“Your groups are too small” vs barrel life

VenatusDominus said:

Actually, their designs are different than others out there. Through collecting doppler radar data on thousands of rounds fired, they identified and recently patented a meplat diameter to caliber ratio that significantly decreased bullet drag variability. They proved that highly pointed meplats have a lower, but less consistent, drag. A slightly flattened meplat increased the drag marginally, but produced a much more consistent drag. The ratio is what is important and what they were awarded the patent for.

From an article in OutdoorLife 5/21/2024 "To reduce drag variability, the diameter of the flat on the meplat must fall between .08 and .16 times the diameter of the bullet."

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I'm not referring to their bullets. I do not, will not, ever use Hornady bullets in my rifles. I prefer SUPERIOR bullets than those offered by them.
If you want to prove that this, so called discovery by them, is in fact common knowledge regarding small tips on bullets, how long has the RDF been around?
The RDF shoots better than ANY Hornady bullet.

Cheers.

I agree with duckman. If the first 2 shots aren't even close, I'm adjusting something. If my cold bore and follow up aren't in a ragged hole I'm not happy.
All Mine are hunting rifles so if it takes more than those first 2 shots to kill I have issues anyways

MagnumManiac said:

I'm not referring to their bullets. I do not, will not, ever use Hornady bullets in my rifles. I prefer SUPERIOR bullets than those offered by them.
If you want to prove that this, so called discovery by them, is in fact common knowledge regarding small tips on bullets, how long has the RDF been around?
The RDF shoots better than ANY Hornady bullet.

Cheers.

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WOW! You harbor some serious ANIMOSITY toward Hornady. I am not here to promote Hornady, I use some of their products and I use others as well. I do appreciate the scientific approach their engineers and balisticians take towards the shooting sports and their willingness to share their findings. It makes for a better shooting community when scientific knowledge and facts are shared.

As far as small tips on bullets... I come from a medical and engineering background, and it isn't always the person making the discovery that gets the credit, it is most often the person that publishes the findings first. In this case Nosler may have figured it out, but they failed to describe, publish or patent their findings, HORNADY did, and as such THEY get the credit for figuring out the ratio of meplat to bullet diameter that minimizes drag variability. You can HATE on Hornady until the sun goes down, but it doesn't change the VALIDITY of the science the are publishing, it's just another "because I said so" argument without anything to back it up. (I know how to use the caps lock key as well )

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biednick said:

It does matter. Groups get bigger with more shots because you start to see more of the worse than average shots. Until you pull the trigger you have no way of knowing if a shot will be better or worse than average. When you only care about 1 shot what matters is how your gun performs at worst, not on average. If your hunting rifle shoots 1 MOA over many shots (which is pretty darn good for a hunting rifle) it's irresponsible to treat it as a 1/2 MOA gun because you can print 1/2 MOA 5 shot groups.

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We can disagree.

When shooters that are doing it for money say it's a waste of time, I tend to listen to them rather than those that sell bullets.

Mike D Texas said:

We can disagree.

When shooters that are doing it for money say it's a waste of time, I tend to listen to them rather than those that sell bullets.

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So what is your take on F-class shooter Keith Glasscock's video where takes his best, worst and mediocre 3 shot seating depth ladder test results, loads 33 of each and gets groups that are statistically the same? (Video link in post #64 on page 5)

VenatusDominus said:

So what is your take on F-class shooter Keith Glasscock's video where takes his best, worst and mediocre 3 shot seating depth ladder test results, loads 33 of each and gets groups that are statistically the same?

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I haven't watched the attached video. However I am speaking more to specifics, and others here have mentioned it too. If your goal is say 1/2 MOA groups and immediately after 2-3 shots your group exceeds that, the why waste more time, components and barrel life?

Move in and start over with a new load. Now maybe 10-30 shot will help remove any doubt to your affirmative zero but for load dev, in my experience large sample sizes are a waste if time.

My 1" hunting rifle was able to put 3 shots back to back on a 36" plate at 1 mile. Even if the group was 17.6" at a mile, it's still a 1" rifle. And I've never shot more than a 5 shot group with it.

Mike D Texas said:

I haven't watched the attached video. However I am speaking more to specifics, and others here have mentioned it too. If your goal is say 1/2 MOA groups and immediately after 2-3 shots your group exceeds that, the why waste more time, components and barrel life?

Move in and start over with a new load. Now maybe 10-30 shot will help remove any doubt to your affirmative zero but for load dev, in my experience large sample sizes are a waste if time.

My 1" hunting rifle was able to put 3 shots back to back on a 36" plate at 1 mile. Even if the group was 17.6" at a mile, it's still a 1" rifle. And I've never shot more than a 5 shot group with it.

