Your Groups Are Too Small

[Flyjunky]

I REALLY need to be working on the bedding for my light gun--I re-inlet the stock so the barreled action will sit a bit lower, but I did insert myself into this discussion......

Some background that will make my answers to your questions more meaningful. I found the 200 HYB load for the June match. I was shooting a 300 SAUM IMP. I had been shooting 215s but decided to test the 200s because shorter bullets often group better. In this case the 200s had about an inch less vertical than the 215s on the pre-match test (4" vs 5"). Calculated wind drift was about the same. The 215s NODE was at 2900 and the 200s NODE was 2980. Please don't try these loads in a hunting rifle. My heavy gun has a BAT M action and a 30" barrel.

For a match weekend, we shoot two light gun and two heavy gun groups each day. We compete for both group and score. During the June match, I shot the 62 grain load. All four of my heavy gun groups (10-shots groups at 1000 yds) were in the fives. I wound up first place in heavy gun both days. My score aggregate was 98 with 7Xs on Sat and 98.5 with 3Xs on Sun, on a 7" 10-ring and a 2.75" X-ring. While those are decent groups and scores, I and everyone else has shot smaller and scored higher (and worse). However, that was about as good as the conditions would allow.

I was pleased with how that load shot, so I tested it again for the July match. I don't have that test target, which is a long and humorous story. I shot the 62 grain load again in July. I wound up second overall on Sat and fell to 8th overall on Sunday. Group aggs were worse.

For the Aug match--or finals--I tested around that series again. I went from 62.0 to 61.9 grains for the match load. The Aug match is scored differently, and I wound up third overall in heavy gun over the two days. My 4 target agg was a 6.3. My groups were 4.351, 6.994, 6.366, and 7.478. I think that is pretty representative of how a well-tuned load will shoot in good to mediocre conditions.

Here is a picture of the June and Aug test ladders. I added a ruler to for scale. BTW, these are shot round robin style at the same POI at the same time to minize the effects of conditions. Meaning that on the June target, I shot one round at 61.8, 62.2, 62.2, 63.0; then repeated that sequence three more times. The bullets tips are colored and then we connect the dots. This method doesn't work well much inside 550 yds, but works great at 600 - 1000.

View attachment 497937

Some things jump out here. We look for overlap in these test loads. On the left (June) target, with a .4 grain spread on loads, 62.0 was in between the tightest overlap. On the right (Aug) target, with a .2 grain load spread, 61.9 was in between the tightest overlap. I know that .1 grains doesn't matter, but the 62.2 went out the top--perhaps because it was warmer temps in Aug or maybe the additional 200 rounds through the barrel had changed something. Regardless, 61.9 was the right call since I wound being only one wind call away from beating the 2022 IBS 1000 yd Shooter of the Year in heavy gun. Someone who is my friend, and without his help I wouldn't be anywhere nearly as competitive as I am.

BTW, at the 2021 IBS Nationals, I pulled .2 grains out of my heavy gun--then a 300 WSM shooting 215s, and went from winning one of my relays the first day to winning both relays the second and tightening my groups. Yeah I know, .2 grains doesn't make any difference........

To answer the second part of the first question, I did not shoot groups with other powder charges. 90% of the time, the load in between the two test charges with the least vertical in their overlap shoot the smallest groups. HOWEVER,...let's take the June target. Had I gone out on Saturday and shot groups like a "realistic field rifle", I would have tried 62.8 grains for Sunday. I have used that startegy before when I was struggling with a light gun (6BRA). Nothing was shooting great on test day, and the NODE I picked shot badly. So I swapped to a different load and cut my group sizes in half.

Something else to notice. Using the "realistic for field shooting" approach, I shot a 12-shot and a 15-shot group that are about 1.3 MOA over a .8 grain powder charge increments at 1000 yds. Given that bullets almost always shoot greater MOA as distance increases--I have seen this repeatedly and is one area of agreement I have with Mr Litz, these may well be 12 and 15 shot sub-moa groups at 100 yds.

