HI! Forget it! the IOF will never be able to even outshoot even a beat up club brno. I have first hand experience in the matter and me and my son used my IOF .22 in our first state match and the old club brnos beat us hollow - the brno is better in trigger pull, sight picture, sight adjustment, balance and accuracy and workability of the action.
From what I have seen, IOF triggers aren't too good. However, it is possible to make them very good with a little work. If you are ever in Bangalore come over and try the trigger on my IOF. It's better than any CZ or Brno I have tried till date - club or privately owned. I haven't had a problem with the sight picture or adjustment. The sights on the Czech rifles may give a better sight picture but for my crappy eyesight, they are all equally bad. There is no question that the Czech rifles balance better and are inherently more accurate but like I said, the difference isn't that great. If you feed your IOF the diet it likes best, it will do well. The action is definitely rougher but it can be made tolerable. Mine is still far from being silky smooth but the roughness has been lapped out.
since my rifle was brand new I thought using it would be better than the club brno rifles
The IOF does require a bit of fettling out of the box.
Why bother? the brno guy has a clear advantage.
Simply put, I am not a gong hunter. I derive more satisfaction from working on and using my own guns. If medals are the sole criteria, then using what one has the most confidence in makes sense.
your sling hook can open up a halfway through your match and screw up your hapiness big time because soft non spring steel is used for the hook !
I had forgotten about their third rate sling swivel and what you describe has happened to me and another club member. In his case it was far worse as the swivel gave way whilst he was shooting the pre-nationals. However, there is an easy fix for this as well. Get your self an Uncle Mike QD swivel or any other swivel for that matter and fit it to the fore-end. See my earlier pics.
Well We personally prefer the "coke can" 500 packs of el cheapo SKM cuz they really kick ass and group very well . In fact at the range in practice my son routinely crosses 580 /600 with this ammo - lots of shooters shoot the nationals with these .However the standard plus is only marginally expensive because of the packaging - its performance over SKM is nothing to write home about. SK GOLD was a fantastic round and now the NRAI routinely imports the Lapua Midas in size medium and large - fricking 2 bullet diameter so u can feed you rifle what it likes
Just goes to show that what works well in one rifle needn't work as well in another.