2 years in...what I've learned.

[StumpyJohnson]

Whelp, it was a bit over two years ago that I made my first few posts here. I was intending to detail my first semi-custom build and the trials and tribulations that followed. I didn't quite make good on that goal, although I may go back some day soon and try.

But...

I figured I'd outline a few things I think I know. I still maintain I'm a paint sipping, window licking, mouth breather...and two years is not a long time in this game. I still learn new things and find myself throwing things I thought I knew out the window on a weekly basis.

1. You can't buy accuracy.
   
   1. I spent thousands on a semi-custom rifle that was almost immediately out shot by a tikka that I built for a friendly competition.
   2. I've purchased quite a few pre-fits from well regarded manufacturers and none shoot as well as the take off tikka barrel I twisted on to a used tikka action.
   3. Pre-fit barrels are a crap shoot.
   4. Having a gunsmith chamber and thread a barrel to your action is a crap shoot with slightly better odds.
   5. Barrels are like people, some just eat crayons.
   6. Barrels from some families are less prone to eating crayons. But every family makes a unicorn every so often.
   7. I still think and act like I can buy accuracy.
2. Faster magnums are hard to tune.
   
   1. Its just my experience that bigger, faster, magnum cartridges are inherently a bit more finicky.
   2. 28 nosler, 26 nosler, even 6.5 PRC are awesome rounds. They can be very accurate obviously. But the road to getting there seems to be a bit more windy than slower cartridges with less boom in them.
   3. Shooting a 180 grain projectile at 3600 fps is more fun than a 147 grain projectile at 2800 fps however.
3. Consistency is accuracy, and larger group samples more accurately capture how consistent a gun is shooting.
   
   1. Not to ruffle feathers, and not to say you're doing anything wrong. But in my experience a ten shot group tells me more than a 3 shot group.
   2. I plan and shoot accordingly during load development. I load in 10 shot increments and make
   3. I believe making changes to a load based on a 3 or even 5 shot group will find you chasing your tail more often than not.
   4. A string of 5 3 shot groups, is a 15 shot group when viewed as a whole.
   5. As a rule I try not to chase numbers to a large extent in terms of sd/es or group size. If I'm in the ball park of 30 es and say 12 sd over 10 to 20 shots, I'm satisfied.
4. Most people make load development more complicated than it needs to be.
   
   1. I've noticed powder/bullet combination is more important than powder charge/seating depth.
   2. I can't tune a crappy powder/bullet combo to shoot well.
   3. A proper combination is ALMOST not worth tuning.
      1. If it shoots well, the time and effort spent wringing out tighter groups, or better es/sd numbers can be a fools errand.
      2. My reloading bench is overflowing with powders/bullets due to this fact.
   4. Listening and researching what works for others is key.
      1. For every cartridge there will be loads that most people favor, there is a reason for that.
      2. Experimentation outside of this fact CAN result in some great results, but WILL result in statement 3.2 being true.
   5. Monolithic bullets are harder to tune than traditional bullets.
      1. I have some decent copper loads, but all of them were harder to come by than their cup and core counterparts.
5. A decent trigger is ABSOLUTELY key.
   
   1. I would wager that a good trigger lends itself to better accuracy than throwing an extra few hundred bucks into your scope budget.
   2. SOME factory triggers can be tuned to a perfect thing of beauty, but it will take time and effort.
6. Standardized SAAMI chambers are for standard cartridge configurations.
   
   1. Longer bullet? Monolithic Bullet? Consider very carefully the chamber dimensions and know that SAAMI chambers aren't usually going to cut it.
7. Plain white paint tastes better than most any other color.

There's more, but I just saw a squirrel and I need to gather some more paint chips for breakfast.

​

 

[ShtrRdy]

Sounds like you've been busy over a couple years!

 

[StumpyJohnson]

Sounds like you've been busy over a couple years!

I have, and that doesn't count the work I've done for friends on their rifles.

 

[crashlanding]

Stumpy, you're a man who knows where he stands on things and in today's world, that's priceless

 

[StumpyJohnson]

Stumpy, you're a man who knows where he stands on things and in today's world, that's priceless

They say...good decisions come from experience. And experience comes from bad decisions. This is certainly true for me.

 

[cajun]

Haha. You know I have a full blown custom and some semi custom prefits I did and don't you know the most consistently accurate rifle I have is a Savage 12 varmint rifle in 6.5 CM I paid $240 for. Tupperware stock and all.

 

[StumpyJohnson]

Haha. You know I have a full blown custom and some semi custom prefits I did and don't you know the most consistently accurate rifle I have is a Savage 12 varmint rifle in 6.5 CM I paid $240 for. Tupperware stock and all.

Friends and I did a challenge to build rifles, with scopes, and all the reloading dies and components for under $1200. You had to at least remove and replace the barrel. Popular actions were savage axis and Tikka t3's. All of them, after some tinkering, **** some lights out groups. I engaged 40 targets at unknown ranges out to 550 yards in around 8 minutes. Then **** two 5 round groups...the barrel was sizzling hot with a wet rag draped over it. It took me 56 rounds to do it. I thought that barrel was smoked for sure...it still prints groups I'm proud of. It was a $150 take off tikka barrel from ebay.

I have a prefit barrel from a well regarded company that can barely dribble turds out the muzzle...

 

[StumpyJohnson]

Friends and I did a challenge to build rifles, with scopes, and all the reloading dies and components for under $1200. You had to at least remove and replace the barrel. Popular actions were savage axis and Tikka t3's. All of them, after some tinkering, **** some lights out groups. I engaged 40 targets at unknown ranges out to 550 yards in around 8 minutes. Then **** two 5 round groups...the barrel was sizzling hot with a wet rag draped over it. It took me 56 rounds to do it. I thought that barrel was smoked for sure...it still prints groups I'm proud of. It was a $150 take off tikka barrel from ebay.

I have a prefit barrel from a well regarded company that can barely dribble turds out the muzzle...

I don't know why s h o o t and s h o t got censored on a shooting forum...

 

[Longtine88]

 

[Pastor Gun.zales]

That's awesome information! I have luckily never gone down the never ending rabbit hole of load development. As long as I am at or under 1moa I'm good. However, I'm a hunter not a bench shooter doing competitions.

I recently started thinking of wanting to build my own bolt gun, and have a Rem700 .243 that I've never shot. Now I'm thinking that it might need a 338Fed or 358Win barrel to go on it LOL. But eeek I don't want to spend hundreds on a turd barrel lol.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

I've been handloading for decades. One of the things that I've learned recently is that cleaning a bore until you get white patches does NOT mean that the bore is clean. Teslong has taught me a few new things.

 

[nealm66]

30 years now for me. So much has changed. Velocity was king because there wasn't any range finders and recoil came with it. My favorite cartridge was 300 win mag which stood until the 300 prc. Always learning and what we think we know today could come into question at anytime. Sounds like you're enjoying the journey

 

[Mark37082]

I've learned that no matter how much I spend or tweak loads, I can still blow a shot on a target. The good thing is I don't throw rifles like I use to throw golf clubs.

 

[nealm66]

One thing I've noticed is how the old school powder dispensers that were a lot less accurate by today's standards would by default find a very tolerant window ha ha! Now if you believe there is such a thing you have to use a chronograph.