Berger VLD load testing: 100 yds or 200 yds to stabilize

[Mikecr]

I believe there are at least a few unrelated factors that are commonly grouped into a bogus 'going to sleep' notion.

Shooters believe it causes long range bullets to perform badly up close.
But the truth is LR BT bullets don't group as well as short range FB bullets AT ANY DISTANCE, provided conditions are perfect. This, because of release imperfections/muzzle blast against BT bullet bases -differing from FB bullets, and stability requirements in general(higher twist). And the errors introduced here do not 'undo' themselves at distance.
Yeah, LR bullets dampen out(pretty quick) unless dynamically unstable, but this is only producing less new dispersion, rather than correcting for past dispersion.

Shooters believe 'going to sleep' causes long range bullets to perform better further out, than up close(tighter moa with distance). But while this is commonly observed, the root cause has never been determined. Personally, I think it's scope parallax.

LR bullets will group better at distance than short range bullets when conditions are not perfect. But this is not because LR bullets have to dampen out issues on release(go to sleep).
Parallax aside, it's purely a matter of BC, that get's more and more dominant(over accuracy) with distance in the winds.

 

[rscott5028]

Here's my explanation with a video to demonstrate the dynamics:

epswerve

-Bryan

Bryan,

Unfortunately, people seem to always assume that those graphics are actual life size in inches. Nobody ever reads your conclusion that no matter how hard you tried, you could never account for as much as 1 full caliber worth of wobble.

Unfortunately, that's less impacting than such things as parallax error and the insignificance of drawing conclusions based on one or a few 3 shot groups.

Yes. Bullets "go to sleep."

No. It's not as dramatic as 2 MOA at 100 yds and 1 MOA at 200 yds.

Thanks!
richard

 

[BryanLitz]

Well put Richard.