Hill Country Rifles

[bearcat]

Hill Country Rifle Co. in New Braunfels Texas, offers an accurizing service on factory rifles. This service includes inspecting: Barrel and chamber with hawkeye bore scope, locking lugs, stock, scope, and trigger. After inspection they perform these services: Aluminum pillar and glass bed action, recrown barrel, clean and adjust trigger, ensure even locking lug contact and lap scope rings. They shoot the rifle before the work is done and after. They gaurantee less than 1" groups at 100 yards. If they can't get the rifle to meet this gaurantee, they charge $250.00 for all of the work done. If they meet their gaurantee they charge $375.00. Do these prices sound reasonable for the work done on a rifle?

[TexasDeerHunter]

Re: Hill Country Rifles

Sounds like a heck of a deal. I would gladly pay that.

[AJ]

Re: Hill Country Rifles

I don't know, I guess if my gun shot 2.5" groups I might consider it, or trading that gun off and upgrading. Much of the work they are doing can be done by the average person at home.

Glass bedding is something that just about anyone can do as long as you can read and follow directions. There are commercial kits available with very detailed instructions.

Recrowning the barrel is fairly easy, but I have not seen it be a big contributor to accuracy. In fact on guns that shoot 3/4" or larger groups (on average), it does not make a huge difference.

Trigger weight can be an issue to accuracy. The more the shooter has to struggle to get the gun to go off, the less accurate its going to be.

Locking lug contact is sort of like the crown. On a hunting gun, I don't see it making a big difference. In fact, it can create a lot more work since the gunsmith needs to remove metal from the lugs or the bosses in order to get full even contact. This means the headspace measurement is going to get bigger. It can be a big enough change that the gunsmith needs to cut one turn off of the barrel and re-chamber it.

Lapping the scope rings is a good move that can help accuracy. If the scope is improperly mounted, it will not allow the best accuracy the gun is capable of. This is another of those things that anyone can do at home with a couple of moderately priced hand tools. Proper scope installation is mandatory to accuracy.

Another thing is even with all of this done, if the shooter is not good enough or has enough bad habits, it will not matter how good the gun is.