Hi Guys
I'm new to the forum and am amazed at all the information here.
I have a VL63 .308 SN 37xx that I bought at a hardware shop in a small town here in RSA. I don't have any history on the rifle other than that it belonged to a friend of the hardware shop owner who sold it to someone. It was taken into the safe but the new owner never applied for the license so after a few years they could not get hold of him and I was lucky enough to buy it. The problem here is that it sometimes takes more than a year to get the license for a firearm so it really is a pain.
When I eventually collected it I bought some factory ammo (150, 168 and 180gr) and went of to the range to see what it liked and wanted to start reloading and get going to hunt. In this my 1st problem emerged in that the scope was an old Bushnell banner 3-9x and it seemed as if had taken a few hits so was not sure if it was still OK. Secondly the rifle had a really nasty kick and was not enjoyable to shoot even compared to my .303 with full stock and brass recoil pad. So for a a year or so it stayed in the safe whilst I tried to figure out what to do next.
The FW was really a bit neglected and had a type of varnish on so to start I took to some fine sanding paper to clean it and get some of the scratches out of the stock. I replaced the scope with an extra one I had and tried again to get a load that works. The recoil was still something I didn't enjoy so I took the decision that might get me kicked out of the forum and I fitted a silencer. Suddenly it became a joy to shoot so much so that even my kids had no problem to shoot with it.
So some of the problems have been sorted the only one I still have is that I can not get a bullet/ load that groups well enough to go hunting with. I have tried a few different manufacturers, different weights (150,165, 174, 180) different loads and COL but thus far no luck.
Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction of where to start looking for a solution and any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Cheers
I'm new to the forum and am amazed at all the information here.
I have a VL63 .308 SN 37xx that I bought at a hardware shop in a small town here in RSA. I don't have any history on the rifle other than that it belonged to a friend of the hardware shop owner who sold it to someone. It was taken into the safe but the new owner never applied for the license so after a few years they could not get hold of him and I was lucky enough to buy it. The problem here is that it sometimes takes more than a year to get the license for a firearm so it really is a pain.
When I eventually collected it I bought some factory ammo (150, 168 and 180gr) and went of to the range to see what it liked and wanted to start reloading and get going to hunt. In this my 1st problem emerged in that the scope was an old Bushnell banner 3-9x and it seemed as if had taken a few hits so was not sure if it was still OK. Secondly the rifle had a really nasty kick and was not enjoyable to shoot even compared to my .303 with full stock and brass recoil pad. So for a a year or so it stayed in the safe whilst I tried to figure out what to do next.
The FW was really a bit neglected and had a type of varnish on so to start I took to some fine sanding paper to clean it and get some of the scratches out of the stock. I replaced the scope with an extra one I had and tried again to get a load that works. The recoil was still something I didn't enjoy so I took the decision that might get me kicked out of the forum and I fitted a silencer. Suddenly it became a joy to shoot so much so that even my kids had no problem to shoot with it.
So some of the problems have been sorted the only one I still have is that I can not get a bullet/ load that groups well enough to go hunting with. I have tried a few different manufacturers, different weights (150,165, 174, 180) different loads and COL but thus far no luck.
Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction of where to start looking for a solution and any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Cheers