Show your Tikka ten round groups

[Kimber7man]

Which one tells you what size target you can actually hit on demand?

As stated, hunting is “worst shot”- not “average of best”.

Best and worst if it only takes one shot to kill it.....

 

[Yooper25]

How many grains of 4831?

BT: 43.5
Eldx: 42
Eldm: 41
I did pressure test the BT and got up to 47.5 with just the slightest ejector mark. Going to load some at 47 and see how it shoots

 

[stan_wa]

That is not correct. You and every one else will zero off the cluster of shots, ignore the “flyer”, and then that flyer- is way off POA and falls outside the expected cone.

ES people zero off the center of all rounds, and all shots fall within the expected cone.


You are math dorking for the sake of math dorking. I have long history with this well before the last couple of years where certain groups are pushing it. There is “the math says…” And then there is- “reality on target in the field, shows…”.

I don’t have to math dork, I don’t have to convert, I don’t have to guess, or anything else. Shoot 20-30 shots, zero to center of all shots. Done. And at the same that 30 rounds tells me the 95% probability in MOA. 30 shot 2 MOA ES, at a base if I am missing 2 MOA targets- it is me, not the gun.

I don’t have to math dork, I don’t have to convert, I don’t have to guess, or anything else. Shoot 20-30 shots, zero to center of all shots. Done. And at the same that 30 rounds tells me the 95% probability in MOA. 30 shot 2 MOA ES, at a base if I am missing 2 MOA targets- it is me, not the gun.

I agree that this is practically a great approach. I would like to point out what started this exchange was a discussion on ES versus MR for choosing between different loads in my original post it was about which bullet to choose from. in the context of distinguishing between loads. Asking which bullet is going to be better i.e. more precise. Can you agree that MR is more insightful than ES especially for evaluating precision of different loads . all of this is a little bit silly because if you shoot a group that’s at least 10 or bigger. The one with the biggest ES will basically always have a bigger MR. My claim is that MR is still better than ES and evaluating precision as a single number dor determining which load to choose from .

evaluating rifle capabilities and comparing loads are too slightly different subjects

And I 100% agree with the statement

people zero off the center of all rounds

specifically, I just let the 4dof tell me what the center of the group is and dial zero in according

Mathematically the best to worst evaluation metric would be
1. Mr + 2 sd
2. Mr
3. Es aka group size

Practically if you shoot 10 or more per group the load with the “ best group “ will have the smallest of each of these evaluation metrics
And if the same load doesn’t minimize all 3 , the compared group’s probably aren’t very different anyways

 

[ckt3]

Honestly trying to understand the difference here, and admittedly need to read more into ES and MR... but if I shoot 100 rounds in a 2moa group, my ES is 2moa, and I know I have a 100% chance of hitting a 2moa target (excluding outliers like weather, ammo lots, etc). If I shot 100 rounds with 95 of them inside 2moa, and 5 of them outside of, say 2.5moa... then I have a 95% chance of hitting a 2moa target.

Isn't the ES telling me what I can hit with 100% certainty the more valuable metric in the field as a hunter?

Just trying to see both sides here.

Both ES and MR are metrics that aim to quantify the dispersion of your system. As Form points out, ES is better for getting a quick measurement in the field to have a simple and practical way to gauge the limits of your system given a big enough group. MR, in terms of what it tells you about your system, is better than ES. It is using all the information from your group to represent the underlying distribution (the Rayleigh probability density function), so you can do a lot more with it than ES and have more confidence in your estimates.

For practical purposes, if you did what you state in your example on a big group, you’d be fine (even though the true percentages are different from what you state). But if you really want to evaluate your system well and be able to answer questions like, “With what probability will I hit an A inch target at B yards?”, you use MR, not ES (you can approximate with ES but it’s noisier and throws out a lot of data).