Would I take that level of accuracy on a long range hunt? Absolutely! I have taken enough hunting rifles that shoot .5 to .7 MOA 3-shot groups at 100 yd rifles out to 1088 yds, and hit reasonably close to the center of the gong to know that is adequate for hunting. To be honest, we need to spending a whole lot more time learning how to read the wind than we do getting our sub-MOA hunting rifle to sub 1/2 MOA.

Now for BR, both long range and short range, EVERYTHING has to be as prefect as we can make it to be competitive. The rifle has to be chambered straight and the barrel has to be good. The stock inlet has to be straight and stress free. The scope can't have any reticle shift after firing. The front and rear rests need to be set up well and the rifle needs to track very well. The load has to be fine-tuned and constantly checked. You have to correctly read the wind and understand how temperature changes will affect your tune. You have to be dead consistent in how you handle the rifle.

That said, the statement that BR has "near zero functional use", though a common sentiment, is just wrong and completely misses the point. My apologies if that offends someone. I was a USAF pilot and a Major for 12 of my 24 years, and as such I struggle with my social filter. Statements like that are why we BR shooters rarely share our load tuning methods with non-BR shooters. We get tired of being told what we do doesn't make any difference or doesn't apply to anything else, when we know for a fact otherwise.

Without BR, we wouldn't have high accuracy bullets, we wouldn't have any idea how to clean our rifles, and we wouldn't know how to tune a load. We wouldn't have the excellent barrels that we have today either. Just about everything we have involving precision and accuracy stands mainly on the shoulders of BR shooters.

This is really beyond common sense. No one knows better what affects how a rifle shoots than a competitive BR shooter. We probably tried what ever the latest accuracy trend is well before anyone else thought of it. While the F-Class guys probably get the nod for wind reading, if you want your rifle to shoot it's best you'll talk to a BR shooter. We know how to find forgiving tunes that stay in tune longer than the high maintenance tunes we shoot often in BR. We know what parts of loading make the most difference and what doesn't. We are always experimenting with new methods, and the target is our report card.

Also, many if not most most BR shooter's don't only shoot BR. When I first started 1000 yd BR I was at the bottom for the first year. The second year I started to figure things out. That second year of BR I decided to stick my toe in NRA Highpower--they had their matches at the same range I was shooting BR. The HP guys gave me a hard time since I was a BR shooter. However, both matches I shot I finished mid pack. That was a lot better start than I had in BR.

I didn't stick with HP because it didn't have enough interest in it to put up with all the fuss. That's not to take anything away from HP shooters. Every formal shooting competition requires discipline and skill, and anyone who competes seriously will become a better marksman. I have become a much better field shot with my hunting rifles since becoming a competition shooter. BTW, lots of BR shooters hunt.

As to the way many apply statistical analysis to shooting. It's mostly wrong and leads to things like shooting 50-shot groups. Again, everything changes each time we pull the trigger. The barrel changes, the conditions change, and how we handle rifle changes (even though we try to be super consistent).

Anyone who has any real experience shooting paper at long range, like us "near zero functional use" 1000 yd BR shooters, know that it's difficult to keep a 10-shot group all in the same condition. Sometimes it's hard to keep a 5-shot group in the same condition. Generally, a 5-shot group tells us how accurate the rifle/load/shooter is and a 10-shot group tells us how good the conditions are. By the time we shoot enough rounds to satisfy the statisticians, our load needs tweaked, meaning what we just did is invalidated.

Much better than the statistics approach is the empirical analysis approach. We learn from what we did and apply it to what we are about to do. The statistics may tell us something isn't significant, the target often tells us otherwise. And no, there are nowhere near as many "1/4 minute all day" hunting rifles in real life as there are on the Internet........................

Thanks for taking the time to write that, it's appreciated.

