200 yd group larger than 300 yd group?

[esshup]

Barnes .40 cal 195g MZ FB bullet. 3.5x10x50 Vari-X III scope, shooting from a bench. The group might have been better if the wind wasn't blowing so hard, but I tried to time the shots.

I need to shoot at a further distance to see how it groups at 400.

Here's the rough trajectory of the load

100 yds 2" high
200 yds dead on
300 yds 11" low
Acope height 1.5" from bore

Red aiming dot is 1" dia. The brown paper holes look a bit smaller in dia because I flattened out the back of the paper for the picture.

 

[Pdvdh]

At that rate if you keep moving further away from your target, you'll have them all landing in one hole!

 

[ENCORE]

Barnes .40 cal 195g MZ FB bullet. 3.5x10x50 Vari-X III scope, shooting from a bench. The group might have been better if the wind wasn't blowing so hard, but I tried to time the shots.

I need to shoot at a further distance to see how it groups at 400.

Here's the rough trajectory of the load

100 yds 2" high
200 yds dead on
300 yds 11" low
Acope height 1.5" from bore

Red aiming dot is 1" dia. The brown paper holes look a bit smaller in dia because I flattened out the back of the paper for the picture.

Hey, join the club! The club titled: "I need more trigger time"

I was in the similar situation. I got to thinking, why am I more accurate at 400yds than I am at 200yds? Sure causes you to scratch your head. It took paying a little more attention to what I was doing and things started coming back together. It may be mental, not certain, at least with me I think it was. I found after shooting long range, that I thought shorter ranges would be a chip shot. Well it is, but I found it demands the same amount of concentration as a 400yd shot. Actually I'm still working at it..... LOL

Last time up to the club, lucked out with a nice 300yd group testing two bullets that some claim are identical, except for the color of the tip. Well some may say they're identical but, they shoot different.

 

[esshup]

More trigger time is correct. I don't think I'd have enough time in the day if we had 20 hrs of sunlight!!

Since last hunting season, I put exactly 10 bullets down the tube in it, all on the same day that I shot those targets. One to get the bore dirty, 2 at 100 yds, 3 at 200, 3 at 300 and one at the steel target at 350 yds. That was strictly a WAG hold-over and it hit 4" high, about 2" right of center.

Wind was 10-15 mph from 4:30, but I was able to gauge it (I thought) by the large snowflakes that were coming down. I didn't have enough time to set up the chronograph, so I have no idea of the MV. If memory serves me correctly it is 2800-2850 fps.

phorwrath, I could only hope!! This is strictly a hunting gun, so as long as I can drop them into the boiler room of a whitetail I'm happy.

 

[ENCORE]

Sent about 500 rounds so far since purchasing the rifle in late spring. To much experimenting, when I should have just stuck with what works. Nah...... I'll try something new next year too. My "Ultimate" goal, is to get the Barnes 290gr flat base shooting accurately at long range, as its definitely my bullet of choice.

 

[pooldoc]

My question is what loar are you shooting and what sort of retained energy will it have left at 400 yds? Hitting an animal at that range is one thing, but killing it cleanly is another. Shooting targets at that range is clearly a challenge for a shooter, that I have no problem with, what I do have a problem with is ones ability to kill game at those distances. Very few hunters have the skill and equipment to kill animals at that range with a centefire, much less a muzzleloader. The other problem is locating animals that are wounded. In the part of Texas where I hunt it would be almost impossible to find the exactl location to start looking for a wounded animal, much less finding it.

 

[ENCORE]

My question is what loar are you shooting and what sort of retained energy will it have left at 400 yds? Hitting an animal at that range is one thing, but killing it cleanly is another. Shooting targets at that range is clearly a challenge for a shooter, that I have no problem with, what I do have a problem with is ones ability to kill game at those distances. Very few hunters have the skill and equipment to kill animals at that range with a centefire, much less a muzzleloader. The other problem is locating animals that are wounded. In the part of Texas where I hunt it would be almost impossible to find the exactl location to start looking for a wounded animal, much less finding it.

Just over 980fpe at 400yds from my Ultimate. 800fpe considered whitetail minimum.

Most, including myself, wouldn't shoot that far at a whitetail unless all the conditions were perfect, which doesn't happen often.

 

[pooldoc]

Thanks. My personal limit with my Knight is 200yds and I much prefer 150 to 175 Yds. I can go up to 120 grs of BH 209 and stretch that a bit, but its not much fun to shoot that heavy load. Do you use pellets or loose powder?

 

[ENCORE]

Thanks. My personal limit with my Knight is 200yds and I much prefer 150 to 175 Yds. I can go up to 120 grs of BH 209 and stretch that a bit, but its not much fun to shoot that heavy load. Do you use pellets or loose powder?

I shoot 3 - T7M pellets, 180grs equivalent, with a 300gr bullet.

