May 10, 2014 4 min read

What do you do when things go sour?

We all know the answer is to sit back and try to find a logical answer to the problem. Few things are all that important, yet we still attack them with frenzy, hoping for an instant cure.

Oh, well. That’s life.

I have had problems with rifles that were accurate and reliable behaving in strange ways. I shot them all summer, and they were on the money. Then, a week from deer season, they were shooting all over the place. In reality, the problem lies in two places. Either the gun has shot badly or perhaps the person doing the shooting has gone sour.

In most instances, I would bet on the latter. It’s easy to forget the bad groups that were shot over a course of time when it wasn’t important.

I have been playing with rifles for a long time and know all shooters have good days and bad days. The problems we face sends us to study the problem and attempt to correct it.

It is not difficult to check the shooter and his ability. The answer? Get another person behind the butt stock. It’s unlikely both will be having a bad day. If that doesn’t help, it’s time to look at the rifle or the scope site.

Personally, when groups open up, I check the screws holding the scope and then check the screws holding the stock in place. I have a thing about money, so my next question is how long has it been since the rifle was cleaned?

Just because you ran a patch loaded with solvent down the bore, the rifle might still be dirty. That copper fouling can be hard to remove. In the fouled condition, I run a solvent-loaded patch down the bore and leave it do its work for a couple of hours. Then, I run a brass brush through the barrel from six to 10 times. The brush not only brushes out some of the junk in the bore, it creates heat and that makes the solvent work better.

I have owned rifles with bad fouling and had to clean them three to four times to get the job done. The cleaning might solve the problem, but if it doesn’t, there are the reloads to look at if you are doing your own.

Are you sure the reloads are identical to the other ones you shot a couple of months ago? Even if they are, there are a few things you can ponder.

Did you open a new can of powder? What about bullets and primers? If you think every can of powder is identical to the preceding one, you sure are an optimist.

I once had two cans of powder that if loaded with the same load, resulted in a 200-foot-per-second difference. While this extreme might be rare, it does happen.

Another suggestion is never base accuracy on one trip to the range. Weather conditions can affect the ammunition. To simplify, go easy and never base good results or bad groups on one series of shots.

I faced the problem of my pet rifle shooting terrible groups just before deer season. I needed to solve this enigma if I wanted to carry it deer hunting. Fortunately, the problem was little more than a dirty barrel.

When scratching your head and staring at the rifle, don’t forget the scope. When the scope is suspected, switch to another one and see if accuracy improved.

I have done this quite a few times and keep a spare scope just for checking things out. If I were to rank causes of accuracy problems, I would place dirty barrel and poor shooting at tied for No. 1. Loose screws would be second and changing one or more reloading components third.

I intend to shoot a rifle today. It was a tack driver last summer, but I shot it the other day and got three-inch groups. I think I’ll go in a room and stare at it for a while.

George Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.