the good shooters on this forum bed their rifles. If I knew how, I would bed a couple of them myself.
I too think it's really strange. I haven't bedded the action to the stock, but I do know that with some rifles different torque on the screws holding the action to the stock can change the POI. I've never noticed that with this rifle, but thought anything was possible the first time I saw it shooting to the right, so I thought that may be why, but I wasn't sure. So after I got it centered, I didn't remove it from the stock at all when I cleaned it after getting it centered. So that I could make 100% sure this wasn't the cause and the second time I shot it which is the above time, where it seemed to shoot to the right again. The whole thing is really weird. I was hoping you might know something, as you are a genius when it comes to muzzle loaders. We are lucky to have guys like you on the forum.
Since it's shooting good groups, that's why I'm wondering if the scope could be bad and just have the zero drifting over time, or if it's got to be something else since it can shoot good groups in the same spot all day long.
It's confusing when you say don't mind the big group, because it's a bad rest. Then you shoot a good group. Did you change the rest?
I'm a little suspicious of the gun or shooter, and not the scope. I nothing about you, gun, or scope. I can only go by what your telling us.
Then in another post you tell us scopes under $300 don't track.
The first two to the right are the big group. I fired a fouler shot and then fired the two to the right that are about 1" apart. That was enough to see it was shooting right. That's what I'm calling big. I couldn't get a great feel for the rifle the way I had the bags set up on the first shot, but I fixed them after that. I then shot the second shot which was about 1" off from the first one, but still right. After adjusting the scope I took it a little too far left, but you can see my 3 shot group that's touching to the left.
After moving it back a little, I switched targets and shot another target that was dead center, and a good group. So it's grouping well, it just seemed like the group had shifted right from where it was shooting the last time I shot it. After I moved it a few clicks to the left, it was shooting dead center again and grouping well in the center just like I wanted it to.
As for the scopes under $300 not tracking properly, that's not what I said. I said, I've never had a Leupold under $300 that tracked well. The Leupolds you can buy for under $300 are the VX-I scopes or the Riflemans. The VX-I's have friction adjustments that are horrible, and are not at all repeatable, nor do they move the scope anywhere near 1/4" per mark like they claim. I suspect anyone here that tried to adjust their Leupold VX-I much in the field would quickly figure out it doesn't track well, nor return to the the same spot when you set it back to where it was.
I've got plenty of other scopes that track very well and a few of them are under $300, they just aren't Leupolds.
So, my issue isn't that it's shooting all over the place or huge groups. It's shooting good groups, it just seems like after it sits for a while it's shooting these groups to the right of where it was when I put it away.