 

[esshup]

My question is what loar are you shooting and what sort of retained energy will it have left at 400 yds? Hitting an animal at that range is one thing, but killing it cleanly is another. Shooting targets at that range is clearly a challenge for a shooter, that I have no problem with, what I do have a problem with is ones ability to kill game at those distances. Very few hunters have the skill and equipment to kill animals at that range with a centefire, much less a muzzleloader. The other problem is locating animals that are wounded. In the part of Texas where I hunt it would be almost impossible to find the exactl location to start looking for a wounded animal, much less finding it.

Good question!

I'm using 70.0 grains of H-4198 behind a Barnes .40 cal 195g Muzzleloader bullet, Flat Base, Item number 40052B. I could push them faster, but I'm getting the best accuracy with that load. 835 fpe, 1389 fps is what Load From a Disc is saying. Savage Muzzleloader, Pac-Nor barrel. A few guys with the same set-up are doing deer depredation shoots (would it be incorrect to call it hunts as you are doing a job for the farmer?) and they are killing Indiana Whitetails at 400 yds. At 300 yds, the load is 1676 fps and 1217 fpe. Yeah, the bullet is a brick, but I've seen worse!!

 

[docgbwhite]

It isn't only lack of trigger time or experience that contribute to the problem. Since all rifles rotate bullets, but always rotate them at a constant speed, and all bullets fly at variable velocities, depending on many factors and since all bullets possess a ballistic coefficient that is more or less constant, the combination of these and other unknown factors not only causes the bullets to rotate at a constant speed but also causes the rotating bullet to rotate in a circle about a central axis as it flies downrange. The size of the circle changes as the velocity changes, making it not uncommon at all for a bullet to rotate widely at closer ranges then close up into a tighter group out further. If it goes far enough, at again opens up the group. We used to watch this happen with 155 mm aRTILLERY. iF STANDING RIGHT BEHIND THe TUBE, THE PROJO COULD BE SEEN TO circle as it flew away. Back then, we compensated for the known circular rotation with slide rules, nowadays it's done with computers. Closer to home, I once built a 45 caliber percussion rifle with shallow groove 1-18 twist barrel, firing a 520 grain multi-channelured lubricated slip-fit bullet with 80 gr Swiss fffG, that would shoot into 4 inches at 700 yards with a tang peep and globe front. It shot onto a 6 inch group at 3-400 yards and a 10 inch group at 1000 yards. (Quiet days, best of light, dead rest, much younger eyes, NOT in competition). The art, of course , is to pick the bullet and load that shoots the tightest group at the range you expect to shoot. This is hard enough when shooting target, it's near impossible when hunting since you usually can't predict where the game is going to appear. All you can do is pick the load that shoots the smallest circle out to your maximun range. By the way, the longer the bullet, the higher the BC, the tighter the circle, in general. DOC White

 

[ENCORE]

It isn't only lack of trigger time or experience that contribute to the problem. Since all rifles rotate bullets, but always rotate them at a constant speed, and all bullets fly at variable velocities, depending on many factors and since all bullets possess a ballistic coefficient that is more or less constant, the combination of these and other unknown factors not only causes the bullets to rotate at a constant speed but also causes the rotating bullet to rotate in a circle about a central axis as it flies downrange. The size of the circle changes as the velocity changes, making it not uncommon at all for a bullet to rotate widely at closer ranges then close up into a tighter group out further. If it goes far enough, at again opens up the group. We used to watch this happen with 155 mm aRTILLERY. iF STANDING RIGHT BEHIND THe TUBE, THE PROJO COULD BE SEEN TO circle as it flew away. Back then, we compensated for the known circular rotation with slide rules, nowadays it's done with computers. Closer to home, I once built a 45 caliber percussion rifle with shallow groove 1-18 twist barrel, firing a 520 grain multi-channelured lubricated slip-fit bullet with 80 gr Swiss fffG, that would shoot into 4 inches at 700 yards with a tang peep and globe front. It shot onto a 6 inch group at 3-400 yards and a 10 inch group at 1000 yards. (Quiet days, best of light, dead rest, much younger eyes, NOT in competition). The art, of course , is to pick the bullet and load that shoots the tightest group at the range you expect to shoot. This is hard enough when shooting target, it's near impossible when hunting since you usually can't predict where the game is going to appear. All you can do is pick the load that shoots the smallest circle out to your maximun range. By the way, the longer the bullet, the higher the BC, the tighter the circle, in general. DOC White

That's a good explanation of what could be happening. When I started shooting with the new rifle beyond 200yds, I first found that there was much more to learn and still learn. Although things are getting much better as far as groups go, in the beginning I was thinking it was more to do with my concentration. I might have been thinking that 100 and 200yd shots had become chip shots, then didn't concentrate on them as much as shooting 300 or 400yds. Heck I still don't know but, I'm going to find out.