To all the good members here. You all have been providing me with lots of information on shooting. This shooting sport has become an important part of my life. I find it very relaxing and satisfying.
I bought a Ruger American Rimfire April this year. I absolutely love this rifle. It's a budget rifle shooting with CCI standard. I had had some very good groups with this rifle. Some are even better than the picture below.
However, the last few 2-4 thousands round, the rifle has been dropping accuracy big time. So far the rifle has done a little over 10K round. 99% CCI. So about 2 weeks ago I give the rifle a good clean, and had the following result. It was good for the beginning, after 100 rounds, the rifle mainly shot to the right with shocking group.
So I took it to a gun shop, the guy said to me just dirty. However, I had shot the rifle before with 300 rounds in 1 sitting and still had decent group. How come nowadays after 100 and losing accuracy? What happened to all the people out there who don't clean their rimfire rifle at all?
Anyway, I cleaned it much more throughly again. Taking everything apart. I mean everything I could take off. The bolt, the stock, even stripped the stock itself apart. Stripping down the bolt. After I put everything back together, I made sure everything was tight. Went to the range. Started off with RWS Club, which had provided me with better group before. The result was very nice. So then I switched back to CCI. Had great group again, except one shot to the far right. I think that was me anyway. However this didn't last long. After 50 shots or so, it started shooting to the right with shocking group again. So I though maybe it was me couldn't shoot good anymore. Borrowed a club rifle, CZ 452 with CCI. Great group again. I mean very good groups. Switched back to my Ruger, same lousy result. Shot the last 5 rounds with CZ 452 again, good group. I could still shoot decent groups. There must be something wrong with my rifle.
I didn't really clean my rifle before. Until a guy at my local shop advised me to clean it regularly. So I bough the Hopper No.9 to clean my rifle. I even left it in the bore over night a couple of times. The guy did say it's perfectly fine.
Did I ruin my rifle because of this? Or is it something else? What can I do to fix it? Please help me. It's not fun shooting anymore. I want to be able to enjoy shooting again.
Thank you for reading this even if you have no clue what's wrong with my rifle.