"The statistics may tell us something isn't significant, the target often tells us otherwise".....In talking with some other very accomplished long range hunters, their answers were exactly this, the paper doesn't lie.

Edit to add:
"There are 3 kinds of lies...lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Mark Twain

 

[Flyjunky]

I should add that I do the Berger coarse seating test. .030” will make a difference. Anyone who states otherwise isn’t doing something right. I’ve never seen a repeatable difference at less then .015”.

That's what I was getting at in my post above. There was a clear difference with the Berger 215 seated at .015 and .040 for my chamber. Some Bergers haven't been as picky but that's why testing is important I guess.

 

[HighUintas]

I REALLY need to be working on the bedding for my light gun--I re-inlet the stock so the barreled action will sit a bit lower, but I did insert myself into this discussion......

Some background that will make my answers to your questions more meaningful. I found the 200 HYB load for the June match. I was shooting a 300 SAUM IMP. I had been shooting 215s but decided to test the 200s because shorter bullets often group better. In this case the 200s had about an inch less vertical than the 215s on the pre-match test (4" vs 5"). Calculated wind drift was about the same. The 215s NODE was at 2900 and the 200s NODE was 2980. Please don't try these loads in a hunting rifle. My heavy gun has a BAT M action and a 30" barrel.

For a match weekend, we shoot two light gun and two heavy gun groups each day. We compete for both group and score. During the June match, I shot the 62 grain load. All four of my heavy gun groups (10-shots groups at 1000 yds) were in the fives. I wound up first place in heavy gun both days. My score aggregate was 98 with 7Xs on Sat and 98.5 with 3Xs on Sun, on a 7" 10-ring and a 2.75" X-ring. While those are decent groups and scores, I and everyone else has shot smaller and scored higher (and worse). However, that was about as good as the conditions would allow.

I was pleased with how that load shot, so I tested it again for the July match. I don't have that test target, which is a long and humorous story. I shot the 62 grain load again in July. I wound up second overall on Sat and fell to 8th overall on Sunday. Group aggs were worse.

For the Aug match--or finals--I tested around that series again. I went from 62.0 to 61.9 grains for the match load. The Aug match is scored differently, and I wound up third overall in heavy gun over the two days. My 4 target agg was a 6.3. My groups were 4.351, 6.994, 6.366, and 7.478. I think that is pretty representative of how a well-tuned load will shoot in good to mediocre conditions.

Here is a picture of the June and Aug test ladders. I added a ruler to for scale. BTW, these are shot round robin style at the same POI at the same time to minize the effects of conditions. Meaning that on the June target, I shot one round at 61.8, 62.2, 62.2, 63.0; then repeated that sequence three more times. The bullets tips are colored and then we connect the dots. This method doesn't work well much inside 550 yds, but works great at 600 - 1000.

View attachment 497937

Some things jump out here. We look for overlap in these test loads. On the left (June) target, with a .4 grain spread on loads, 62.0 was in between the tightest overlap. On the right (Aug) target, with a .2 grain load spread, 61.9 was in between the tightest overlap. I know that .1 grains doesn't matter, but the 62.2 went out the top--perhaps because it was warmer temps in Aug or maybe the additional 200 rounds through the barrel had changed something. Regardless, 61.9 was the right call since I wound being only one wind call away from beating the 2022 IBS 1000 yd Shooter of the Year in heavy gun. Someone who is my friend, and without his help I wouldn't be anywhere nearly as competitive as I am.

BTW, at the 2021 IBS Nationals, I pulled .2 grains out of my heavy gun--then a 300 WSM shooting 215s, and went from winning one of my relays the first day to winning both relays the second and tightening my groups. Yeah I know, .2 grains doesn't make any difference........

To answer the second part of the first question, I did not shoot groups with other powder charges. 90% of the time, the load in between the two test charges with the least vertical in their overlap shoot the smallest groups. HOWEVER,...let's take the June target. Had I gone out on Saturday and shot groups like a "realistic field rifle", I would have tried 62.8 grains for Sunday. I have used that startegy before when I was struggling with a light gun (6BRA). Nothing was shooting great on test day, and the NODE I picked shot badly. So I swapped to a different load and cut my group sizes in half.

