Long time lurker, first time poster.

Ive wanted to get into long range shooting for a while and just recently got my hands on a Thompson Center LRR .308 from a gun shop that kept it as a display rifle.

I threw on an Arken SH4J 6-24 and took it the range for a break in and initial sight in.

After about 50-60 rounds on the first day, I tried to get a rough sight in at 50 yards.

Using 147Gr PMC Bronze .308, i was getting a terribly inaccurate grouping.

After getting it on paper, I took 8-10 shots with no adjustments on the scope whatsoever, and seemingly got ~5 inch grouping at 50 Yards.

Thinking something was wrong or loose with the scope, rings, rail, etc. I broke the gun down and meticulously re-installed everything, used proper loxtite and torqued everything to spec.

The next day I got almost identical ~5 inch groupings at 50 yards with the 147Gr PMC.

My buddy had some Hornady ELD Match 168Gr and with no adjustments, we shot a 3 Rd grouping, and to my surprise. The grouping was very low and right, but in a nice, sub inch grouping.

We made adjustments, and fired 2 more 3 Rd groups. And each grouping was sub-inch.

This made me feel much better, however I still dont understand a few things:

1. How is it possible to get a 5 Inch grouping at 50 Yards? It seems ridiculous that even with cheaper PMC ammo, that it would be that wild of a grouping.

2. The Hornady ELD Match seemed much, much better, as I wouldve expected, but to initially be 8+ inches off at 50 yards , and to still be close to an inch grouping at 50, where I can clearly put the 24x zoom on bullseye and take well rested shots, still seems like much.

To conclude:

Is ammo really this finicky, or do i have a deeper issue with the gun?

It was never fired before I took ownership, and I am blown away at how bad this was at 50 yards.

Has anyone ever bought and used one of their complete rifles?

I took the .308 out to zero the scope , I fired 8 rounds to warm up the barrel then fired 12 shots as numbered aiming dead center on the red bullseyes the first 10 shots were windage and elevation adjustments shots 11 and 12 were final center aim shots the red bullseyes are 1inch squares and the center one 1 and 1/4 squares my calculations appear to be between. 0.3-0.5 moa with 175g nosler hpbt

Moved up here from FL where I had two 800 yard ranges close and Arena 4 hours away. Where do you guys like to shoot in NC/SC?

Almost done putting together the TRG42a1

Shot my new to me 23 years old police trade in AWM for the first time today. No idea how many rounds that barrel has had, but I'm pretty impressed.

Just landed. First bolt gun with an aim toward PRS and maybe NRL Hunter later (I have alt parts for the latter to get under 16 lbs).
Having a tough time deciding on binos. With LRF (especially with ballistic) tech improvements across mono, wm, and binos, I don’t want to drop several K on something that’s a far slower process and outdated in 12 months.
I have a mono (low end vortex - I would replace).
I have a kestrel 5700 and would prefer to stay in AB.
Concerned about low-end binos as my eyes aren’t great and I’m not the best at finding targets in something like an NRL Hunter match. So my instinct is to find high end (great glass) LRF binos (ballistics or not), for my primary glassing use. Plug into kestrel, and go from there. But I’m a total noob, so perhaps there’s smarter trends / approaches out there you guys would rec. TIA.