Honesty and group size

[Loner]

There seems to be a mentality in the shooting world that with the right equipment
the skills can be acquired with little work. I wouldn't presume that with a couple of years
of part time practice I could be a Bob Munden or a Jerry Milulek. Why would I expect to
pic up the skills of Duane Capehart? I have some great guns and have made some great
shots, but not near consistent enough to win any match and not anywhere near the
world records. So yea, when people post bs I just let it go as bs or one lucky group out
of 30. I especially love the pics of cut down targets that only show three or 4 shots in
one little area or hole. Oh hell yea, I let my imagination go to work on what the rest of
the story looks like.

 

[Mike6158]

My personal experience with factory Remington rifles is that the best groups I can get consistently is about 1-1.5" and that's it.

I guess I'm brainwashed but I really don't want to put effort into loading for factory rifles anymore. And if I did, it would have to be a rifle that has a known better barrel from the factory, like a Savage, Sako, or Weatherby that comes with a Criterion bbl.

Bedding is so very critical in my opinion. In my experience it made all the difference in the world with my old factory Ruger MK II M77. I had 2 things done to that rifle in 1989: trigger pull reduced to 3 pounds and "glass bedded." Nothing else. That alone changed things for the better.

I later had a Hart barrel put on it and had the smith accurize the action. More difference!

I've been told by competition shooters that the powder charge doesn't make quite as much difference as brass quality and concentricity and bullet seating depth. Even Tubb says in his video he made for Sierra years ago that as much as a 1 grain powder difference doesn't make a lot of change out to (600 yards) I think.

I'm still quite anal though. I sort brass by weight with strict tolerance. I weigh EVERY powder charge, and I seat bullets one at a time with measuring overall length in an RCBS precision mic.

I don't sort bullets using a comparator/bearing surface check. I just make sure that each one is loaded exactly the same distance off the lands and this has served me well. It required me lengthening the seater by about .07 each time and it is time consuming but it works.

I have to say that my Sendero barrel is pretty good. It's not a Hart but it doesn't foul and with the right load its better than the .308 TAC that I have. The .223 TAC is better than the Sendero at 100. FWIW- 0.1 gr made the difference between 1/2 moa and hole in a hole with the .223.

I have 4 rifles that I shoot "for accuracy".

.223 Remington TAC. I installed a Jewell trigger @1.5 ounces. It has a Nightforce NXS, 20 minute NF base, DE cheek piece and that's about it. Basically it's set it up as close as I could to my DE Canyon rifle

.308 Remington TAC. It's set up the same as the .223 and I have almost no time on the trigger

7mm Remington Magnum Sendero SFII. Same drill as the first two except that I had a muzzle break put on. It was my first attempt at owning a long range rifle. It's pretty decent but needs work. Like bedding. and accurizing. If I do that then I'll switch to a Hart barrel

.338-300 Defensive Edge Canyon rifle. This was my first custom and it's a dream to shoot. I let a friend of mines son shoot it a few weeks ago. He's a small kid (8th grade) and he shot it at a barrel that was 725 yards away. We had a cold front blow in the night before so the wind was gusty and unforgiving from about my 200°. The ground was wet so we couldn't spot any hits. It was an exercise in wasting bullets but the grin on the kids face when he shot it was priceless. I hit the drum on the first shot in a 10mph steady xwind the day before. It's a lot easier to dial the wind in when it's steady an predictable and a drum (barrel, whatever) is a pretty easy target.

So all in all I agree with you about factory barrels. The Sendero is decent... but the custom is orders of magnitude better. With the custom I know where the bullet is going to go if I do my part. No so much with the Sendero and definitely not with the TAC's The other two... I was really surprised at how rough the barrels were and how long it took to clean the .223 up. I resorted to Tubb's "sandpaper" bullets for both of them. I haven't played with the .308 enough to know where it stands. The .223 is a good hog gun and at 100 it's accurate. But for a rifle that Remington calls "Tactical"... they ain't much.

Oh... one of the biggest *** that Remington sells is their "triangle barreled" VTR. I have one in .308. I know that I put over 500 rounds through that thing just to get it to settle down to a minute or better at 100. It fouled like crazy before it finally got broken in. I changed the *** factory stock, retriggered it, etc... I've heard some people that like theirs but I'm not one of them. Shot #1 is usually pretty good but after that they start walking "northeast".

 

[dragman]

I think a lot is put into what a gun is able to do. a Purpose built long range gun should be able to shoot close to an inch @ 500 yards for a BEST GROUP. Now what I mean by that is after you have developed the load and go to the range with perfect conditions you should be able to do it even if only once. Very few guns will consistantly do it but if the conditions are perfect and there is no time restrictions then I think it should be a good mark for a custom gun to be able to do. a factory gun I think 2-3" should be a good mark for best group @ 500 yards. Things to take into consideration are conditions and most importantly a good front rest and good rear bag! No sand bags bipods.

