VLD Seating Depth

[brant89]

I adjust the cheek rests and set up my scopes by closing my eyes and getting into a comfortable position as you said. I'll double check both rifles though. I'll have to research how to remove the butt pad because there are no screws in the back so it must be glued on.

Looking at the picture it looks like I still need a little work on getting directly behind the rifle.

 

[BrentM]

I hope you don't mind me giving you input. Your prone needs work. I will paste a vid that will help.

 

[BrentM]

This vid and the series made by the NSSF are quite good. There are others but both of these instructors bring some excellent experience to the table. I like gunwerks stuff as well.

 

[brant89]

I appreciate the input. My goal from this post was to figure out why this rifle won't shoot and if that means I need to practice my form then that's what I'll do. I'll watch that video and try to figure out what needs worked on. My biggest problem is that I don't have anyone that I shoot with so everything I have been doing is self taught.

 

[BrentM]

Understood.

Your head is tilted to the right because your right shoulder is supported by your elbow which is raising the right side of your body. This puts a lot more strain on consistent eye alignment and introduces more muscle issues into the shoulder and trigger hand. Many experienced shooters can get away with awkward firing positions because they have overcome some of the fundamentals that plague newer shooters. Having said that, I am sure you can shoot fine, but precision shooting is not about being fine it is about being consistent day to day.
An example of how this might work better for a shooter is while load development. If a person struggles a little then results will not be desirable and the dog chases its tail constantly.

By most peoples standards these are decent groups. The groups were during load development. As you know hitting the bullseye is not the point until zereoing the rifle. I could and should re-shoot the second group shown here as I may have easily wiggled a round in or out of the group slighty. I am used to shooting decent groups but I do go through a series of exercises everytime I line up behind the rifle. I don't do this for a living so I still have to think through the shots and be mindful of form.

 

[BrentM]

 

[brant89]

I would be extremely pleased with either of those groups. To-date I have shot several groups in the .2's but most are closer to .5, which leads right in to what you were saying about consistency from one day to the next. I guess I will be giving the .223 a good workout until I can find some more components for the 260. I might also need to develop a new load for the 223 if they don't start putting out some more amax's real soon. And if there are any experienced precision shooters in the Michigan, Indiana, Ohio tri-state area that wouldn't mind taking a rookie under their wing for a day I would appreciate having someone pick apart my shooting form.

 

[BrentM]

Which leads me to believe the 260 and you are not meshing yet. It also might mean, since you can shoot and you have proved that to yourself, there could still be flaws in your reloading process regarding the 260.

Check perhaps these items:
Powder scale consistent
Weight sort your brass
flash hole shaping
Switch primers- We had a bad batch of CCI. I use federal match.
Concentricity of the loaded ammo. Bullet alignment is critical.
Neck thickness and tension. Do you neck size?

Shooter:
One thing that can lead to inconsistent velocity is how you shoulder the rifle. For example, if you put the butt of the rifle against the wall vs against nothing and fire it, the round fired against the wall will have a lot more velocity, simple physics. If you shoulder the rifle really hard, then light, then medium, then hard, the POI can can change. This is why SD on people who chrono ever round can vary.

Some people use a lead sled to shoot better groups and dial a load. Although I don't use a sled, you certainly could try one and see if changes the POI on your current loads.

You could fly to Idaho. Bring your rifles, reloading dies, etc. whatever you can get on the plane and I will spend a few days with you.

 

[brant89]

I check my scale for consistency on a pretty regular basis, if not religiously. I never sorted brass, shaped the flash holes, checked concentricity, or neck turned my brass simply because I never needed to with my .223 to get the 1/2 MOA accuracy that I wanted. I have recently been wondering about concentricity though because I did notice uneven marking when seating to the lands and I'm not sure if it is due to runout in my loads or if the throat was poorly cut. I have been setting up my FL dies to only bump the shoulder and chamber without excessive force but no more. Should this process yield 1/2MOA results or did I get lucky with my 223?

I did try the lead sled once but didn't notice a very significant improvement but it might be worth taking a second look at. And unfortunately I think flying to Idaho is out of the question for me for a while since the wife and I are house hunting.

Also, I'm certainly not bragging about my 1/2 MOA groups with my 223 as I'm sure most of the people on here would make me look pretty silly at the range. The only reason I bring up the 223 so much is that is the rifle I have had the most experience with and I have always been satisfied with how well it shoots so it is really the only baseline that I have to compare to.

 

[BrentM]

OK, all good. I think you hit the nail on the head, you are used to the 223 and now you have a new rifle with a whole of lot differences. BTW- one of 6.5-284's had a weird spot in the throat like you describe but it shot .3 MOA consistently with my hand loads so I didn't worry about it. When I pushed the bullet into the throat for testing OAL I could feel it. Hated it but results proved it didn't matter that much. When I scoped the throat you could see one side of the lands was worn more than the other.

I don't necessarily believe all those things have to be done to get accuracy. However, all of these things bring consistency to the table and that is important to most reloaders. I have a 30-06 Remington sporter weight that shoots .4 and .6 with two different loads. One is 2600 fps and the other is 2800. 2 grains powder difference in the loads. I didn't do anything to the cases and I have no clue how many times they had been fired. So it can be done for sure. I have lots of examples of accurate rifles that took little to make accurate but when chasing down a problem you have to turn over every rock.

Question: did you check the torque on the action bolts etc. Can't recall if you did or not.

Also, double check your scope for tracking or even swap scope from rifle to rifle. Defects happen.

 

[brant89]

I double and triple check action torque as well as scope hardware. All good. I could try swapping out the scopes if I don't get positive results elsewhere. I think I'll work on my form and fit first and see what happens. I'll keep you posted on the results.