What is or was your most accurate rifle?

We have an Interarms Mark X Mauser in 06. Bought it in 82. That rifle will shoot! Has a hammer forged barrel that was well done ! 1-10 twist. Any jacket bullet I have tried from 125 to 220 grains will make clover leafs at 100 yards with numerous powders at numerous weights. Very easy to get a fast accurate load.
This rifle will never leave our family. Has a 4-16x Scope on it.

With cast it likes 140 grains+. Once again with numerous powders and nose shapes from 140 to 245 grains it will print clover leafs at 100 yards. Our range only has 300 yards but will print 2.5 inches at 300 yards with little issue with jackets or just a little tweaking with cast. 2200 fps (WDWW) with a GC or PC'd and WDWW.
Using WDWW GC and PC'd 2350 fps has been reached with 165 grains.

That 6mm BRM sure does sound interesting and accurate so I’m sure Col Townsend Whelan would certainly approve. I wasn’t clear about the 300 yards, is it just not enough cartridge to tag a coyote past 300 or you haven’t had the opportunity to try it on one past that distance yet? After I posted this question earlier today it got me thinking and I went digging around some boxes in my shop. I found what I was looking for, I even got it from the bulletmaster himself. It was the scope I used on the 25-06 I mentioned. I believe I remember hearing some where that this older Redfield 3x9 is one of the really good ones from the Vietnam era. After I took some lens cleaner and got all the dust off it was as bright and clear as ever even though it’s been in that same box for at least 20 years. Glass is probably a subjective topic and I’m sure everyone has their own preference but over the years I have come to believe that with scopes or binoculars you get what you pay for.

Where I’m living now really high quality glass to me would be a lot more of a luxury than a necessity. I would guess the maximum distance I would ever try to spot some type of game would be a thousand yards and that would be if I was hunting the edge of a big field. On the other hand I just can’t imagine even thinking about hunting Alaska, Montana or the desert southwest without the best glass I could afford. I would even venture to say I would be willing to spend more on my glass hunting AK than I would spend on the rifle I was using. One thing is for sure, if you can’t find it, identify it you sure can’t stalk it and hopefully harvest it.

You might think of the trajectory of the 6mm BRM with my 100 grain bullet load at 2700 fps MV as about equal to a 30-06 using a 180 grain bullet starting out at about the same speed. The difference is in the energy on target at any given range where the 30-06 will always win. The question then becomes how much energy do I need to get at least some bullet upset for a quick kill. With the 6mm brm I will guess that to be between 400 and 500 yards absolute max range.

Many years ago while hunting coyotes with a 7mm-08 Remington I had a rather strange experience relating to exactly the same issue. I was shooting a Rem 700 varmint in 7mm-08 mounted with what was then a seriously advanced ranging system built into a Springfield Armory Gov sniper scope (their name) The scope reticle was tuned to the trajectory of the 7.62 Nato 170 grain national match ammo. I studied trajectory charts and calculated that I could duplicate that trajectory with the 140 grain 7mm Sierra bullets I wanted to use with an MV of 2400 fps The scope was a 4x14 power with a unique ranging reticle. On several previous long range shots I ranged the target with the reticle but to my eye was off so went with my best guess but missed.

I decided for the next shot I was just going with the reticle no matter what I thought. That shot came when while walking at mid day I spotted a coyote sitting up way out on a ridge. I looked at him through the scope and he was looking right back at me. He seemed little concerned about me so I went prone and set up for the shot. The scope reticle told me that coyote was right at 600 yards so I held the 600 cross hair right in the middle of the vertical column that was the sitting upright coyote.

