Good load gone bad?? Or at least i think so.

[Iden]

Have any of you ever have a good shooting load out of a rifle go bad?I have a fairly new custom barrel remington model 700 chambered in 300 Win, that shot the following load well under 1/2 moa. Now all of a sudden it wont group under 1" at 100 yards. The barrel doesnt have but 600 rounds down it. I clean the barrel every 50 rounds. Any ideas are greatly appreciated! Have any of you guys experienced this?
My load is as follows:
Rem Brass
Fed 215 Primer
68 Gr H-4350
185 Berger Hunting VLD
Velocity-3095

 

[MagnumManiac]

Unfortunately it happens.
I've been in the same situation as you with ADI/Hodgdon powder, it may be temp stable but humidity is another story I found. H1000 was the worst for playing up from one shoot to the next. I no longer use it at all, I switched to either RE22 or RE25, haven't had a problem since.

Cheers
gun)

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

Have any of you ever have a good shooting load out of a rifle go bad?I have a fairly new custom barrel remington model 700 chambered in 300 Win, that shot the following load well under 1/2 moa. Now all of a sudden it wont group under 1" at 100 yards. The barrel doesnt have but 600 rounds down it. I clean the barrel every 50 rounds. Any ideas are greatly appreciated! Have any of you guys experienced this?
My load is as follows:
Rem Brass
Fed 215 Primer
68 Gr H-4350
185 Berger Hunting VLD
Velocity-3095

Why are you cleaning every 50 rounds?

 

[Greyfox]

Were there any changes in the lot#'s of any of your load components? If not, I would confirm that it is actually the load that is the problem. When I have had this happen it has almost always been the the rifle. Typical causes have been loosened scope mount components, loosened bedding screws, scope problem, bipod, or barrel wear. If you had checked your bullet seating depth to the lands, I would recheck it to make sure it is the same. When my groups opened up on my 270WSM it had increased a little less that an eigth of an inch from throat erosion. This occurred at 700 rounds fired and caused my groups to open about the same degree as yours. I recently went through a situation with my 300WM that would shoot .25-.5MOA very consistently. I had been shooting with a Harris Bipod and switched to an Atlas. When I first set it up using a Triad Tactical pic rail it shot the same as the Harris. I switched the pic rail to a Seekins mount that had an itegrated sling mount and was a a much sleeker design. The only problem was that the fit between pic rail and the mounting system was a loose fit causing a small amount of wobble. This was enough to open my groups up to +1MOA. When I switched hack to the original Triad rail which had a solid fit, my groups returned. Sorry for the ramble but I had experienced this quite a few times over the years.

 

[Deederswy]

Ive heard that different lots of powder can cause this issue, even if its the same powder you have been using, a very small subtle change could have been made while making the powder which could create a different burn rate, pressure etc....I would maybe consider loading 67.8, 67.9, 68, 68.1, 68.2 of your H-4350 and see if you adjusting to it makes a difference and tightens your group back up.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Likely your load wasn't that good to start with. I've seen rifles toss three or four good groups (often sub 1/4 moa) with a load and often more before the load proves itself to be crap. A good chance your barrel is marginally tolerating the bullet.

 

[Iden]

Thanks to all for the helpful advice! As far as the reloading components go I am still on the same lot number of my powder and bullets! I was wondering if my throat could be starting to slightly erode, ( corret me if im wrong)but I thought It would take more rounds to start that?

ICANHITHIMMAN
I have just had the idea of not letting the gun get too dirty. Am I cleaning the gun too much? How often do you all clean ur gun?

Thanks again

 

[MudRunner2005]

Unfortunately it happens.
I've been in the same situation as you with ADI/Hodgdon powder, it may be temp stable but humidity is another story I found. H1000 was the worst for playing up from one shoot to the next. I no longer use it at all, I switched to either RE22 or RE25, haven't had a problem since.

Cheers
gun)

I'm really glad to have stumbled upon this thread.......I had the same thing happen recently with H1000 and RL22.

My load with RL22 shot ok during winter and early spring, but shoots excellently during summer. And my H1000 load that was a 1-holer during winter/spring, is now shooting like crap during the summer.

It blew my mind since H1000 is supposed to be so temp stable.

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

wow interesting responses maybe H1000 has some QC issues.

As far as cleaning goes, I don't clean until the accuracy suffers. I have a few guns I have never cleaned 400 plus round counts.

 

[lloydsmale]

I shoot alot and have found i have good days and bad days behind the trigger. Ive also noticed, more with open sighted handguns that just the differnce in light at differnt times of the day can play havoc with my group shooting. Its also why i went to taking the average of two 5 shot groups to guage rifle accuracy by. Its just to easy to shoot a lucky 3 shot group one day and come back the next to find out your load is actually a 2inch load not a 1 inch.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

I shoot alot and have found i have good days and bad days behind the trigger. Ive also noticed, more with open sighted handguns that just the differnce in light at differnt times of the day can play havoc with my group shooting. Its also why i went to taking the average of two 5 shot groups to guage rifle accuracy by. Its just to easy to shoot a lucky 3 shot group one day and come back the next to find out your load is actually a 2inch load not a 1 inch.

I've gone a step further with my stw as she was really being obstinate to me with a stock that needed pillars, ring issues, bedding issues, etc.. I went back and averaged all the groups I shot with each load by moa. It wasn't very pretty sorting through all the issues and tossing in groups well over moa to get a fair average, but the load that showed best most days even with the rifle issues was the best at the end of the day mathmatically too. Over 300 rounds shooting went into the averages.

 

[lloydsmale]

I dont go that far but at least average two 5 shot groups and do it at least two differnt days. so im actually average using 20 shots. I kind of chuckle at guys claiming every gun they have is a moa shooter when in fact there shooting 3 shot groups and if the gun shoots one of those groups moa they majicaly think they have a moa gun.

 

[Iden]

Very interesting about the humidity and H-1000. Do u think that would be the case with the other hogdens powders?

 

[Canadian Bushman]

I shoot alot and have found i have good days and bad days behind the trigger. Ive also noticed, more with open sighted handguns that just the differnce in light at differnt times of the day can play havoc with my group shooting. Its also why i went to taking the average of two 5 shot groups to guage rifle accuracy by. Its just to easy to shoot a lucky 3 shot group one day and come back the next to find out your load is actually a 2inch load not a 1 inch.

+1 some days i can really throw some fliers.