I just ran some simulations and plotted them to explain better. All we have to assume for this is that the the x and y coordinates of each impact follow a Normal distribution. We get to choose the parameters of this distribution for the simulation, so here I chose the “truth” to be that this system will put a shot in a 1.5 MOA target with 99% probability. Now we run random simulations of varying group sizes (each different group size is a new row; each column is a repeated trial with that same group size). Imagine each plot here is your paper target after shooting the same rifle at each target to get a group. And for the sake of the example, imagine the target is a 100 yards away and that’s a 1.5 inch diameter black circle you’re shooting at.

Because we designed the simulation, we know the true diameter of the circle we’ll impact within at 99% probability (1.5 inches). We can calculate the mean radius from the actual shots on target and then use those to estimate a 99% probability circle (we don’t know the “truth” about our system as a shooter, we only know our shots on paper, and we do our best to estimate the truth). We can also measure the extreme spread.

You can see a few things: 1) predicting via MR gets you much closer to the truth much faster. At only 10 shots, the predictions are very close to 1.5 inches. It takes ES more shots to get close. 2) MR converges. It approaches the truth and with more shots only gets more precise in its prediction. ES is not stable, and artificially inflates (starts too small and keeps getting bigger). 3) When ES is wrong (which it often is at common group sizes <30), it is usually being overly optimistic about how accurate the system is. So the argument of “prepare for the worst” actually favors MR.

There’s some other neat stuff in the plots, but those are the main ones. Overall, yes bring a ruler to the field and get a quick practical ES measurement on a big group. But understanding what’s happening under the hood and how ES can mislead you is helpful. It’s all manifestations of probabilities and randomness. A “1 MOA” rifle statement begs the question of “at what confidence level and across how many shots”. You can take shortcuts with ES and get by just fine if you do it right, but using MR will yield higher quality probability estimates. It comes down to defining your objective and understanding the pros/cons of the statistical tools you have.

 

[stan_wa]

some other neat stuff in the plots

You my sir win king nerd for the day . I value your contribution here. Would love to see 2 decimal places on the Mr values just for curiosity

 

[Marbles]

Does it still count as a Tikka for this thread if the only thing left made by Tikka is the action and bolt?

 

[ckt3]

Does it still count as a Tikka for this thread if the only thing left made by Tikka is the action and bolt?

View attachment 1025120

Nice! What are details of the build?

 

[Marbles]

Nice! What are details of the build?

-PVA Osprey 0.75 tapperless in 6 Creedmoor
-OG65 muffler
-Rokstok
-Sako S20 two stage trigger
-Lumley Arctic DBM
-Area 419 rail/NF medium rings/Maven RS1.2
-UM Bolt handle/knob

 

[NWBLKTAIL]

Does it still count as a Tikka for this thread if the only thing left made by Tikka is the action and bolt?

View attachment 1025120

I think the OEM tikka portion of this thread went way out the window many moons ago.

nice shooting, and sweet build

 

[Marbles]

I think the OEM tikka portion of this thread went way out the window many moons ago.

nice shooting, and sweet build

Thanks. Unfortunately not all my groups look that nice. The rest of today's are in the post linked below.

Post in thread '95 TMK in 6 CM'

Feb 20, 2026

Well, interesting results. Looks like the 95 TMKs might be usable after all at 1.68 MOA for 10. Need to confirm with a 30 round group.

I changed COAL from 2.647" to 2.689" (backed the seating stem out one full turn) in addition to switching powders.

Weather was a touch hostile to good shooting, about 20 F, 10-25 mph wind coming from 11 to 2 o'clock (measured 20+ mph on Kestrel, stronger gusts than that were dragging my mat with firewood on it).

I shot groups of 10 starting at top left and working down to bottom right. Conditions were worse for groups 3 to 5 and I could see the wind...

• Marbles

• 

 

[NWBLKTAIL]

Thanks. Unfortunately not all my groups look that nice. The rest of today's are in the post linked below.

Post in thread '95 TMK in 6 CM'

Feb 20, 2026

Well, interesting results. Looks like the 95 TMKs might be usable after all at 1.68 MOA for 10. Need to confirm with a 30 round group.