At the shot he simply stood up without apparent stress and walked away. I felt I had missed and since the coyote had been perched on a different ridge than I was walking I just kept on walking in the direction I had been headed which was the opposite direction the coyote went in.
Later in the day when headed back home I took the ridge the coyote had been on just to try and figure out how much I missed him by. I found in the snow where the coyote had been and lining up with about where I thought I was I walked straight away until I found the bullet strike in the snow. Getting down on my knees and trying to align the three spots it looked like the bullet had to have been awfully close to its mark. Satisfied with that I headed home which was the direction the coyote went. After about 100 yards I noticed a tiny speck of blood on the snow which really got my attention. About every 10 or 15 yards there was another speck of blood. In about 200 yards there was the coyote laid out straight in the direction he had headed. His track showed no sigh of distress. There was so little energy transfer that he likely just felt a hot sting and walked off waiting for the effects of a mortal wound through the vitals to do its work.

That is exactly what I mean by max range for bullet action. That shot went right through the heart/lungs but the spitzer bullet didnt upset at all and only made a piercing hole that closed up behind it. Even the coyote didn't know he was dead.  If that shot had been more like 450 yards I think it would have played out totally differently.  I think at the shorter range there would have been enough bullet action to have gotten an immediate reaction confirming a solid hit.  The thing is that at 450 yards that coyote likely wouldn't have felt quite so smug about exposing himself to a shot.  He felt quite safe at 600 yards and was just sitting up there thumbing his nose at me which turned out to be his last mistake.

The scope I then had was made for Springfield for their M-1-A rifles They called it the Springfield Government model sniper scope. I never used the Leatherwood scope but I think they both used the same type of reticle. The Springfield used coupled U hash mark one up and one down each line represented a distance in minutes either up, down or horizontal. The hash harks were used for ranging. Each 100 yard interval had a cross hair and each cross hair had a number of divisions between but I cant remember how many. When I finally learned to trust it I learned the reticle worked far more consistently than my educated guesses. The glass was only of so so quality but it was the reticle that I was after. It finally made a reliable tool available for my purpose of coyote hunting that seemed to work better than a wag for long shots at coyotes. It was not perfect by a long shot but was a great aid for the task.

This was before we had affordable lasers and the optical focus type range finders of the day were to me less dependable. What we have available now with lasers and computer programs and instant real time atmospheric data at your finger tips is light years ahead but that was about the best we had then. Today if we have the tools and the time to crunch the numbers there is no more guess work and a hit or miss depends on two things how accurately you entered the data and the nut that holds on the trigger.

On that coyote there was almost no visible blood on it. The 7mm bullet just pierced a hole without displacing any tissue and when the bullet passed the already small hole closed up behind it. All the blood was inside and the coyote slowly suffocated as his lungs filled up.

That scope you got from me I got from a Nam vet  named Gary Smith that was a sniper before the Marine corps sniper school was started.  He told me that is what they used when he was in. I think they were special gov contract scopes that used higher quality  glass than the sporting versions.  He was a man I much admired in his person and his shooting ability.  I got two of those scopes from him and both were very clear and bright glass.  He must have thought something of me as well because when I went to see him he brought out those scopes and said he wanted me to have them because like anyone that would listen I talked his ears off about coyote hunting.  He didn't give them to me but he didn't charge much either.  I am pretty sure you got one of those because I cant remember having any others.

Our other very accurate rifle (another family keeper) is a Remington model 788 in .243. It shoots a Hornady 60 grain HP into very little groups at 300 yards. I do not have that load info with me but it was easy to get that load working. Have "played" with other heavier jacket slugs and all seemed to be easy to get to clover leaves at 100. I think the twist is 1-10... Most any older powders worked well. All this was used in Tennessee and our before Peru shooting and hunting. Still have about 40 rounds of that 60 grain sitting in a box waiting to get called upon again.

With Cast I have done little. As I hunt primarily river bottoms / thickets for the last 35 years other shorter range rifles / revolvers are in use.

