calling all experienced hand loaders!

[Bigeclipse]

I was hoping to get a list of things to check for random flyers. I know things like charge, barrel harmonics, bedding...etc but I was hoping you could list (in order) the likely reasons why I might have two bullets touching at 100 yards and then the third flies maybe 1 inch away...taking a potential .25-.5 moa group and making it 1 moa. Please don't comment that groups are not groups unless you shoot 5+ shots...Yada Yada yada. I know this. I'm just confused how one could consistantly get 2 bullets touching and then a third flyer. I mean I have done this like 3 out of 5 groups. Seems like a little more is going on here than chance. I know it could be my load or seating depth or the gun itself. That is why I'm asking you all to write a list from most probable to least probable issue for me to check. Thanks !

 

[gohring3006]

Try a different Primer.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Has your rifle been correctly bedded and floated? If not, that is the most likely culprit that stands out to me.

 

[Jktm]

Light weight barrel? I had Weatherby Mark V that would do the same thing

 

[snowpro440]

Too many things to list but most importantly are you shooting a thin sporter barrel ?
Barrel heats up and moves or creates stress in the steel. Could just be your bullets / seating depth . Measure base to ogive ? Loosen the stock screws and stand the gun upward position with the muzzle pointing to the sky and retighten the action screws. This will let the recoil lug slide against the backstop. Many things without seeing the gun , Can you post a picture or 2 of it ?

 

[Bigeclipse]

Has your rifle been correctly bedded and floated? If not, that is the most likely culprit that stands out to me.

Barrel is floated. Rifle is skim glass bedded not full bedded where you grind out like an with eighth if an inch of the stock out leaving lots of room for bedding compound etc.

Light weight barrel? I had Weatherby Mark V that would do the same thing

I'd consider it heavier than a pencil barrel and most standard factory barrels but not heavy though.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Too many things to list but most importantly are you shooting a thin sporter barrel ?
Barrel heats up and moves or creates stress in the steel. Could just be your bullets / seating depth . Measure base to ogive ? Loosen the stock screws and stand the gun upward position with the muzzle pointing to the sky and retighten the action screws. This will let the recoil lug slide against the backstop. Many things without seeing the gun , Can you post a picture or 2 of it ?

It is a savage rebarreled with a custom barrel. This is not going to be a long range shooter so honestly it is shooting well enough BUT I just thought it weird it is grouping 2 bullets touching and then a random flyer almost all the time. I do measure base to ogive and I'm .010 off the lands right now with nosler 140 accubonds in a 7mm08. I always tighten the action screws with the barrel pointed up. Rifle is in a Boyds laminate stock which has pillars and glass bedding. I was shooting rather fast so barrel definitely could have been heating up but not so much that it was uncomfortable when I touched it.

I honestly did not do a full load work up. Simply loaded 6 rounds up to max charge. Once I confirmed Max charge was still safe and shooting a good speed. I then loaded 4 rounds .5 grain below max and 4 rounds at max just to see how it shot. And those were the results I got with one of the loads. The other was not so great... about 1.25 in perfect triangle group

 

[7magcreedmoor]

Did you float the tang on that Savage? They generally like it better with the tang free-floating behind the rear action screw.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Did you float the tang on that Savage? They generally like it better with the tang free-floating behind the rear action screw.

Tang is floated

 

[SidecarFlip]

I have to ask how are you loading them? By that I mean are you checking concentricity as it relates to the pill when seated in the brass? A common issue as it relates to an errant shot when all the others group, is, the pill isn't seated concentric to the case mouth. Normally, anything over 0.002 deviation from concentric will result in a flyer.

What occurs is the pill is canted in the case mouth so when the powder ignites, it pushes the pill in a cocked position, into the rifling and it stays in that position all the way down the tube until it exits the muzzle. As it flies through the air, it deviates from the normal path of flight because it's cocked to one side.

No matter how good your seating die is, some pills will seat cocked (more than 0.002"). I check each and every one of mine (I load with an RCBS competition seat die with a floating bullet guide and every once in a while, I'll get a cocked pill.

I used to pull the pills, dump the propellant and resize the case but thats pretty time consuming so I bought a concentricity gage (Hornady makes a dandy one) that will actually align the pill by using a dial indicator to dheck runout and a pusher screw to push the pill into a concentric position.

I eliminated all my flyers using that method. I believe thats your issue.

Even factory ammo is suspect.

 

[geo4061]

+1 on allowing the barrel to cool. My 300 RUM does the same thing unless I allow plenty of cool down time.

 

[bigngreen]

I honestly did not do a full load work up. Simply loaded 6 rounds up to max charge. Once I confirmed Max charge was still safe and shooting a good speed. I then loaded 4 rounds .5 grain below max and 4 rounds at max just to see how it shot. And those were the results I got with one of the loads. The other was not so great... about 1.25 in perfect triangle group

Likely your answering your own question here, with no load development short of a wild guess you get what you get, seating depth test would be a great next step, primer test also not a bad idea.

 

[Mikecr]

+1 gohring3006
Not that there is anything wrong with your current primers, but where they don't like the gun's striking they can cause fliers. Out of 4-5 different primers, one will likely be way better than the others -for you.

 

[Bart B]

First off my bat, any attempt to judge a load's accuracy with a single 2- to 4-shot group is not a good idea. Prove how good they are to your self by shooting several of them with the same round count then compare both their sizes and where their center is relative to the aiming point. It's very normal to have several such groups' largest one to be 3 to 4 times as big as the smallest one. and the smallest one is rarely the first one shot out of several of groups with the same load. More often than not, in my own tests the human holding the rifle is the greatest cause of large groups. And statistically speaking the smallest ones usually happen when all the variables tend to cancel each other out; that's why benchrest 100-yard few-shot group records are in hundredths of a MOA while their many-group aggregate's average in tenths of MOA's. . . a 10X spread in few-shot group sizes of the most accurate rifles and ammo.

Second ball off my bat is the following about crooked bullets:

What occurs is the pill is canted in the case mouth so when the powder ignites, it pushes the pill in a cocked position, into the rifling and it stays in that position all the way down the tube until it exits the muzzle. As it flies through the air, it deviates from the normal path of flight because it's cocked to one side.

The bullet does not stay crooked as it goes down the barrel. If it did, then Sierra Bullets would not be able to shoot their match bullets with .003" runout into 1/2" ten-shot test groups in their 200 yard range. Nor would Federal Gold Medal nor Black Hills .308 match ammo with that much normal runout be able to shoot 1/2 MOA at 100 yards with ease; which it does. In reality, bullets straighten up very much when entering the throat.

I hope you're not implying that the supposedly tipped bullet's long axis upon exit is the path it takes when free of the bore. If the bullet's an inch long and its nose center is .003" off its base center as it exits, the bullet's long axis is now pointing about 11 MOA away from where it would point if straight in the bore; it won't strike that far away from where a straight one would. It's gonna be about 7 MOA off with a .002" runout and about 3.5 MOA with a .001" runout.

I've had no problems testing 30 caliber ammo with about .003" runout getting about half MOA accuracy through 1000 yards. None of those "crooked" bullets left the bore at an angle big enough to make any difference.