I have an original M77 light weight with tang safety in .270, it is the higher grade with nice wood and the nicer blueing, I took it to a gunsmith in September to have a muzzle brake installed (wifes gun and wanted to cut recoil for her). Before I took it in the gun consistantly shot slightly under 1 MOA which was exceptional for a light weight rifle, when I got it back it now shoots 2" groups at 100 yards that spread to 14" groups at 400 yards. We hunt coues deer with the rifle and almost all of our shots are 400-600 yards, my wife has taken multiple deer over the years with this rifle, always one shot kills.
I took it back to the gunsmith and after many calls back and forth and several months of waiting the gunsmith declared that there is nothing wrong with the rifle because I should not expect better than 2" groups from a light weight rifle. I will not say who the gunsmith is because they have done good work for me and several people I know in the past and I dont want this post to turn into a discussion about them.
I now have a rifle that is useless for the long range hunting we bought it for so I need to decide what to do. Here are some of the ideas I am kicking around.
1) Sell it. I am not happy with the idea of passing on a problem rifle to someone else without informing them, but if I divulge the problems then I wont get what the gun should be worth
2) Take it to another gunsmith and pay more money to have them either install another muzzle brake or cut the old one off and re-crown the barrel. I dont know for sure that this will fix the problem and pissing away more money doesn't appeal to me unless I know it will fix the problem.
3) Take it to another gunsmith and have the barrel cut down quite a bit shorter to make a "brush gun". The gun is already light weight and with a short barrel would be a very quick handling gun, but this would also hurt the ballistics of the .270.
By the way I won a Howa 1500 in 6.5 Creedmore in a raffle from Arizona Elk society and am planning on making that my wife's deer rifle
I took it back to the gunsmith and after many calls back and forth and several months of waiting the gunsmith declared that there is nothing wrong with the rifle because I should not expect better than 2" groups from a light weight rifle. I will not say who the gunsmith is because they have done good work for me and several people I know in the past and I dont want this post to turn into a discussion about them.
I now have a rifle that is useless for the long range hunting we bought it for so I need to decide what to do. Here are some of the ideas I am kicking around.
1) Sell it. I am not happy with the idea of passing on a problem rifle to someone else without informing them, but if I divulge the problems then I wont get what the gun should be worth
2) Take it to another gunsmith and pay more money to have them either install another muzzle brake or cut the old one off and re-crown the barrel. I dont know for sure that this will fix the problem and pissing away more money doesn't appeal to me unless I know it will fix the problem.
3) Take it to another gunsmith and have the barrel cut down quite a bit shorter to make a "brush gun". The gun is already light weight and with a short barrel would be a very quick handling gun, but this would also hurt the ballistics of the .270.
By the way I won a Howa 1500 in 6.5 Creedmore in a raffle from Arizona Elk society and am planning on making that my wife's deer rifle