I suppose ole Col Townsen Whelan had it figured out a long time ago when he said “only accurate rifles are interesting “

One thing about you my friend that’s always been an endearing quality you possess and one of my favorite things about you is you always seem to have a smile on your face! Rarely over the years no matter the adversity we might be facing at the time the smile on your face always let me know it was going to be ok and gave me the confidence I may have lacked at the time. I really wonder how much further we can really go in the accuracy game. As everyone here well knows there are so many factors that go into getting that magical group we all strive for. Since our shooting doesn’t occur in a vaccum there are always external forces like Murphy are doing their best to discourage you are ruin your day. Like the saying goes though if it was easy I suppose everyone would do it and there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of starting out with a rifle that others just could not get to shoot for some reason and you taking it and going through the process of turning it into an accurate rifle!!

my most accurate rifle is my TC Encore with a 23" MGM barrel in 20 Vartarg. i used to be a "one-holer" and i did everything i could do to the handloaded ammo. it was a 32gr Hornady Vmax with Reloder 7 and a CCI Benchrest SRP. .173" avg group at 100 yards (5 shots/bench). i got bored with the 20 Vartarg and now it shoots 34gr Midway/Midsouth HP and Reloder 7 with 'whatever' is a SRP. 1/2 - 3/4" group at 100 yards (5 shots/bench).

i had a Savage m340 in 222 Remington that i just loved. i shot a 50gr Hornady SP and a max load of H322 with an old 6x Swift scope. i killed groundhogs, foxes, crows and a whole bunch of other stuff. i killed a crow at around 350-375 yards, i didn't have a laser range finder, because it hadn't been invented yet. i think it was around 5000 to 6000 rounds that was diagnosed by my gunsmith (RIP) to be "shot out" and the top of my chamber was "fried". i don't know how many other rounds the 222 digested, it was bought second, third, fourth hand. but i shot out the barrel. i bought other 2nd hand rifles that were "shot out" by the owners, but i give the rifle a good cleaning of Sweets or Shooters Choice and then the rifle's barrel was clean and shiny as the day it was made. copper build-up had many barrels "shot out". people used to gun oil and nitro solvent to clean their guns. nitro solvent was good for burned powder, but it left copper in the barrel. my gunsmith got me into Shooter Choice to take the burned powder and copper.

Your opening up a can of worms Rob. A key word would be hypothetically. Add to that there are no absolutes. Another point to be made is that it does not always have to be fed from the tube or if it is then a fresh round can be added after each shot to maintain a number of rounds in the tube. No you will never see a conventional lever action built into a bench rest rifle but the same can be said about a bunch of other types of sporting rifles too.

Hand placement on the forend and grip pressure can have just as much affect as the mag tube. I have found that if the mounting of the tube or the forend is loose and allows any movement accuracy can be poor but on the same token a bolt action rifle or any other that has a pre load stock pressure on one side of the barrel will have the same effect.

In theory I will agree , to a point. In practice much of it can be overcome with fine tuning the fit to be snug and even. With a lever that may be a little more complicated because there are several contact points between the barrel and the forend and the tube which hangs between. All those points need to be solid and even.

About a year ago I did a little test to satisfy my own curiosity. I picked up a Fred Leith mold for a 200 gn 32 caliber tapered spitzer bullet intended to be breach seated in 32 caliber cartridges like the 32-40. The only rifle I had to test the mold with was a Marlin model 336 in 32 Win special. I made a case filled with lead and used it to breach seat some of the bullets in the stock Marlin and they shot good and on point ""consistently"" at I would say 2 moa. Then I began to wonder what would be the affect of removing the forend and mag tube so I tried that. With the tube and forend removed and loading single shot breach seating the bullets there was no question that I did see an improvement in accuracy of maybe as much as 50%.

So in summary removing the forend and mag tube improved accuracy but both ways were consistent which is the point in question not the absolute accuracy.

