Accurize It — Ron Spomer Outdoors

So your hot new rifle isn’t exactly living up to your expectations? Not exactly shooting lights out? Well then, accurize it. 

“Accurize” may not be a legitimate word, but rifle nuts know what it means – “do whatever it takes to make your rifle shoot MOA or better.” And it doesn’t take a gunsmith to do it. 

How Much Accuracy Do You Need?

Before messing with the hardware, define accuracy for YOUR needs. Do you really need a 1/2 MOA shooter? A rifle that groups three-shots into a two-inch circle at 100 yards, every time (2-MOA), is more than accurate enough for deer out to 300 yards. Really. A 2 MOA rifle will put each shot no more than one-inch from where you aim at 100 yards, two-inches at 200 yards, three-inches at 300 yards. The average deer’s chest/vital area is at least ten inches in diameter. Aim for its center and you aren’t going to miss if your bullet lands three inches from where you aimed. 

But of course, no real marksman wants to settle for a 2 MOA gun! Coyote, woodchuck and prairie dog hunters shoot at six- to two-inch vital zones. Sometimes those tiny targets are 600 yards away. For this, one-MOA is not good enough, and one-half-MOA barely makes the grade. So, you establish your required level of accuracy, then work to build it. 

Step by Step Accurizing

First, clean the barrel interior before test-firing for group size. A good cleaning has turned dirty, three-MOA rifles into one-MOA death rays. After cleaning with the usual powder solvent, clean again with a copper remover solvent (CR-10, Gunslick Copper-Klenz, Montana Xtreme, etc.) and scraping with a tight Brownell’s Brass Core Bronze Brush or stiff nylon brush on a one-piece Dewey or Gunslick rod. Some shooters make 10 passes with the brush for every shot fired. I usually push and pull 50 times, adding additional solvent to the bristles every 10 passes or so before pushing out the slurry with a patch.