Also there's alot of anecdotal data(and possibly some empirical data) that says you need to clean the barrel to steel to get good groups when switching from lead core to monolithic copper.
That’s interesting. I think I’ll see how it does first…
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Also there's alot of anecdotal data(and possibly some empirical data) that says you need to clean the barrel to steel to get good groups when switching from lead core to monolithic copper.
There's a philosophical point in there though. And that is that we are responsible for knowing exactly where every bullet we shoot is going to go.There is a lot of info here that is true but not really important here, the 350 is a 150 yard gun and if zero is off by two inches or it groups 3 inches that won’t make any real difference
I don’t think I agree with this. I understand where you’re coming from and in most cases it’s certainly true. But, if you’ve got a gun that shoots 3 inch groups—tons of guns for straightwall cartridges do—and you change ammunition and the point of impact changes by 3 inches, you’re going to have some percentage of those shots that are 4 1/2 inches away from your point of aim. That’s barely on a 9” plate by the skin of your teeth, before you even add in ANY shooter error. When you stack that on top of an insecure shooting position, that easily puts some of your shots off a vital size target even at 100 yards. Even with the example given (2” poi shift with 3” groups), it only takes a small amount of wobble to put some shots off a 10” target. Because of this I just don’t think it’s anything but a mistake to not re-zero when you change ammo. The zero is by far the easiest to control part of making a good hit, so we ought to make it a priority.There is a lot of info here that is true but not really important here, the 350 is a 150 yard gun and if zero is off by two inches or it groups 3 inches that won’t make any real difference
Is that really necessary for 150 yards though? I've kept casual track of my own zeroing process, how close I would be to my final adjustment at each shot. 3 rounds could be a few clicks off pretty easily, but once I hit 5 I'm usually within 1 or 2 clicks of the 10-round zero.Get three boxes of the new ammo and check your zero with a good sized group (10 shots). Make the required adjustments off that group. Then confirm it with another 10-shot group.
Is that really necessary for 150 yards though? I've kept casual track of my own zeroing process, how close I would be to my final adjustment at each shot. 3 rounds could be a few clicks off pretty easily, but once I hit 5 I'm usually within 1 or 2 clicks of the 10-round zero.
Put another way: if he ends up with a 2" group for 10+ rounds, the worst possible zero he could get by stopping early is 1" away from center. For 100yd woods shooting, a 5 round zero seems pretty reasonable. Diminishing returns after that point IMO. The extra rounds might be better spent shooting positionally, see if he can keep it on target how he actually hunts.
Will do!I'm hoping the OP lets us know what happens after he gets to the range.
Totally fair answer, and it's never a bad idea to shoot more and be confident in your setup.So, if his rifle is shooting 2 MOA groups, then the best he can expect is to put all his rounds into a 3” circle at 150 yards. But if his zero is off by an inch, that adds to his potential error (i.e., even with a perfect shot, he could be off by another 1.5” at 150 yards). Which, on a stereotypical whitetail vital zone of an 8” circle, gives him a 3.5” margin of error for hitting in the vitals at 150 yards. That’s a pretty thin margin as far as I am concerned - especially under field conditions. No way I would want that added - easily avoidable - error for an offhand or even sitting-unsupported shot at 150 yards on a live animal. An offhand shot is usually regarded as a 6-8 MOA shot. A sitting-unsupported shot is usually a 4 MOA shot. So, getting the avoidable error down to a reasonable level makes a big difference.
Take the time to get a good zero the first time, eliminate the built in error to the largest extent practicable, and then practice shooting from field positions. Whatever range you can hit 10/10 in the vitals is your maximum range from that position.