Groups at 100, 200, 300???

[Bigeclipse]

All,
I brought my 7mm rem mag to range last week to try shooting at 300yards. I shoot to 100 yards most, then 200 but rarely at 300. I wanted to start practicing long range discipline at 300 yards, especially since I have a long range rifle now. I have not made reloads for it and only have shot one brand factory loads (remington 150 corelokts)

A weird thing happened. I have shot these bullets at 100 yards a few times... five 5 shot groups- all groups were under 1 MOA. But none were better than .75 MOA. Then I took it out to 200 yards, groups are right around 1.5 inches (.75MOA) which makes sense. Here is the weird thing...took the rifle out to 300 yards, and groups stayed at 1.5 inches or .5MOA. How is it im shooting better at 300 yards than 100 yards? Sorry for a newb sounding question...just confused. thanks

 

[Tikkamike]

easy! thats actually common. most bullets tend to fly better when they get out there a ways and stabilize or "go to sleep" always a good feeling when that happens. Time to shoot 400

 

[Bigeclipse]

easy! thats actually common. most bullets tend to fly better when they get out there a ways and stabilize or "go to sleep" always a good feeling when that happens. Time to shoot 400

interesting...thanks for the clarification. I will be shooting more this weekend. Practice, practice, practice!

 

[justgoto]

One word to the OP; parallax.

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A reply to Tikkamike;
Epicyclic Swerve

The theory goes:
"The bullet leaves the barrel with some degree of pitching and yawing motion. At short ranges, before the pitching and yawing damp out (i.e., before the bullet 'goes to sleep') epicyclic swerve is responsible for larger groups because the bullet is flying on a 'corkscrew' trajectory. After the bullet 'goes to sleep', the bullet flies straighter, allowing smaller groups at longer range".



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The phenomenon of smaller angular groups at longer ranges was not disproven. The only thing I've shown is that if the phenomenon actually happens, epicyclic swerve is not the cause of it.
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