cornfedkiller
WKR
Long story but I'll try to make it as short as possible.. Last fall I bought a Bergara B-14 hunter, shot it on paper a couple times and was very happy with the groups.. I have two friends shooting the same gun and use 143 eldx and 41.5g H4350, so thats what I tried. These are all off a bipod and rear bag. The orange target dots are 2".
1st group ever with a vx-3:
Upgraded to a Zeiss scope and this was the second group I shot with that setup after getting it sighted in:
Never shot the gun any more on paper but shot an 8" gong quite a bit anywhere from 100-300, and I've always been dead on. Even had one day this past spring that my stepdad, brother, wife (none of which had never shot the gun before) and I shot at the gong at 300 yards and everyone went 2/2.
Fast forward to this past May and I bought a (used) Christensen Mesa because I had always kinda had my eye on one, and sold the Bergara to a friend. Took the Zeiss scope off the Bergara and put it on the Mesa and went to the range with a bunch of different loads of 140gr accubonds (wanted to try them). Here were the results:
Then loaded up some 143 eldx loads and headed to the range..
Over the next several weeks, I shot quite a bit at the gong and was never overly impressed - maybe hitting it 40-50% of the time at 300 yards. Of course when you miss the gong, you can't tell where, so I wasn't sure what was going on. So a few weeks ago I decided to shoot some more paper and try to figure it out. Here is 100 yards - 1 is bipod with rear bag, 1 is just off a bag and no rear bag, and 1 is off the bipod with no rear bag - I can't remember which is which now, but it doesn't make much difference as they are all sub-par.
After that, I decided to do more paper shooting with the gun a couple weeks later to see if I was just having a bad day, or something was going on, and here are those results..
100 yards:
Talked to Christensen and they told me to send the gun in to get checked out, so thats what I did. I was frustrated with the whole situation and I was able to buy the Bergara back so I decided to just do that (never shot since I sold it to him). Got it home, mounted the scope, grabbed some ammo and headed outside.. This is now what my groups look like..
Not any better than I was getting with the Mesa, and obviously way worse than I had been shooting last year and this spring. I can't figure out what's going on, so I'm open to suggestions. I concentrated hard on making good shots, not rushing, and all except maybe a couple felt good - like when you squeeze the tigger and can't wait to see where the hole is because you just know its touching the last one. Obviously the only variables are the gun, the optics, the ammo, and myself. The gun doesn't seem to be the problem, I doubt there is a problem with the optics (especially since its been mounted and remounted several times), doubt there is a problem with the ammo, so I'm guessing it's me, but what am I doing wrong?
Only variable that could have changed with the ammo between the good shooting and bad shooting is I switched from CCI 200 primers to Federal 210, but I highly doubt it makes that big of a difference.
1st group ever with a vx-3:
Upgraded to a Zeiss scope and this was the second group I shot with that setup after getting it sighted in:
Never shot the gun any more on paper but shot an 8" gong quite a bit anywhere from 100-300, and I've always been dead on. Even had one day this past spring that my stepdad, brother, wife (none of which had never shot the gun before) and I shot at the gong at 300 yards and everyone went 2/2.
Fast forward to this past May and I bought a (used) Christensen Mesa because I had always kinda had my eye on one, and sold the Bergara to a friend. Took the Zeiss scope off the Bergara and put it on the Mesa and went to the range with a bunch of different loads of 140gr accubonds (wanted to try them). Here were the results:
Then loaded up some 143 eldx loads and headed to the range..
Over the next several weeks, I shot quite a bit at the gong and was never overly impressed - maybe hitting it 40-50% of the time at 300 yards. Of course when you miss the gong, you can't tell where, so I wasn't sure what was going on. So a few weeks ago I decided to shoot some more paper and try to figure it out. Here is 100 yards - 1 is bipod with rear bag, 1 is just off a bag and no rear bag, and 1 is off the bipod with no rear bag - I can't remember which is which now, but it doesn't make much difference as they are all sub-par.
After that, I decided to do more paper shooting with the gun a couple weeks later to see if I was just having a bad day, or something was going on, and here are those results..
100 yards:
Talked to Christensen and they told me to send the gun in to get checked out, so thats what I did. I was frustrated with the whole situation and I was able to buy the Bergara back so I decided to just do that (never shot since I sold it to him). Got it home, mounted the scope, grabbed some ammo and headed outside.. This is now what my groups look like..
Not any better than I was getting with the Mesa, and obviously way worse than I had been shooting last year and this spring. I can't figure out what's going on, so I'm open to suggestions. I concentrated hard on making good shots, not rushing, and all except maybe a couple felt good - like when you squeeze the tigger and can't wait to see where the hole is because you just know its touching the last one. Obviously the only variables are the gun, the optics, the ammo, and myself. The gun doesn't seem to be the problem, I doubt there is a problem with the optics (especially since its been mounted and remounted several times), doubt there is a problem with the ammo, so I'm guessing it's me, but what am I doing wrong?
Only variable that could have changed with the ammo between the good shooting and bad shooting is I switched from CCI 200 primers to Federal 210, but I highly doubt it makes that big of a difference.
. Sometimes we overestimate our ability. 
