Winchester SX4 help
 

Hey guys i finally got my beautiful timber strata sx4 in january and was itching to use it for turkey season this year. I had put the carlsons longbeard choke in and used the winchester xr loads and when i shot it was off. I could not hit the turkey it was off to one side or the other and always high. I figured the choke didnt work right, returned it and tried the full choke that came with it. Also did not work. Anyone have any ideas? Seems odd that winchester's own gun wouldnt be manufactured with their own ammo. What rounds are you shooting and getting consistent patterns out of? any info you guys have would be great!

just an update, i tried 3 different loads and not one of them could hit their mark at 30 yards. They were all high. The XRs were high and all around. Tried two chokes and two different shooters. Think my barrel may be a bit crooked...

May have a misscut of the barrel. Forcing cone could be out of degree on a part or two which would cause erratic patterning. One of my younger brothers is the shotgunner of the family and he said more that likely that the forcing cone wasn't in true. Happens quite a bit he said. Winchester should make it right for you.

well I have a few questions just to know, not bashing
BUT HOW are you test firing this gun?
are you using a good solid rest.sandbags, ??
are you taking 3 shot groups, 3 large sized targets, many warehouses can get you 4x4" cardboard for doing this pretty cheap)
and don;t laugh its can show you more info than one shot them move and another, kinda of like a rifle!

are you using the basic bead sight on the barrel?

its is NOT that uncommon for a bead to be off, causing a gun to shoot high,low, left or right
but should still be consistent, in what ever direction it us ending things!
when things are , it can be due to a few things, from a loose barrel on the action, a burr on the end of the bore/muzzle, too tight of a choke, a burr where the choke fits too the barrel
and even a bent barrel, but I have seen VERY few bent barrels over the yrs I had a gun shop, and been in this sport, but never say never!

what you need to do is rule things out here
make sure barrel is tight to receiver
once on tight, grab and see if there is any movement in things !
if none?
check/inspect the chamber of the barrel for any burr's, or anything that might cause the bolt not to close completely. there are not rifles with super tight tolerances, there is more wiggle room in a shotguns chamber and bolt face!
using a camera if you can take pic's of things, upload to a good PC and then be able to zoom in and see things the naked eye might miss,,


to rule out too tight a choke, try an improved cylinder, just to see if things GROUP, all high/low/left/right
if so, then you know its in the chokes
if not, you again, can take pic's down the muzzle end of barrel and again, use a PC to zoom in and enlarge things, to maybe see smaller details your eye's will miss

if nothing is found,, IMO< you can either contact Winchester, have them either send gun back, or take to an authorized repair center and have inspected, or corrected

OR< plan B< can always TRY another barrel, if you can find someone with one, and or BUY one? not a cheap option at all, but is an option!

Hi! thankyou. I did use large targets and shoot several times with all three kinds of ammunition. I did some free hand, some sitting down, and some off of a shooting rest. could not get them to hit their mark. I am using a fiberoptic sight that came with the gun. I did check the chokes and such and everything seems to fit well and i tried a couple chokes. I ended up calling winchester and they offered to take a look and let me send the gun in for free. It is brand new and some sort of special model that there is only around 600 manufactured so im not sure id find the perfect barrel type for it if i did that.

I appreciate the information, ill visit back again should i receive any new information. :)

Okay
 

I am here again. So I shot my gun again and just couldn’t seem to hit the birds I was hunting. Just patterned it again with my pheasant loads and it’s still shooting off. To the right and high.


so if it’s the fiber optic sight that is off, how do I go about fixing that? I am losing my mind that I paid so much for the gun and I can’t get it right. I could really use some help.

Okay
 

I am here again. So I shot my gun again and just couldn’t seem to hit the birds I was hunting. Just patterned it again with my pheasant loads and it’s still shooting off. To the right and high.


so if it’s the fiber optic sight that is off, how do I go about fixing that? I am losing my mind that I paid so much for the gun and I can’t get it right. I could really use some help.

I would suggest going to a gunsmith and have them change the cast and comb spacers till the gun fits you better.
that should at least solve the problem partially. My SX3s came with the extra spacers so Im assuming the SX4 does as well.

Willy

High right means you need to drop your comb and add some right handed cast (sway the buttstock to it’s own left).

The original post is 15 years old.

I never seen where he posted what Winnie said or done to the S/Gun.

? I posted this last spring.

I think that is a good next step. Thankyou.

So did you send the gun back to Winchester last year ?

sorry i totally forgot to check this. Yes i did. And they never told me what was wrong if anything so i thought nothing of it. thinking they fixed it or something. However when i did start shooting it again this winter i called and they informed me that last time it was out of spec and shooting high, but not to the right. So i sent it back because whatever they did mustve undone itself as it was still hitting the same. so that confirms that the POI was off from the factory.