Something else to notice. Using the "realistic for field shooting" approach, I shot a 12-shot and a 15-shot group that are about 1.3 MOA over a .8 grain powder charge increments at 1000 yds. Given that bullets almost always shoot greater MOA as distance increases--I have seen this repeatedly and is one area of agreement I have with Mr Litz, these may well be 12 and 15 shot sub-moa groups at 100 yds.

Would I take that level of accuracy on a long range hunt? Absolutely! I have taken enough hunting rifles that shoot .5 to .7 MOA 3-shot groups at 100 yd rifles out to 1088 yds, and hit reasonably close to the center of the gong to know that is adequate for hunting. To be honest, we need to spending a whole lot more time learning how to read the wind than we do getting our sub-MOA hunting rifle to sub 1/2 MOA.

Now for BR, both long range and short range, EVERYTHING has to be as prefect as we can make it to be competitive. The rifle has to be chambered straight and the barrel has to be good. The stock inlet has to be straight and stress free. The scope can't have any reticle shift after firing. The front and rear rests need to be set up well and the rifle needs to track very well. The load has to be fine-tuned and constantly checked. You have to correctly read the wind and understand how temperature changes will affect your tune. You have to be dead consistent in how you handle the rifle.

That said, the statement that BR has "near zero functional use", though a common sentiment, is just wrong and completely misses the point. My apologies if that offends someone. I was a USAF pilot and a Major for 12 of my 24 years, and as such I struggle with my social filter. Statements like that are why we BR shooters rarely share our load tuning methods with non-BR shooters. We get tired of being told what we do doesn't make any difference or doesn't apply to anything else, when we know for a fact otherwise.

Without BR, we wouldn't have high accuracy bullets, we wouldn't have any idea how to clean our rifles, and we wouldn't know how to tune a load. We wouldn't have the excellent barrels that we have today either. Just about everything we have involving precision and accuracy stands mainly on the shoulders of BR shooters.

This is really beyond common sense. No one knows better what affects how a rifle shoots than a competitive BR shooter. We probably tried what ever the latest accuracy trend is well before anyone else thought of it. While the F-Class guys probably get the nod for wind reading, if you want your rifle to shoot it's best you'll talk to a BR shooter. We know how to find forgiving tunes that stay in tune longer than the high maintenance tunes we shoot often in BR. We know what parts of loading make the most difference and what doesn't. We are always experimenting with new methods, and the target is our report card.

Also, many if not most most BR shooter's don't only shoot BR. When I first started 1000 yd BR I was at the bottom for the first year. The second year I started to figure things out. That second year of BR I decided to stick my toe in NRA Highpower--they had their matches at the same range I was shooting BR. The HP guys gave me a hard time since I was a BR shooter. However, both matches I shot I finished mid pack. That was a lot better start than I had in BR.

I didn't stick with HP because it didn't have enough interest in it to put up with all the fuss. That's not to take anything away from HP shooters. Every formal shooting competition requires discipline and skill, and anyone who competes seriously will become a better marksman. I have become a much better field shot with my hunting rifles since becoming a competition shooter. BTW, lots of BR shooters hunt.

As to the way many apply statistical analysis to shooting. It's mostly wrong and leads to things like shooting 50-shot groups. Again, everything changes each time we pull the trigger. The barrel changes, the conditions change, and how we handle rifle changes (even though we try to be super consistent).

Anyone who has any real experience shooting paper at long range, like us "near zero functional use" 1000 yd BR shooters, know that it's difficult to keep a 10-shot group all in the same condition. Sometimes it's hard to keep a 5-shot group in the same condition. Generally, a 5-shot group tells us how accurate the rifle/load/shooter is and a 10-shot group tells us how good the conditions are. By the time we shoot enough rounds to satisfy the statisticians, our load needs tweaked, meaning what we just did is invalidated.

