Having trouble with stringing from my 357 max contender. Load doesn't vary much in velocity according to chrono. And even if it did I can't see it making this much difference at 80 yards....



Rest off of sand bags on the hood of my jeep. Almost no wind to speak of. Scope and base are tight. I just really can't figure out what is causing it. Forend is on front bag not barrel. Firm hold on gun but not trying to hold it down or fight recoil. All three other barrels I have don't do this. Is it possible that it's just so small and light with the 10 inch octagon that it's being super finicky about my grip and form? And if that is the only logical conclusion I would say it's about useless as a hunting gun seeing as field conditions make absolute perfect repetition impossible..... Just looking for some opinions and hopefully some answers.

.75 inch dots ignore right hand target

The five close to center are 2 different 3 shot groups one of which is the lowest high one.... And none of the ones right next to each other are the same group .... With my 223 barrel at 100 yards I can shoot 3/8" five shot groups with this gun.

What is below your grip?
Hand, field bag, hood of your jeep?

Another bag though it's not rested on heavily.... It's more for my hands to have a solid point to rest than the grip

I'm a bit of an odd ball, but i shoot my best groups if i press down actively on the forarm (same place on bag). A short bipod really works well for me. Grip and forend pressure are critical. Beyoned that, is there any looseness in the hinge pin or the forend? Can you shoot it without the forend for comparison? Any leading in the barrel? Any idea what the junp to the lands is?

Several things to check but first off I have to ask are you using bags that are hard? Soft bags will move and the gun will move with them. Learned from Benchrest shooters use a good quality bag. (usually Leather) filled full. Protektor is what I use.
Grip yes it can do things, but also check the COAL ! This is important as with different lengths (bullet depth) things will change and keep a good crimp. Do you weigh each load? or use a charge? My Harrel Powder charge is accurate and I am reluctant to trust other brands on certain loads such as rifle cartridges. But my Redding seems to work good too. Check scale also. Eliminate the variables as best as possible and then it will be up to you as the shooter.
Practice does not make perfect,,, But Perfect practice does.

Edit to add,,, Try a different caliber and or gun, with the same setup. Look at the results and see if you are getting good accurate small groups or if you are all over the place. This might tell you if it is you,, or the setup,,,

Nope every charge is weighed everything is done the same as I treat any other cartridge I load for.... I've had this problem before with this barrel..... Every other barrel shoots great off anything I shoot it off of.... Be it a jacket or Cornhole bags or bags of silica gel..... It's only this barrel that I have trouble with.... I didn't shoot with a chrony this time but this load before was only about 35 fps extreme spread.... The loads are all consistent even if I was getting 120 fps extreme spreads it's shouldn't account for stringing a foot high at 80 yards.... As for anything else it's only about 3 inches wide and one of those was a bad shot.... It just seems like this barrel is extremely sensitive to how I grip it but it's not a problem with my 223, 22 hornet or 45/70..... The only difference is they are all 14-16 inch barrels and considerably heavier.... This scope has been on all three of the others also and never had an issue and the scope that used to be on the 357 is on my 223 barrel and it's a tack driver ... I'm going to load some more and maybe put the 2x7 back on it so I can be sure I'm not holding in different spots though I'm sure I'm not that far off..... If this is going to continue to be an issue I'll probably just get rid of the barrel I'd rather have a larger bore anyways.

To my knowledge the 10" octagon barrel was not chambered in 357 Max. Was it a 357 Mag rechambered? If yes, who recut the chamber? Some of the old T/C barrels were chambered by T/C using a standard drill press. The chambers were usually reamed off center resulting in barrels that wouldn't shoot for sh_t! A chamber cast will reveal this. The practice only occurred for a short time; however, the barrels chambered in those runs are expensive paper weights.
I had Mike Bellm rechamber 2 new T/C 357 Mag barrels (12" bull) with his specially cut 357 Max reamers. Of the 2, I have only fired 1; however, it shoots lights out with any of my loads. You may want to check out Mike's site at Bellm TCS (http://www.bellmtcs.com/). He is the go-to guy for T/C Contenders and Encores and the 357 Max cartridge in the Contender.

