more accurate at longer distance

[Mikido]

Anybody else experience this? I’ve noticed it in archery as well.

At short distance, I’m doing micro muscle moves to keep pushing the sight to perfect center.

At distance, I just hover in the ballpark and relax more, accepting my wobble, with a more relaxed trigger pull. Every shot is a surprise.

For example, this is a 15 shot group at 600yds with a 223. ~1.3 vertical moa.
I almost never break 2”moa at 100 yds. Multiple examples of this across calibers.
I almost exclusively use a 10x fixed swfa.

Oh and I did this 15 round group rapid fire. Yet at 100 yards, I’m convinced hot barrel affects POI. I should just stop shooting at 100 I guess.

Thoughts?

 

[Treelineasassin]

Ensure the parallax is set properly at 100y. If it's not fully dialed out, you shouldn't see a noticeable increase of precision further down range.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

I’ve noticed it with archery. I just attribute it to slowing down more and focusing on the shot process. I’ve never experienced with firearms though.

 

[Truck24hr]

Easier for me to focus at 600 yard steel at 10x than a 100 yard MOA dot at 10x.

Why? IDK

 

[Jordan Smith]

In terms of the rifle/load itself, that’s not a real thing.

Now, in terms of shooter error, it’s possible that the POA/reticle relationship, parallax, or other factors affect your ability to shoot as well when you shoot at 100 yards compared to when you shoot further.

 

[flyfisher117]

Some days I shoot better groups on paper at 100 yards with my scope magnification turned down. It prevents me from seeing and fixating on a tiny spot in the target.

I actually went through a bad bit of target panic with my bow. Couldn’t shoot a 15” group at 20 yards. Blank bale shooting at 3 yards and shooting a single large target at 40 yards was my fix.

Our brains are interesting.

 

[RockAndSage]

Anybody else experience this? I’ve noticed it in archery as well.

At short distance, I’m doing micro muscle moves to keep pushing the sight to perfect center.

At distance, I just hover in the ballpark and relax more, accepting my wobble, with a more relaxed trigger pull. Every shot is a surprise.

For example, this is a 15 shot group at 600yds with a 223. ~1.3 vertical moa.
I almost never break 2”moa at 100 yds. Multiple examples of this across calibers.
I almost exclusively use a 10x fixed swfa.

Oh and I did this 15 round group rapid fire. Yet at 100 yards, I’m convinced hot barrel affects POI. I should just stop shooting at 100 I guess.

Thoughts?
View attachment 1047624

I've seen similar, related things, where accuracy improves in weird ways - which I suspect are related to your points about relaxing vs micro-muscle movements. In the 1990s I saw this a lot with guys who were good with iron sights, transitioning over to ACOGs for the first time - there were a number who were just less accurate with the optic at first. I attributed it to them essentially having more info coming in, and trying too hard in ways they just couldn't with irons.

Separately, a good friend was a Scount/Sniper in the Marine Corps back in the early-mid 1990s, and he shared that there was a bit of a phenomenon they'd noticed in his unit, that when guys were really sleep-deprived, they seemed to shoot a little better. He attributed it to just having less mental capacity - meaning less micro-movements, and not enough excess brainpower to get too distracted in focusing on the wrong things, or anticipating excessively.

What I've personally noticed, is the more fresh and alert you are, the easier it is for your mind to subconsciously or semi-consciously try to get your muscles to make those micro-movements to adjust aim. I see this a lot with people trying to do precision handgun.

I don't shoot archery or long-distance precision rifle (yet), so take this for what it's worth, but with off-hand shooting, the more you can "lock up your joints in a relaxed way", the less of the micro-movements you have. I'll routinely take a 9mm out past 100-150 yds, but the wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, and ankles are all in a kind of "soft lock", without much muscle tension, but the joints are meant to be not moving. The body becomes a platform - not tense and rigid, just uniformly in that soft-lock. Once the handgun's indexed to its firing position, vertical and horizontal sight-alignment shifts are almost entirely occurring at the hips - and it's a coarse movement, incapable of the fast, tiny muscle movements the wrists or hands can do. But with precision handgunning, it translates into just enough. I do something very similar in shooting off-hand with carbines out to 300yds. When you get into performance at-speed and really dynamic shooting, things shift a bit, but a lot of this is still in there.

 

[hoooogan]

I do that all the time. I always hold much steadier at distance vs my 100y groups. I can sometimes see up to 1/2 MOA of sway during my groupings, but I'll be rock solid at 600. There's definitely a mental game going on when trying to be ultra precise for groupings.

 

[Speaks]

I also shoot better at 3 or 6 than I do at 9 or 15. Lets you tune out small movement vs focusing on it. Might just be a magnification thing.

 

[wind gypsy]

I could see that being a thing with light rifles or just generally compromised positions.

But punching paper with a good rest, nope. Crosshairs typically sit still on POA in that case unless it’s a really light rifle with mediocre ergos.

 

[Treelineasassin]

Yeah this makes no sense. It takes the same mechanics, discipline, and fundamentals to shoot small at 100, VS 500-600y. Performance anxiety perhaps?

Prarallax is a mechanical/optical factor that can induce inconsistent groups at closer distances. But rifle systems do not reduce the cone of fire down range, not possible.

 

[RancherJohn]

Anybody else experience this? I’ve noticed it in archery as well.

At short distance, I’m doing micro muscle moves to keep pushing the sight to perfect center.

At distance, I just hover in the ballpark and relax more, accepting my wobble, with a more relaxed trigger pull. Every shot is a surprise.

For example, this is a 15 shot group at 600yds with a 223. ~1.3 vertical moa.
I almost never break 2”moa at 100 yds. Multiple examples of this across calibers.
I almost exclusively use a 10x fixed swfa.

Oh and I did this 15 round group rapid fire. Yet at 100 yards, I’m convinced hot barrel affects POI. I should just stop shooting at 100 I guess.

Thoughts?
View attachment 1047624

How often are you shooting at 100 first, then stepping out to distance vs starting at distance then shooting for groups?

For most people (myself included), cold shooter can be a real thing. Are you cold & knocking the dust off yourself at 100, then after you 'feel good' pushing it further and getting better groups on the same day? I find I can get a similar effect from a run/hike/workout prior to shooting as I do burning 30+ rounds in whatever type of gun, it helps balance out the highs and lows from caffeine/stress/jitters/emotions/anything you want to call it.

 

[Mikido]

I definitely get burned out at the end of day, but cold shooter doesn’t really affect me. I mix in cold first shots at 600 and do well typically.


Thanks for all the responses and feedback.