Much better than the statistics approach is the empirical analysis approach. We learn from what we did and apply it to what we are about to do. The statistics may tell us something isn't significant, the target often tells us otherwise. And no, there are nowhere near as many "1/4 minute all day" hunting rifles in real life as there are on the Internet........................

Did you ever watch the two episodes the Hornady guys made?

It is important to actually watch and digest them to speak on it.

 

[INTJ]

Did you ever watch the two episodes the Hornady guys made?

It is important to actually watch and digest them to speak on it.

In my first post on this thread I covered that. Here is what I said:

"I didn't watch the Hornady video, but if they really said that a grain difference in powder and/or searing depth changes don't make any difference, then they are wrong........mostly, but context is critical. In the 450 Nitro Express double rifle I had, one grain really didn't make much difference. If we have a load that likes .120" off the lands, then seating depth changes of .010 or maybe even .020" won't make much difference."

 

[grappling_hook]

In my first post on this thread I covered that. Here is what I said:

"I didn't watch the Hornady video, but if they really said that a grain difference in powder and/or searing depth changes don't make any difference, then they are wrong........mostly, but context is critical. In the 450 Nitro Express double rifle I had, one grain really didn't make much difference. If we have a load that likes .120" off the lands, then seating depth changes of .010 or maybe even .020" won't make much difference."

If you have some time to watch the video, I would look forward to reading your take on their data and experiences.

 

[BBob]

but if they really said that a grain difference in powder and/or searing depth changes don't make any difference, then they are wrong........mostly

Brah, you need to watch the videos. I think you’ll find that in their overall context they are correct but in yours you are as well. But as they say the devil is in the details. There’s a lot of apples and oranges comparisons going on between some of the camps.

 

[ljalberta]

Much better than the statistics approach is the empirical analysis approach.

The information provided in the podcast is literally based on a massive sample size of empirical data.

 

[chamois]

Did you reshoot the exact same loads and have the same “node” show up?

I have never run a ladder, the reason being that I never thought you could drive any conclusions from where just one shot with a given charge landed. Moreover, I always thought it was funny how anybody could.

Once I reach the approximate desired speed with the bullet-powder combination I have chosen, I will normally shoot 4 to 6 groups of 5 to 3 shots each, depending on the gun or the cartridge. Some of those groups, individually considered, are too small, yes, but their 12-20 shot aggregates never are .

With the aggregate grouping <1.3-1.5 moa I call it good and go hunting with it. I shoot accurate guns and I very, very seldom have found a combination that does not comply with that accuracy requirement.

But, of course, I am a simple man .

 

[bhylton]

What the LRBR folks are able to achieve is really stunning.. truly impressive. Given their level of precision I would not doubt they could sniff out the effects of smaller changes as outlined above.

My question to the BR guys would be... could you take a popular hunting setup such as a tikka in 6.5 cred or 270win and produce a load that's dependably "better" using your methods than the other methods discussed in this thread?

I realize the main point is not that BR load tuning methods are "right" and others are "wrong", but I think my question is still valid and might bring it home for some folks, Myself included.
Thanks to everyone for the long form information sharing and photos... very interesting stuff

 

[Sandstrom]

INTJ, a few takeaways from what you said.

First off, you have a great shooting gun, and incredible skill.

You should really watch the videos from Hornady, virtually everything you showed us supports their theories. Quite frankly the 18 pages on the subject at AS from BR shooters also supports it. Not a single person that has an opposing view from Hornady, has shown any statistically relevant data that supports their case.
Ryan

 

[BBob]

My question to the BR guys would be... could you take a popular hunting setup such as a tikka in 6.5 cred or 270win and produce a load that's dependably "better" using your methods than the other methods discussed in this thread?

