“Your groups are too small” vs barrel life

They have said at the same time we can't say the same thing with other manufacturers' bullets and other cartridge designs as we haven't tested their bullets
Thanks for confirming what THEIR podcasts are ALL ABOUT…THEIR DESIGNS. Which by the way are NO DIFFERENT in tolerance than anything else out there by OTHER MANUFACTURERS.

Cheers.
 
It was always weird how real guns/ammo were almost never really a "normal distribution".
Even with electric driven auto-cannons, you would expect it to be, but it turns out there are reasons why the very center is usually a little flatter than it is supposed to be for a true Gaussian Distribution.
A test barrel locked into a shooting machine, tends to be a little thin at the zero.
 
Thanks for confirming what THEIR podcasts are ALL ABOUT…THEIR DESIGNS. Which by the way are NO DIFFERENT in tolerance than anything else out there by OTHER MANUFACTURERS.

Cheers.
Actually, their designs are different than others out there. Through collecting doppler radar data on thousands of rounds fired, they identified and recently patented a meplat diameter to caliber ratio that significantly decreased bullet drag variability. They proved that highly pointed meplats have a lower, but less consistent, drag. A slightly flattened meplat increased the drag marginally, but produced a much more consistent drag. The ratio is what is important and what they were awarded the patent for.

From an article in OutdoorLife 5/21/2024 "To reduce drag variability, the diameter of the flat on the meplat must fall between .08 and .16 times the diameter of the bullet."
 
Last edited:
This is an easy one to give a rough answer Rocky.... Just for fun.

(Although I can say that in my professional life, I have rarely ever seen a hit probability distribution that was actually a "normal distribution".)

Since we called it a 1 MOA rifle, that means it would be for 6 SD worth of the group. So, from that starting point, the probability for the first part of your question is roughly 100 percent because you are covering that with your definition. For this to be called a 1 MOA rifle, all 10 of those shots are within the 1 MOA.
If we keep looking for the probability of the inside 0.5 MOA, then roughly speaking there would be roughly 80% of them. Your probability is roughly 7/10 - 8/10 should land inside the 0.5 MOA zone with an 1 MOA rifle. So any given single shot has about 7 to 8 out of 10 chance of landing inside 0.5 MOA, but only in a perfect world....
View attachment 606245
That took less time than I thought it would! The internet has made it sound like the only good rifles are .25 moa. I get sick of hearing how "My 6.5lb all in hunting rifle shoots .5 moa all day at 1000y". If this was true, these rifles would be winning 1000y bench rest competitions against 20lb rifles. It simply isn't true. A true 1 moa hunting rifle should never be gotten rid of. I think the really good, I mean really good, hunting rifles that are .5 moa, still pitch one out to 1moa here and there. "Called shot. That was me, not my rifle."

In my small statistical load development and long range validation, I want to see solid sub moa accuracy. I totally agree with the Hornady guys that loading in .2gr increments is statistically inconsequential. Unless shooting something like a 17 Hornet I rarely make powder adjustments less than one grain. The smallest that I ever make is .5gr. When I load develop I shoot one shot 1gr increments all fired at the same dot. If the rifle likes what we are using it will usually show pretty close to an moa target, even though we may have increased 200fps to 300fps in the ladder. If the group in the ladder is all over the place, I switch to a different powder. I have seen changing primers take a rifle from 2.5 moa to .5 moa. Wouldn't think it possible had I not seen it. Still too small a statistical sample to prove but it held up at long range.

I think if guys actually listen to the Hornady podcast, they could save the amount of powder, primers, and bullets they shoot to develop a load, in a third. They aren't telling you need to shoot hundreds and hundreds of shots to develop a load. They are telling you not to do that, because unless you do, the small changes that you are making are statistically unproven and likely will not change anything. It might make you more confident, which is priceless.

I could sell a lot more bullets if I told guys to load in .5gr increments in 5 shot groups in a ladder up to pressure. Then take the best group and work up and down from there in .2gr increments to find the best group. Then take that best group and work the seating depth in 2 thou increments in 5 shot groups to find the best group. If a guy has done this he has gone through hundreds of bullets and they are all statistically inconsequential. When you are making these minute changes you would have to shoot 30-50 shots at each change to prove it to be actually better. They are saying that if you actually shot 30-50 shots at each minute change it would prove to be not different.

The guys that take offense to the Hornady guys are the guys that take hundreds of shots to develop a load. Now Hornady comes along and tells them that they have been wasting their time and money and it offends them.

My method to load develop usually takes less than 20 shots, including zeroing and confirming drops. Sometimes we get that rifle that is picky and we have to try several powders to find what it likes. There have been a few that have taken us 70 shots to find the combo but I never tinker a rifle into a good load.
 