Your right Jr. there is a big difference between accuracy from the bench and accuracy in the field. A 15 pound bench gun can be very impressive from the bench but an awkward anchor in the field. What matters in the field is hitting where you aim nothing else. What makes that possible is a rifle that fits you and your good with. In the field you often don't have the luxury of time as at the bench. It hard to get off a quick shot with a rifle that wields like a boat anchor.

Rob, I went to Cheyenne, WY after spending 2 days at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in 2016, after shooting at the Matthew Quigley BP Cartridge match in Forsyth, MT. I asked a counter person in a parts store where Tom Horn was hanged. He told me the location was very nearby. Iasked where the gallows was, & he didn't know, but directed me to the WY Historical Museum, a few blocks away. The director told me that the gallows had been taken apart & the wood used for other purposes, but showed me Tom's last pair of shoes. He told me where the Lakeview Cemetery was located, so I went there & got photos of Willie Nichols' & his parents graves, among other notable persons from that era. The next year, I visited the old prison at Rawlins, & the newer one in Laramie. They are now museums with guided tours. In Laramie, they had a small working model of the water powered gallows on display. I think it only took less than 5 seconds for the trap to drop after weight is put on it. It is an interesting contraption, but is very deadly.

Thanks for the great information Gary! Those places seem to have really grown and they sure sound like they would be interesting to visit!!

Ok Pard, I feel like I might have stepped on some toes or upset some of the levergun lovers! That’s why if folks will revisit my post and read it carefully I was implicit that I was not saying leverguns were not capable of accuracy at long range in capable hands. I also was crystal clear that the statements I wrote were my opinion and only that. I am well aware of some of the unbelievable things others have done with a levergun including accomplishing accurate hits on targets that are normally unheard of. While all of that is a fact as you pointed out I still believe most hunters that use a levergun as their primary weapon are limited to shots of 200 yards or less on average.

Finally I also believe that the majority of hunters that have the ability to choose which type of rifle(action) they hunt with if terrain allows for shots over 200 yards most, not all hunters will tend to chose a bolt action rifle. I would imagine that rifle sales would confirm this but I have no way to say it’s a definite fact.

Sorry Rob I didn't mean to hammer on you I meant to defend you against those that would have you believe that a lever gun might be a poor choice . I think too that maybe new people to guns and shooting people that may previously have been borderline anti gun but due to the obvious fact that your best first line of defense is you are now reconsidering that position and becoming first time gun buyers. These people are for the most part ignorant of all the different types of guns and how they function. Their choice will be driven largely by cost. For those people and that reason lever guns are out because there are no cheap lever guns. Even the cheap levers like the Rossi are expensive. Our daughter Joy decided she would like to get a Rossi trapper stainless in 44 mag. Tina checked the dealer cost yesterday at about $650.00. For a new Ruger Marlin forget about it as I dont think you can touch one for less than $1,000.0 probably more like $1,200.00 On the other hand there are many far less expensive bolt guns like the Ruger American and Savage that you can get out the door for about $400.00. So for an ignorant person with the mind set that all guns are the same the way cheaper bolt will always win.

There are other reasons too like the idea that nostalgic designs are somehow inferior to modern designs. Cowboy shooting may have done much to propagate that idea. I see the same thing on the used bullet mold market. Some sellers have an idea that all bullet molds are vintage simply because its a bullet mold and in their view the practice of bullet casting ended with the free range buffalo. These sellers will price a $35.00 Lee mold that left the factory last year at $250.00 because as they point out its vintage. I guess the fact that no one bids on it should tell them something. Or if someone actually pays that much for it I might become a wealthy man.

I didn’t think you were jumping on me I just wanted everyone to be sure and read what I actually said. I don’t believe there is one perfect rifle that will be perfect in whatever scenario a Hunter might face. The point I didn’t do a very good job of explaining is to me a rifle in a hunting situation is part of the entire kit and is used as a tool to accomplish the mission. Also that most of us are lucky enough to have several rifles and have the ability to mate the rifle with the situation and conditions we will face on that specific hunt or terrain or whatever.