That’s a huge maybe. It takes a very good rifle to be able to use lots of things that are useful to a real BR rifle. It also takes a good BR rifle to be able to load and tune to win. I own and shoot them. I build my own and field rifles. Most of the stuff people are trying to accomplish with most field rifles using BR methods are a waste of time.

 

[eric1115]

Genuine question here, do you think it's possible, or even likely that if you shot 5 shot groups they would fill in something like this, and 10 shot groups even closer in size to one another? Why or why not?

It seems like all these groups would fit within the 10 shot groups you shoot for score, and any given scoring group would likely have a handful of rounds in a 2-3" cluster. In my mind, much of the 3 shot groups' differences could easily be explained by the random order of which 3 out of the 10 got pulled out of the sleeve for the rest group.

Again, these are not puffy chested, "well, what about this?" gotcha type questions. I've never even set foot into your world, and have always been a bit baffled as to how you guys read the tea leaves and load "for the conditions." Genuinely curious to know what you look for in 3 round groups and how you control for the random dispersion in a group. Like how do you know you didn't shoot the best 3 out of a poorer performing 10 shot group and then the worst 3 out of a smoking good 10 shot group?

 

[Flyjunky]

I was supposed to go out coyote hunting today but we have 20-30mph winds so I sat down with a cup of coffee and listened to both podcasts again with a notepad. First, we have some good data/visuals right here on this thread by @TK-421. He listed his gun and the ammo for each of his tests and the results were fantastic. I would encourage everyone to look at those numbers and compare them to the podcast numbers, where they were using an "accuracy fixture" aka rail gun.

Here are a few things that I have questions from the podcast:
1. they described their test apparatus as basically a rail gun with 1.25" barrel, should be about as accurate as can be, correct?
2. Their group sizes as stated in that podcast for 3 and 5 shot groups were quite large for that type of setup as compared to examples shown here which were with factory rifles actually held and aimed by a person. Why?
3. I'm assuming they are using new brass for each test. I've always thought fire forming brass to your specific chamber would produce more consistent results? Maybe I'm wrong?
4. Are each barrel they are using for a specific cartridge test chambered exactly the same?
5. Was anything done differently to account for the barrel wear? Like they said, "each time you pull the trigger something is changing". Well, if they are burning out barrels but keeping the load the same, how are the results supposed to be consistent?
6. They talked many times about accuracy expectations...what are their expectations for their "accuracy fixture"? Is it even capable of shooting small consistently? Reason I ask this is because Miles said he has NEVER seen a true 1/4" gun. Well, all he has to do is look to the results of Br comps like I said above. Many are winning with aggs, across many groups/matches, in the .2's and .3's. Might not make a difference in this conversation but it makes me question once again their expectations and components.
7."using a 3 shot group to zero your rifle, you are doing a disservice to yourself. To clarify, that is with this rifle and ammunition. It's gonna vary depending on the capability of the rifle". Something I thought was an interesting comment.


It was never explicitly stated either how they do load development. They glossed over it a few different times but never to a step by step level. I'm curious about that as well. They say, "I seat the bullets .025-.035" off the lands and forget my seating die is adjustable. Then I will try 10 shot groups with 3 or 4 different powders that applicable for the cartridge and those are just kind of feelers, and like Jaden was saying, if those are horrible I'll just pitch them. If any of those are good I'll shoot them as 20's and take the best looking one out of that. That's all I do." So where/how do they know where to start looking at the powder charge? For Jaden, he says at the end of how he does load development "if he doesn't get the results with the powders/bullets, either change your expectations or change the barrel because barrel/bullet combination is kind of unique". Ok, I totally get that because I've observed that a few times where a bullet just wouldn't shoot well in my gun no matter what I did. Ironic that the last bullet that happened with was a 212 Eldx. With all that being said, especially the part Jaden brought up, did they "grade" the barrels they used in their testing for that particular bullet?