I think if guys actually listen to the Hornady podcast, they could save the amount of powder, primers, and bullets they shoot to develop a load, in a third. They aren't telling you need to shoot hundreds and hundreds of shots to develop a load. They are telling you not to do that, because unless you do, the small changes that you are making are statistically unproven and likely will not change anything. It might make you more confident, which is priceless.
^^^ THIS ^^^
 
Actually, their designs are different than others out there. Though collecting doppler radar data on thousands of rounds fired, they identified and recently patented a meplat diameter to caliber diameter ratio that significantly decreased bullet drag variability. The proved that highly pointed meplats have a lower, but less consistent, drag. A slightly flattened meplat increased the drag slightly, but produced much more consistent drag. The ratio is what is important and what they were awarded the patent for.
Surprised they got a patent for this. When I first started researching this 10 plus years ago, it was known that a bit of a blunt end was better than a pure point. This is why they put the little stick with a disc on it out in front of the fighter jets. Breaks a hole in the pressure for the plane to pass through.
 
So what is your take on this video?

First, I subscribe to Keith's channel and enjoy his content and respect his opinions. As far as the video you posted, he did not state what the mean radius of either group was. He did give the SD and they are only different by 0.15 MOA. I am not a statistician, but I am not sure if 0.15 MOA is statistically different for these two samples. He does shoot Berger Bullets, which have a more aggressive ogive and may be more sensitive to seating depth than others. He has a newer video out regarding seating depth and it appears his thinking has changed on the subject.

 
Last edited:
No matter the results from stats, mathematics or Japanese History I know which one Phil prefers out of the two.
How on earth can the results on those 2 targets be looked at any other way than Winner and Loser?
 
No matter the results from stats, mathematics or Japanese History I know which one Phil prefers out of the two.
How on earth can the results on those 2 targets be looked at any other way than Winner and Loser?
If you watch the video, he goes on to shoot 33 round of each load and demonstrates no statistical difference between the larger sample sizes. One group was randomly bigger than the other for the small 3 shot sample, but when you add more data points they were statistically the same. That is the whole point of what we are discussing, small samples sizes are nothing but statistical noise. If you shoot 10 three shot groups of the identical load, you may randomly get some clover leafs and some 1 MOA groups. That is precisely why picking a random 3 shot group does not represent how that load really shoots. Obviously if your goal is 0.5 MOA and your first 3 shot group is 1.5 MOA, then it isn't getting any better, change the powder or the bullet. But basing seating depth off of a single 3 shot group is a waste of time and components, as Hornady and Keith Glasscock have demonstrated.
 
Last edited:
If you watch the video, he goes on to shoot 33 round of each load and demonstrates no statistical difference between the larger sample sizes. One group was randomly bigger than the other for the small 3 shot sample, but when you add more data points they were statistically the same. That is the whole point of what we are discussing, small samples sizes are nothing but statistical noise. If you shoot 10 three shot groups of the identical load, you may randomly get some clover leafs and some 1 MOA groups. That is precisely why picking a random 3 shot group does not represent how that load really shoots. Obviously if your goal is 0.5 MOA and your first 3 shot group is 1.5 MOA, then it isn't getting any better, change the powder or the bullet. But basing seating depth off of a single 3 shot group is a waste of time and components, as Hornady and Keith Glasscock have now demonstrated.
My office was full of distractions on round 1, I'll watch again later.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0420.png
    IMG_0420.png
    3.4 MB · Views: 37
First, I subscribe to Keith's channel and enjoy his content. He shoots Berger, which have a more aggressive ogive and may be more sensitive to seating depth. As far as the video you posted, he did not state what the mean radius of either group was. He did give the SD and they are only different by 0.15 MOA. I am not a statistician, but I am not sure if 0.15 MOA is statistically different for these two samples. He has a newer video out regarding seating depth and it appears he has new thinking on the subject.


33 shots each of three different seating depths from previous testing: best, worst, and mediocre. The difference in group size for 33 shots of each seating depth was roughly 10%. Not statistically different. And funky things were going on. Worst was sometimes best. That doesn't make me want to spend much time on seating depth testing.
So what is your take on this video?

On the earlier video in the shooter's judgement the 0.003 difference in seating depth made a difference in group size. It does look like a pretty big difference but can't be statistically analyzed. To do statistics he'd need to repeat the test two more times. More importantly was this the biggest difference he's seen? Does it make that big of a difference often or was this a cherry-picked result? So a 7 minute video that proved nothing. Make the same change another 10-20 times with different rifles and bullets and post the results of all targets. Then maybe you'd have something.
 

Recent Posts

Top