Shot groupings

[waveslayer]

I was told to stop calling them flyers. If the bullet leaves the barrel your responsible for it. Truth hurts but it made sense. We often times chase our tails, especially with factory guns. The target is telling you what the gun will do. If the group was 2-3 MOA you might invest more time, but at 1 MOA it might just be a 1 MOA gun. Like someone else said 1 MOA for big game will get the job done if you do yours. This may not seem helpful or may not apply, just something to chew on.

Have you tried shooting it out past 100? I've seen a phenomenon where some guns that will shoot like that at 100, but stay tight out to 200-300 and beyond. Same guy who gave me the advice builds custom rifles. Shoot one of his 6.5s the other day. It was a little better than yours on paper at 100, but a shot time later shot several sub groups at 200.

I think that is sound advice! but I will push back on the 100 yard grouping versus 200-300 plus yard groupings. This has been tested extensively and has not been validated. If the gun groups well at 200 or 300 yards it will group well at 100 yards. No bullets don't stabilize and shrink groups the farther they fly. Garbage in, Garbage out...

Now, if anyone, not calling you out, wants to disprove this? Please invite me to witness, Applied Ballistics will pay for you to discredit these claims. Free ammo, free trip etc... It has yet to be validated that groups group better at 200 yards plus. I learned this the hard way! Got my butt handed to me by Brian Litz. I met him at Berger one day when he was visiting.

What you guys will see with groups shrinking at distance is an issue of too much power on your optics, parallax, etc. At distance you are more focused on a finner (smaller) point of Aim, so you think your groups are shrinking, in reality you shot better. Power down your scopes or use a smaller target for your POA, like the triangle of a target, see picture below. My POA was the far orange triangle . Yes I got excited and pulled my 5th shot on my new 300 Norma barrel, yes it had zero break in done.... which goes to show is barrel break in really

necessary... depends on your barrel, I haven't to do it, but that's another thread yes the POI is not my POA, if you shoot out your POA what are you aiming at?... just a friendly tip

 

[iflyskyhigh]

I think that is sound advice! but I will push back on the 100 yard grouping versus 200-300 plus yard groupings. This has been tested extensively and has not been validated. If the gun groups well at 200 or 300 yards it will group well at 100 yards. No bullets don't stabilize and shrink groups the farther they fly. Garbage in, Garbage out...

Now, if anyone, not calling you out, wants to disprove this? Please invite me to witness, Applied Ballistics will pay for you to discredit these claims. Free ammo, free trip etc... It has yet to be validated that groups group better at 200 yards plus. I learned this the hard way! Got my butt handed to me by Brian Litz. I met him at Berger one day when he was visiting.

What you guys will see with groups shrinking at distance is an issue of too much power on your optics, parallax, etc. At distance you are more focused on a finner (smaller) point of Aim, so you think your groups are shrinking, in reality you shot better. Power down your scopes or use a smaller target for your POA, like the triangle of a target, see picture below. My POA was the far orange triangle . Yes I got excited and pulled my 5th shot on my new 300 Norma barrel, yes it had zero break in done.... which goes to show is barrel break in really View attachment 356167 necessary... depends on your barrel, I haven't to do it, but that's another thread yes the POI is not my POA, if you shoot out your POA what are you aiming at?... just a friendly tip

Fair enough

 

[JMack]

Would you guys do a seating depth test at this point?

 

[waveslayer]

Would you guys do a seating depth test at this point?

won't hurt, you will find out quickly, but I'd be interested to see the velocity to see what it shows... if it's erratic then there could be another issue

 

[ultimag43]

Your first two shots show Very good control , barrel heat is always building up,by your 3rd shot their walking and Opening your group. I see no need of 5 shots groups especially now, factory barrels only can deliver so much , cheers!!!.

my factory barreled browning in both 280 ai and 6.5 creed will put 5 shots into a 0.40 group @200 yards with hornadys eld x all day every day there are some factory rifles that will out shoot custom barrels

 

[JMack]

my factory barreled browning in both 280 ai and 6.5 creed will put 5 shots into a 0.40 group @200 yards with hornadys eld x all day every day there are some factory rifles that will out shoot custom barrels

This rifle will shoot good

124 hammers next to a dime

And factory 147 eldm

 

[JMack]

won't hurt, you will find out quickly, but I'd be interested to see the velocity to see what it shows... if it's erratic then there could be another issue

I run a couple through magnetospeed

 

[ultimag43]

This rifle will shoot good

124 hammers next to a dime

And factory 147 el

not into hammers never will be i can get the same accuracy out of my 6.5 cm with 143
eld x & federals terminal accent in my 280ai

 

[RidgeTop]

Same bullet, 3 different loads. Two have the same powder charge but different primer. Does this ever frustrate any of you? Is this a glitch in my reloading process?

First two shots touch then….all shot on same day. Cool barrel. And they are all about 1"

I did not rotate the picture it's three different targets.

Why are the holes different size?

 

[JMack]

Why are the holes different size?

On which targets? The hammer target? I was using a plastic "target" when I shot that group because it was raining. It was a sheet of plastic shipping material from a pallet of concrete pavers

 

[QuietTexan]

What you guys will see with groups shrinking at distance is an issue of too much power on your optics, parallax, etc. At distance you are more focused on a finner (smaller) point of Aim, so you think your groups are shrinking, in reality you shot better. Power down your scopes or use a smaller target for your POA, like the triangle of a target

Ok I think I'm following you better now.

I've never seen groups "shrink" at distance, either 2" at 100 yards/ 1" at 200 yards, or 3" at 100, 3" at 200, 3" at 300. I agree with you that there's something wrong with equipment or what they're doing in those cases.

That's not "holding" group size to me though. When I say a group holds, I mean that to say it holds to an angular size (ex. 0.5 moa mean radius) for multiple hundred yard lines. Groups of 1" at 100, 2" at 200, 3" at 300. The group gets larger in absolute measurement by inches, but the mean radius in an angular unit is the same.

That's how I took the see if the groups "stay tight" at 200 and 300 yards comment, not that they'll stay at 1" but rather would stay at 1 MOA. IMO a sub-MOA load with a consistent angular dispersion is a good load for most of my uses, even if it's not the absolute smallest group possible if I kept changing out components and burned up the whole barrel looking for the best.

 

[Marine sniper]

The vast majority of "fliers" are related to shooting technique not being replicated perfectly every shot; light weight rifles compound the issue.

 

[parshal]

I've chased this scenario many times on multiple different rifles/calibers. They're not fliers as others have said. They're part of the group. If you shoot 5-10 round groups you'll find a nice grouping but about the same size as the three round 'flier' group.

 

[Will Gray]

Use the highest power setting on your scope, account for parallax and shoot for a specific spot on the target: for a bullseye target be sure to shoot at the center of the center. The intersection of lines on a target tend to cause more precision aiming than a round target. Blink just like the eye doctor asks you to do to clarify the image. Clean glasses and optics are a must.