 

[Derek M.]

FWIW- 0.1 gr made the difference between 1/2 moa and hole in a hole with the .223.

Well with a small case like that I can understand. I could have been more specific in my earlier posts and that would include that having a 1 gr difference in powder can sometimes not make much difference in BIGGER cases, such as the various magnums.

I will add that when I referred to Tubb, he was also talking about the 7RemMag. He used 2 rounds during his videos. The 7mag and 243.

If I recall correctly, he also stated (at the time the video was made) that if he had to limit himself to 2 powders they'd be IMR4350 and IMR4064 for "everything."

 

[Derek M.]

Things to take into consideration are conditions and most importantly a good front rest and good rear bag! No sand bags bipods.

Agreed.

I also think the condition and quality of the brass and the prep make a difference as well. Which brings up a new question. I imagine that there are some guys who would build a new rifle and taking into consideration what kind of brass is available such as Lapua or Norma.

 

[dragman]

Agreed.

I also think the condition and quality of the brass and the prep make a difference as well. Which brings up a new question. I imagine that there are some guys who would build a new rifle and taking into consideration what kind of brass is available such as Lapua or Norma.

this is true. I built a 243AI over the 6mmAI for one reason only the availibility of good brass. Most don't take consideration the amount of prep time there is with a target gun as far as brass and load work. getting a 1" gun is easy it's the time effort and prep work that make a .1" gun. like I said before its less about the gun and more about the: Conditions, Rest, Brass, Bullets and over all loading.

 

[rscott5028]

Shooting a tiny group is an accomplishment worthy of praise.

But, anything can happen once. Or, occasionally.

If you are using past results as a predictor of future performance, then you need to apply statistics. As such, confidence is gained from larger samples and selecting the best samples will skew the results.

Nonetheless, there are many variables to consider and there may be valid cases for discarding the occasional flier.

The bottom line is that you can compete with yourself to continue improvement. Or, you can compete with others under the same conditions as a better measure. The results of many matches are available online. Knowing the class and rules will give you an idea of what type of equipment people are using.

Competing against Internet postings is a tough proposition.

-- richard

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

I think what you are reading is holding 1 moa at 500 yards. I haven't seen anyone on here claiming to consistently shoot under 1" groups at 500 yards. My best shooting rifle is a 243 AI that will consistently shoot three shot .6"-.7" groups at 300 yards. I have shot 1" three shot groups before at longer range targets but just a fluke because I could not repeat it. My son shot a 2" group at 620 yards with his 257 wby last year. Although the rifle is a top shooter I doubt we could repeat it regularly in the standard mk 5 wby rifle. Target accuracy is hard to achieve in a light hunting rifle. In a 30+ pound target rifle some good groups happen.

I am thinking about doing a straight cylinder no taper 30" tube in 338-378 wby for long range ATV hunting. I can get 3500 fps out of my 28" tube right now with the 225 grain .64 BC cutting edge bullet and the accuracy and ballistics are amazing. Back in the summer I was putting three shot groups through the chest of an elk silhouette target at 1600 yards. The issue is money for the project which must include funds for the rangefinder Broz and Shawn recomended to me for accurate ranging that far.

 

[Greyfox]

This is 4 shots at 500 in 1.25" out of my Savage LRH in 6.5x284 with a 5x20 Huskemaw. Can't do it every time, most likely due to me, or the wind, but the rifle is consistantly very accurate. I also have a factoy Cooper in the same caliber and scope that shoots as well. It's not an inch, but good enough for me.

 

[sp6x6]

I dont have real formal training, but shot on our highschool team, and shot as a member, the weak one on a MT state smallbore pistol team. So I have had some trigger time, most when I was younger. But a few guys I shot with 2 almost made olyimpics.Friend in school shot to national champ 1000 yrd. @ 13 and another was close on moving target air rifle. We shot at same club. This is a group out of my 338 Norma @ 400, I have shot many under 2''. My rifle is a light packer. I have 3 buddies that shoot 1000 bench and get help there. The one guy just shot 2 WRecords this season, think it was 5 or 6 match agg. he has alot of targets 5 shots under 3 ''. But alot of these are practice and they score for 10 shots. I watched the one guy put 5 in a 2 3/4 group @ 1000 light gun class, under 17 #s I think, I shot 3 off my bipod and 338 Norma into 2 1/4 wide x 6 1/4 tall, 1000

 

[parker33]

I actually came across this post while looking for a picture of the record5 shot group at 600 yards and it was shot in 2008 with a .308 win and measured a.383 inches. It broke the old record that was in the .6 range so anything is possible.