I changed COAL from 2.647" to 2.689" (backed the seating stem out one full turn) in addition to switching powders.

Weather was a touch hostile to good shooting, about 20 F, 10-25 mph wind coming from 11 to 2 o'clock (measured 20+ mph on Kestrel, stronger gusts than that were dragging my mat with firewood on it).

I shot groups of 10 starting at top left and working down to bottom right. Conditions were worse for groups 3 to 5 and I could see the wind...

• Marbles

• 

Neither do mine, but it is nice every once and awhile to see a combo stack.

my 95 tmk groups are meh.

N165 wasn’t even on my radar, but after consulting a burn rate chart seems like a 7828 substitute

 

[bpitcher]

Did some shooting with the new 223 before it goes off for nitride.

 

[West2East]

20 rd group from today. New 223 using the 68gr Frontier ammo.
I think I have some positional inconsistencies going on as some of the rounds are going into nice 3rd groups pretty far away from the others.
This marks about 500 rounds on the gun so I think it's settled in. The S&B 55gr stuff I use is around 2MOA. I think if I took my time and get my position stuff figured out this 68gr stuff will be around 1MOA

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[steelheadmike]

I changed loads so wanted to re-zero.

Rifle:
Stock Tikka 7-08 cut to 19”

First 10
3x fired hornady brass
150 eld-x
Staball 6.5
MV 2687

Dialed down 0.2mil and slipped turrets

10 more
Virgin Starline brass
150 eld-x
Staball 6.5
MV 2689

Those two high ones pissed me off…might dial down another 0.1mil

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[solarshooter]

You and every one else will zero off the cluster of shots, ignore the “flyer”, and then that flyer- is way off POA and falls outside the expected cone.

I don't throw out fliers. But even using the ES method, you don't zero to the center of the extreme spread, you use the weighted center of the group, right?

But you're missing the point of the example. That left group is tighter and will put more shots close to the POA. The extreme outlier is statistically less likely to happen, because it's a greater # of radius SDs away from group center. The similar outlier on the right group would be WAY further off, we just didn't happen to get such an outlier in these 10 shots. MR tells us this, ES does not.

You are math dorking

I take issue with this criticism. An appreciation for statistics is why Tikkas, Nightforces, Toyotas, etc are so much better than their competitors. It's also why the methods you and many others preach end up beating the fudd-lore and dogma over and over again so reliably. Yes for this case, 20-30 shot ES is about as good as shot radius method, but it's definitely not better, and for doing comparisons with fewer rounds shot radius is provably better.

 

[Live_weighT34]

Both of these are today at 100yds with my T3 .243 Win 1-8 twist in a Boyd’s Prairie hunter laminate stock, Trijicon Credo HX 2-5-10x56 and banish 30.

Top is a 12 shot group, mix of 108 ELDMs & 105 Barnes Match Burners

2nd group is 10 shots all with 108 ELDMs

 

[Castle Rock]

700 yards

 

[LeftyWilbury]

some old HSM M118LR i had sitting around. thought i'd sight in the 308 roughtech with some 175s for fun. forgot how anemic this HSM load was though, 2480fps average. but heck, practice is practice.

 

[mad_angler]

I'm just getting started...

This is a 10 round group with 556 Frontier 55 gr FMJ through a Tikka 223.

Can I blame any of the spread on the ammo or do I just stink?


Sent from my SM-S731U using Tapatalk

 

[Harvey_NW]

I'm just getting started...

This is a 10 round group with 556 Frontier 55 gr FMJ through a Tikka 223.

Can I blame any of the spread on the ammo or do I just stink?

Oh it can definitely be ammo. I have a barrel on a gasser that will shotgun pattern PMC FMJ ammo about 10", and then put a string of Hornady V-Max into about 1". The first time I shot it was so bad I thought the barrel was loose or something. Try a different ammo for sure!