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Totally agree, if the first few shots of a load are larger than your goal, time to cut bait and start over, shooting more will not shrink the group. But if your first three shots are 1/4 MOA, then assuming you have 1/4 MOA load, based on that three shot group is foolish.

In the video, his seating depth ladder demonstrated a best 3 shot group (load #1) of 0.183" and a worst three shot group (load #3) of 0.374". After increasing his sample size to 33, the group size for the 0.183" load measured 0.7969" and for the 0.374" load measured 0.6840". He analyzed smaller 5 shot groups from the data and found that the #1 load most often produced the smaller 5 groups, but those groups themselves "walked" around the point of aim much more. The #3 load had larger 5 shot groups but were overall better centered about the point of aim, thus accounting for the overall smaller 33 shot group of load #3.

Mike D Texas said:

I haven't watched the attached video. However I am speaking more to specifics, and others here have mentioned it too. If your goal is say 1/2 MOA groups and immediately after 2-3 shots your group exceeds that, the why waste more time, components and barrel life?

Move in and start over with a new load. Now maybe 10-30 shot will help remove any doubt to your affirmative zero but for load dev, in my experience large sample sizes are a waste if time.

My 1" hunting rifle was able to put 3 shots back to back on a 36" plate at 1 mile. Even if the group was 17.6" at a mile, it's still a 1" rifle. And I've never shot more than a 5 shot group with it.

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Low round count groups are fine for discarding bad loads, but not finding good loads or making claims about precision. You can't say you have a 1" gun if you've never shot more than a 5 shot group. It's probably more like a 1.5-2 MOA gun like most hunting rifles. You might never take 30 shots on game, but someday you'll take one of your gun's worst shots on game. That's what you should be worried about.

DUCKMAN11 said:

You are thinking about what I said in reverse...kinda.

Hypothetically let's say I'm looking for a .5" group at 100yds.....

If the first 2 shots are 2" apart then it will NEVER be a .5" group even if you shoot 5 times. That tells me that my rifle doesn't like that powder charge or seating depth or whatever ingredient I'm testing.

Now if the first 2 shots are touching then keep shooting to "prove" the load.

What I'm getting at is don't throw good money after bad! In load development I'm trying to figure what DOES NOT WORK in order to find what does work.

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That is what I am saying. It might tell you what is bad. It will not help you find what is good. Also what if that 2" spread on that 2 shot group was an aberration?

I would still shoot a 5 round group or a couple of 5 rounders.

I am not going to shoot 2 rounds and quit.

I do not think I have ever had the first 2 rounds group poorly enough to tell me anything.

Maybe I just do not shoot enough. Maybe I have just had good luck with rifles. Maybe I have not had a large enough sample size of rifles in my lifetime.

2 rounds are good for powder ladders in my experience. Better than 1 shot anyway.

It helps me find an interesting zone to explore deeper using actual groups.

Hornady definitely stirred up some controversy for sure. In the end it's never a bad thing to light a fire to improve on a process. Watching a guy at a practice day for a national 600 match seating bullets with a press clamped to his bench to get his tune perfect should mean something. I think it's silly to chase that kind of accuracy with a hunting rifle but that guy shot 90 rounds to proof his seating depth argument. I say the main thing is to get a decent load and be confident in yourself and practice in conditions you plan to hunt in. Wind is sometimes really hard to detect and judge and can completely ruin accuracy for sure.

biednick said:

Low round count groups are fine for discarding bad loads, but not finding good loads or making claims about precision. You can't say you have a 1" gun if you've never shot more than a 5 shot group. It's probably more like a 1.5-2 MOA gun like most hunting rifles. You might never take 30 shots on game, but someday you'll take one of your gun's worst shots on game. That's what you should be worried about.

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Not necessarily what you need is enough data to verify the results. Ten 3 shot groups gives you 30 data points that are much more valid for a hunting rifle where you will never fire 5 shots in a row.

cajun said:

Not necessarily what you need is enough data to verify the results. Ten 3 shot groups gives you 30 data points that are much more valid for a hunting rifle where you will never fire 5 shots in a row.

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If you put 10 3 shot groups on the same target by either shooting the same target or aggregating them based on POA, sure. That's still a 30 shot group, just not shot as a string of 30. You could use an ARA target, shoot a single shot at each bull, and aggregate them all into 1 group if you want. You should shoot the gun how you'll use it when you're testing precision. I shoot 30 cold bore shots with my hunting guns and 3 strings of 10 with my PRS rifles. If you're looking at individual groups or averaging them your results won't accurately reflect your gun's precision.