I was hoping some of you experienced shooters on here would be able to help me with a problem I encountered with my gun that has me baffled as follows;
I had a rifle built in 26 Nosler. I have a Huskemah Blue Diamond 5x20 scope on it with a turret built for the 140 gr Accubond. Because our state is outlawing lead bullets, I am switching to copper. However I was unable to find any factory ammo that I could readily purchase with a copper bullet so I turned to a company that custom loads ammo. They had worked up a load in a Fierce 26 utilizing the Barnes 127 gr LRX BT and found the tightest groups at a MV of 3393 fps so I ordered 4 boxes to try out in my gun. They actually grouped better than the Accubonds. So I re-zeroed to be dead on at 200 yards and shot it out to 300 yards on my first range day. The next time to the range after entering the profile in my Sig Sauer Kilo 2400 ABS I shot the 500 meter range and was consistently knocking over the steel sheep, pigs, etc between 200 meters and 500 meters. Out to that range the turret yardage markings were still good though I was getting the output from the Kilo in MOA and counting clicks. I thought all was good and so with the 12/31/17 deadline for receiving on-line ammo in CA (don't get me started) I bought another 4 boxes so I would have it for future hunts.
Here is where the problem started. On a hunt two weeks later I had an animal broadside at 350 yards and completely missed and missed him again going away at 450. I was at a loss as to why I had completely missed as to I never fell on the hunt, bumped my scope, etc. Once home, I went back to the range and now I couldn't hit anything between 300 and 500 meters. I was by myself but shot video through my phone scope and it appeared I was hitting consistently way low. Another shooter came over and spotted for me and confirmed I was way low. When I explained how I got to this point he suggested I check the scope tracking with a Collimator. He said if the scope was tracking erratically you would see the grid in the Collimater appear to jump all over as you dialed the turret up and down. Appreciative of the advice and hoping that this would be my problem, I left the range and went home and checked the tracking through my Collimator. All appeared in order. In addition I checked the torque on all the action screws, rings, etc. but didn't find anything out of wack. Back to the range I went and shot my first group at 200 yards. The group was 4 MOA low. I re-zeroed accordingly and shot it out to 300 yards going back and forth on the turret between my 200 and 300 yard target to see if there were any changes in the point of impact. It all seemed good now.
So now I have an explanation as to why I most likely missed on my hunt, but have no explanation as to what caused my point of impact to change by 4 MOA so I have lost all confidence in the gun until I can find a plausible reason. I was hoping to get some input from you experienced shooters on what might of have caused this as the only things I can come up with are as follows; 1. the turret somehow hung or something but then tracked normally again after misaligning by 4 MOA or 12 clicks on my scope (I don't know if this is even possible). 2. the turret somehow loosened and was set back down on a different yardage (though I don't see how as it seems you have to basically take the screw completely out to raise the turret to set it back down) 3. unbeknownst to me the scope was somehow banged or jarred to move the point of impact 4. barrel fouling changed the pressure and therefore the group point of impact but this seems unlikely to me based on the amount of point of impact shift. Note I didn't clean the bore between any of the sessions or before my hunt.
Thanks in advance for any ideas/help in troubleshooting my problem...
Horniac
I had a rifle built in 26 Nosler. I have a Huskemah Blue Diamond 5x20 scope on it with a turret built for the 140 gr Accubond. Because our state is outlawing lead bullets, I am switching to copper. However I was unable to find any factory ammo that I could readily purchase with a copper bullet so I turned to a company that custom loads ammo. They had worked up a load in a Fierce 26 utilizing the Barnes 127 gr LRX BT and found the tightest groups at a MV of 3393 fps so I ordered 4 boxes to try out in my gun. They actually grouped better than the Accubonds. So I re-zeroed to be dead on at 200 yards and shot it out to 300 yards on my first range day. The next time to the range after entering the profile in my Sig Sauer Kilo 2400 ABS I shot the 500 meter range and was consistently knocking over the steel sheep, pigs, etc between 200 meters and 500 meters. Out to that range the turret yardage markings were still good though I was getting the output from the Kilo in MOA and counting clicks. I thought all was good and so with the 12/31/17 deadline for receiving on-line ammo in CA (don't get me started) I bought another 4 boxes so I would have it for future hunts.
Here is where the problem started. On a hunt two weeks later I had an animal broadside at 350 yards and completely missed and missed him again going away at 450. I was at a loss as to why I had completely missed as to I never fell on the hunt, bumped my scope, etc. Once home, I went back to the range and now I couldn't hit anything between 300 and 500 meters. I was by myself but shot video through my phone scope and it appeared I was hitting consistently way low. Another shooter came over and spotted for me and confirmed I was way low. When I explained how I got to this point he suggested I check the scope tracking with a Collimator. He said if the scope was tracking erratically you would see the grid in the Collimater appear to jump all over as you dialed the turret up and down. Appreciative of the advice and hoping that this would be my problem, I left the range and went home and checked the tracking through my Collimator. All appeared in order. In addition I checked the torque on all the action screws, rings, etc. but didn't find anything out of wack. Back to the range I went and shot my first group at 200 yards. The group was 4 MOA low. I re-zeroed accordingly and shot it out to 300 yards going back and forth on the turret between my 200 and 300 yard target to see if there were any changes in the point of impact. It all seemed good now.
So now I have an explanation as to why I most likely missed on my hunt, but have no explanation as to what caused my point of impact to change by 4 MOA so I have lost all confidence in the gun until I can find a plausible reason. I was hoping to get some input from you experienced shooters on what might of have caused this as the only things I can come up with are as follows; 1. the turret somehow hung or something but then tracked normally again after misaligning by 4 MOA or 12 clicks on my scope (I don't know if this is even possible). 2. the turret somehow loosened and was set back down on a different yardage (though I don't see how as it seems you have to basically take the screw completely out to raise the turret to set it back down) 3. unbeknownst to me the scope was somehow banged or jarred to move the point of impact 4. barrel fouling changed the pressure and therefore the group point of impact but this seems unlikely to me based on the amount of point of impact shift. Note I didn't clean the bore between any of the sessions or before my hunt.
Thanks in advance for any ideas/help in troubleshooting my problem...
Horniac
