Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

I was wondering if some of you guys could offer me up an opinion? I purchased this rifle about five years ago for my out west type of hunting. The problem I'm having is that it doesn't shoot as well as it did when it was new. The gun shop where I purchased it suggested that I take it to a gunsmith that's an hour and a half away. Well after a complete go over which included a trigger job along with floating, and bedding. The gunsmith tells me that he can't get it clean enough. Meaning that there's too much copper left in the barrel. He believes the barrel wasn't cut smooth enough. I called Remington, and they say you can't get all the copper out, and it should be fine. Of course the guy where I bought it also says the gunsmith is wrong, and backs Remington. Even though,,,, they sent me to him! In case you're wondering, the scope is a VX III 4.5x14. When I purchased this gun I could stay inside of one inch at a hundred yards while shooting off of a bench, and now I'm probaly out to an inch, and a half. I've been thinking about sending it to Precision Reticles for graduations, but I'm hesitant to spend anymore money on the thing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

Hale87 I am assuming it is the stainless laminated stock model you own. If the gun shot under an 1" groups at the beginning and with the same load shoots 1 1/2 in groups something has changed. It could be the bedding pressure, stock movement or it could be a very coppered barrel or it could be your scope. Unfortunately the "Gunsmith" you took it to changed the characteristics of the gun that once shot under 1" groups . That sometimes happens when gunsmiths float barrels and do other things to a perfectly sound rifle. I have to grimace most times when someone here mentions pillar bedding and floating a barrel...that is an early retirement package for most gunsmiths and is really not needed. That said purchase a Outers Foul Out III and really get the " copper " out, send the scope back to Leupold and have it checked out ...the bore may be rough but after shooting it as much as you did it has smoothed up and even when it was rough it was a under 1" shooter. Hope that helps and you may want to find a gunsmith that doesn't jump to conclusions as fast as this guy did.

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

How many rounds have been through that barrel?

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

I would recommed you clean the rifle with a copper cleaning agent, there are several to choose from. Sweets, Barnes & Hoppes #9 Copper solvent come to mind. Make sure you get all of this cleaning solvent out of the barrel before you put the rifle away. I have been told this solvent can do more harm than good, if it is left inside your barrel.
Shoot the exact same ammunition you shot before, when your rifle was shooting its best groups.
My wife shoots the exact same rifle (with a muzzle brake) her best groups are with Federal Premium ammo that is loaded with 180-grain Nosler Partitions. She shoots an honest 5/8 to 3/4-inch group @ 100-yards from the bench. If all else fails you could give the Federal Premium ammo a try.

good luck,

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

I have cleaned many neglected bores of several of my friends. They do not take care of their firearms. I have seen some terribly dirty bores and I have always been able to remove all of the copper with Sweet's 7.62 and JB's Bore Paste from Brownell's. The bore paste will help to smooth out the bore of your firearm. I have seen several of the Remington's with stainless barrels that are rough. You can have the barrel lapped with abrasive bullets. This will eliminate any bore roughness that you may have. All in all 1.5" accuracy is not that bad. You could also try some 200 yard groups to see how large they are. I reload for most of my friends and have ran into some rifles that were mediocre groupers 1.5-2.0" at 100 yards. However, when stepping back to 200 yards the groups didn't enlarge. I have heard some bullets need a longer distance to settle down and shoot. I have a Remington 257 Roberts in a Stainless Classic. When I bought the rifle new it had a rough bore. It would group about 1.75" at 100 with a number of factory and reloads. After about 150 rounds the bore seemed to smooth up and now the rifle will consistently place 3 100 gr. NBT's into a .75" group all day long. I would not like to put 150 rounds through a 300 Win Mag to break it in. This is sometimes necessary if you don't want to have a smith fire the abrasive bullets in your rifle. The abrasive bullets with instructions are availabe if you handload. If you don't handload and all that happened was your groups enlarged did you check to see if the factory ammo is all from the same lot. I had a 308 Model 100 semauto that would group winchester Silver X 150's very well. When I ran out of the 5 boxes of ammo I bought I went and got some more. Groups went to two inches. Behold I didn't buy the same lot number of ammo. I went back to see if maybe these guys had some with the original lot nuber and they did. I purchased one box and went to the range. Groups returned to very good. So lot # can make a big difference. If your gun shot 1" before it should do it again. Probalbly not with the same load since you have had the bedding and free floating work done.

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

Thanks guys for all the input. I've probably shot a little over a hundred rounds through this gun. I've changed bases from a leupold two piece to a one piece, I had it floated, and bedded. I think my biggest problem has been that I've let too many people give me too much input. Remington tells me that there's no way I'll get all of the copper out of a barrel. Do you guys agree with that, or do you think it should come completely clean?

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

No I don' agree with remington!!! I am sure I get all the copper out of my bores I have used sweets and CR10 mainly to remove copper. I can tell you my bores are sticky clean and not one speck of blue shows when finished with them. It sound to me like everyone you talk to is shifting blame and really not offering any solutions just covering there own tails. If copper is the problem then try using some CR10 it has worked well for me when tackling some dirty bores in the past.

Make sure your scope and mounts are AOK.
Try different ammo, gr, etc.

If all else fails then talk to a different gunsmith about the bedding or other issues.

Good Luck

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

If you only have 100 rounds through it you are just getting to know your rifle. I shoot poor in the 120deg summers here in vegas. same gun same loads but a nice calm winter day and that 1.5 " group will shrink down to .75 or .5". Or some times it's just plain me. Try some different ammo. I reload and have a great time finding that sweet load for each gun. Loads can make a big difference.

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

Even if you still have copper in the bore it does not mean the gun won't shoot fine and I don't really believe you have to get every last nth out of it either on the other hand you may have a bad spot in the barrel that has a lot of it there and removing the copper from that spot may help. I notice shooting my 7 mags that they for whatever reason fould up pretty good and the group size does increase. I usually use the Foul out III on all the guns at least once a year and those bores are clean when that thing is done and I don't have to breathe in all those chemicals. If you don't have a Foul out unit just make a fixture that will hold your rifle vertically plug up the muzzle with a rubber plug and pour in CR-10 or Sweets with a funnel and let it sit there for 10 minutes...that should do the job pretty darn well also.

RE: Remington .300 win mag SSLS question
 

Oldelkhunter, I spent about 7 hours yesterday cleaning that .300 wm. After all of that, I was still getting blue with the sweets. I could still see a good bit of copper deposits from the muzzle end. Actually I don't think I could detect any difference from when I started. I think I'm going to go ahead and order the Outer Foul Out III. I was also wondering if anyone had a creative idea on trying to look down a barrel? How can someone tell whether there is a "heavily coppered" area remaining? Thanks for your help so far.