Rifles that have surprised you

[KurtM]

I mean in the way of.... This piece of crap shouldn't shoot, but groups really well.
I. E. My brother bought a Ruger 77 in 308, for an action. He decided to go shoot it so he slapped on a 3-9x Burris and off to the range we went! It is a pencil barrel in an old Bell and Carlson stock with the big old up tension bump at the end of the stock. That damn thing was way under 1 MOA With any bullet from 150-175gr. I have seen several 1" 5 round groups at 300. It is a completely black barrel, meaning it doesn't copper foul AT ALL! and cleans up in just a few patches. You can heat it up and no drift. Cold bore is right in the middle of the group. We never touched it since and to this day it is a real tack driver.

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I mentioned this story before but I'll repeat it. When I was kinda getting into some precision/long range shooting I bought a Remington 40XB in .308 and set it up with a high-end rail and Leupold scope (don't remember what model). Around the same time I found a Savage 110 in 7 mag with some cheap Simmons or Tasco scope on GunBroker and got it shipped to me for $75. That Savage looked like it had been dragged around on a chain behind a truck for a couple hundred miles. But the fuckin' thing out-shot that $4000-ish Remington setup. Pissed me off to no end.

Then there was the AR my buddy was using in the Nam that jammed and he got kil... Oh, wait... That's not my story.

 

[conditionzero]

@KurtM you should make an opposite thread “rifles that disappointed you”

 

[KurtM]

Wow, that would be a long list... "this one time, at world championships"

 

[AER244]

I have a Ruger mark II varmint in 223. I expected it to shoot fairly well, and it does. But it shoots every load the exact same. Ive shot probably 20 different loads thru it, from 45-77grns and all go to the same place. It’s so dang heavy I don’t shoot it much anymore

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I zeroed my little Kel-Tec SU-16CA today after mounting a Crimson Trace red dot. This is a 10 rd group from 50 yds using the built-in bipod on the rifle. I was pretty pleasantly surprised by that.

 

[SoonerP226]

A friend of mine traded into a pair of Israeli Mausers in .308. They were smaller than regular Mausers (maybe 98k?), so we expected them to have a pretty good kick, but they were actually very mild to shoot.