Doc

I cut the chamber.... Never cut a bad chamber before in 40 some guns.... Guarantee its better than the factory chamber was lol Thompson center used revolver reamers to cut the chambers in the 357 mag barrels.... They cut a lot of bad chambers early on but this was done on a lathe all indicated in with a ptg rifle reamer..... I'm thinking the last time I had this problem I took the forend off and it went away but it's been a while since I shot it. I couldn't get it to stabalize the 200 ftx when I messed with it last. It would shoot one hole (couldn't even tell there was more than one shot) at 50 yards and at 100 it could barely keep them in an 8 inch plate... I got frustrated and didn't have the money for another box of bullets in time for gun season so I quite messing with it.... In my digust I apparently forgot. Though it would string even before I cut the chamber bigger with hot loads.... Did fine with a 158 at 1000 though

After reading your other posts I can only suggest two things. One the barrel could be bore scoped, and if you can,, have it checked between centers.
I had a 257 TCU barrel from Thompson and it did something similar.
It would steadily climb up and to the right as I continued to shoot. S&W refused to do anything about it. Barrel was slightly off center, comparing outside to inside dimensions, and there is no way it could be corrected.

I'm going to play with seating depths and such and shoot over a chrony this weekend with the forend off and see what happens ... If I can't get it shooting half way decent I'm just going to get rid of it and look for another or something bigger.... Dad passed on a 445 super mag at a gun show a while back and I've been giving him greif ever since.... Would've been great thing to have

My first guess would be you're varying how you grip the gun. Maybe try a different load and possibly another scope if it keeps up.

My concern with that is if it's going to be that sensitive it's going to be worse when I'm shooting off whatever I can.... I mean if very minor (i make an effort to be as consistent as possible) changes in grip throw a foot tall string then it'll only be worse off a tree or a log or my knee.... If that's the conclusion I come to I'll probably sale it

As best as I remember my barrel's did not seem to like the 200 FTX. I ended up working with 158 XTP-FP and 180 XTP's. Both of my barrels shoot them fine. I also have some 140 FTX and I quit messing with them early in my load work.

The 200 FTX works well in my 35 Bullberry and 356 Win, but not the 357 Maximum's.

I have a heavy 13" MGM barrel on my Contender, and the other is a CVA Scout rechambered. I load for mine on a Dillon 550, with automatic measure. I pretty much settled on H110 powder.

Bob R

Loaded some at a different seating depth with the same charge and some with crimp and some without and a few 180wfns with a much lighter charge just to see if that changes anything going to b a few days before I can shoot them though

So After re-reading your initial post, this brings back some experiences with a 10" octagon 45 colt barrel I have. At 25 yards with standard to hot 45 colt loads it would make very nice groups, free hand or off a bench. This was a while ago, but I seem to recall 1-3" groups depending on load, stance, rest..... I was excited and thinking i might use this for hunting. Then I moved back to 50 yards. I was getting 1 foot groups or worse with every combination and quickly concluded this wasn't going to be a hunting barrel.

I never figured it out and went on to shooting other barrels. The difference in group size between 25 and 50 yards was huge, much larger then the expected 2x increase in size. I think it has to be something about bullet stability or the barrel has the ability to randomly hook and slice shots so the external ballistics change.

Well at 50 with every load I've gotten 1" or smaller groups.... With the 200 ftx at 50 I couldn't identify more than one hole but back to 100 it wasn't even a group anymore.... I do t know what it's problem is but if I can't get it situated I'm just going to get rid of it I'm tired of fighting it

If your fired cases are extracting easily then one thing you can try is to decap several fired cases without running the cases through the full length resize die - then reload 'em and see if that helps with the stringing. Crimp probably required for this method.

I only half size them anyways Just enough to decap them I'm going to play with it tomorrow and see what it'll do

Well 3 different loads 2 scopes multiple rests 2 different shooters with and without fore end and it's still stringing.... I'm done wasting my time looks like a rifle for me this year unless something decides to stroll in 45 super range..... I think a 255 gr cast hollow point at 1100 fps should do the trick.... But 50 yards is going to be absoluteax with that (and that may be stretching it a bit)