1917 accuracy?

[MajorD]

picked up a "salvage" grade 1917 back in 09 at the cmp north store after coming home from Afghanistan. While ti was priced as salvage grade it was complete and functions perfectly.that's good.
the bad- the original 1918 bore is only about fair with the most significant area of roughness a few inches from the muzzle.
Tried shooting it with my standard M-1 load and it wasn't holding better than about 10 inches at 100 yards. seen some threads over on cmp stating they shoot heavy bullets better. tried some 200's yesterday and it did help but was still at best a 6 inch grouper- any suggestions or do we relegate this to the junk heap?

[Prince Humperdink]

How is Your muzzle crown?I worked with mine forever to get it to group with all types of bullets,and only had results when I cleaned up the muzzle.I only had it at 25yrds when it was blown up,but I got it shooting a 1 ragged hole group.I was getting good results w/190 gr Sierra HP/BT's,but only if I didn't factory crimp as those would open up.It never liked 200 grn,but really liked the 125grn bullet.Perhaps it was because there was a jacket stuck in the throat that They had to squeeze by?

[Punch The Clown]

I find Kroil and a Tornado stainless cleaning brush removes stuff you never knew was in there. Stu

[M1orNone]

Mine never would group well with any FMJ's that I tried. It did best, oddly enough, with 150 and 165gr Hornady Interlocks. Can't recall the powder and load I used now, but it definitely wasn't a max load. Any bullet weight over those, and it would open up to around 6" at 100.

[Punch The Clown]

The 30-40 bullet has a huge bearing surface. I'm wondering if cast bullets are the way to go. Stu

[wgandy]

I also bought a salvage grade from CMP South store in Feb of 2009. Thought I had gotten a great one. The muzzle measured 0, it had a dark bore but I figured it would clean up. Just all those years of firing blanks or whatever. Well after a week and a half of cleaning the bore it was still dark and the muzzle swallowed the gauge.

Long story short, I found a WWII JA barrel for it on GB and am very pleased with the results.

I took it out to the range about 3 weeks ago and these are the results using my garand load at 100yds:
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee78/wgandy/Targets/DSC_0001_1664.jpg