My mission Sunday morning was to see how the X7 likes it's new 3x10 Cabals's Powder Horn scope.





I set a target out a 20 yards to get the new scope sighted in and managed to get it shooting about where I wanted with three shots.


Then I put a target on the 50 yard frame and shot five shots with a load I knew the gun liked very well. Here's what I got.





Now that puzzled me a little. Shots 3, 4 & 5 are grouped as I would expect at only 50 yards. But why the heck were 1 & 2 out of group like that? I knew darn well I had a good sight picture and trigger squeeze for those shots.


So I stayed at 50 yards and shot another target. Here it is.





Once again - two different points of impact. At 50 yards from the bench with a scope at 10X all of those shots should be together. Again, they all felt right when the hammer fell.


So I pinned a target to the 75 yard frame and took five more shots.





Now that's really bad. Number 2, 3 & 4 are fine. But 1 & 5 stink. Something has to be wrong. I checked the scope mounts and everything was tight. Could the scope's internals be shifting a little?


Well, let's try a target at 100 yards.





Whoa!!! The gun should be shooting this load into 2" groups or less at 100 yards. Now I know for sure something is wrong.


It may be the scope, but I doubt it. Still, I wish I had brought along the ProDiamond that was on the gun before so I could change scopes just to check.


I suspect the gun is developing a bedding problem. It shot great out of the box for the first hundred shots or so. Then the groups started to open up a little and I noticed a slight side-to-side play of the barrel in the stock even with the two mounting screws cranked down tight.


The groups tightened up again after I put a little bedding on each side of the barrel where you see the blue color in this picture.





I think the little lady is due for a bedding job. My plan is to install aluminum pillars for the two mounting screws,



and fully bed the two recoil lugs and last eight inches of the barrel.




I'm a little hesitant though because the configuration of those barrel lugs may make it a difficult job. I don't want to end up with the barrel permanently glued to the stock.