Sorry for the long post but listening to both of them again I picked up on some things that I either missed or heard wrong the first time.

 

[BBob]

Reason I ask this is because Miles said he has NEVER seen a true 1/4" gun. Well, all he has to do is look to the results of Br comps like I said above. Many are winning with aggs, across many groups/matches, in the .2's and .3's.

I believe he said that in the context of a 1/4" gun doesn't exist as in a gun with one load where the load is never altered. A BR gun is almost always having the load altered to stay in tune to shoot those aggs. This is the apples to oranges between the camps I mentioned here in one of these threads. As a side note there are some 30BR's out there that seem to stay in tune very very well with the same load and mby one of those might qualify as a 1/4" gun.

 

[INTJ]

Brah, you need to watch the videos. I think you’ll find that in their overall context they are correct but in yours you are as well. But as they say the devil is in the details. There’s a lot of apples and oranges comparisons going on between some of the camps.

I really don't have time to watch that long of a video right now. To your point I don't know that I disagree with what they say. My goal here was to describe how small differences can indeed make a difference in the right circumstances. However, if you look at the two test targets I posted, I think they cover both approaches to load development.

Both of those targets show 1.3ish MOA groups, one 12-shot and one 15-shot, that had .8 grain powder charge variation with a 62ish grain load.

Isn't that one of the methods being discussed? To shoot a larger shot group to get a better feel for the max dispersion? I don't have an issue with that, but I do if they are shooting 50 shot groups. To keep them in the same condition they would need to be shot fast. You can indeed shoot fast in a rail gun, but 50 shots would put a LOT of heat into the barrel and that in and of itself could increase dispersion. I guess they could shoot indoors. Did they?

 

[Flyjunky]

I believe he said that in the context of a 1/4" gun doesn't exist as in a gun with one load where the load is never altered. A BR gun is almost always having the load altered to stay in tune to shoot those aggs. This is the apples to oranges between the camps I mentioned here in one of these threads. As a side note there are some 30BR's out there that seem to stay in tune very very well with the same load and mby one of those might qualify as a 1/4" gun.

So does altering a load make a difference as conditions and barrel life change?

 

[BBob]

So does altering a load make a difference as conditions and barrel life change?

In the BR world? Most definitely. In the world of field rifles? Yes and no and that's the million dollar question isn't it? How to find a load that stands up all year round without altering it. I'm firmly in both camps but they are two camps with different circumstances and goals.

 

[INTJ]

What the LRBR folks are able to achieve is really stunning.. truly impressive. Given their level of precision I would not doubt they could sniff out the effects of smaller changes as outlined above.

My question to the BR guys would be... could you take a popular hunting setup such as a tikka in 6.5 cred or 270win and produce a load that's dependably "better" using your methods than the other methods discussed in this thread?

I realize the main point is not that BR load tuning methods are "right" and others are "wrong", but I think my question is still valid and might bring it home for some folks, Myself included.
Thanks to everyone for the long form information sharing and photos... very interesting stuff

There is a lot of how we load ammo, develop loads, and test loads in LRBR that will improve hunting rifle loads. These methods won't make a hunting rifle shoot like a target rifle but will allow you to make better ammo whether you want a 1" 10-shot group or a couple 1/2" 3-shot groups to give you confidence in your long range hunting loads.

It's all a matter of what level of accuracy you want and how much you are willing to work to maintain that accuracy. I would suggest that if you find you are always having to justify your over-precise loading and load development approach, maybe it's time to find a shooting discipline where that is expected and required.......

 

[Flyjunky]

In the BR world? Most definitely. Our world of field rifles? Yes and no and that's the million dollar question isn't it? How to find a load that stands up all year round without altering it. I'm firmly in both camps but they are two camps with different circumstances and goals.

I just can't imagine shot #1, #457, #714, and #1239 would be the same in terms of testing parameters if nothing was changed in regards to the load. Maybe they would be, I don't know.

 

[Formidilosus]

First, we have some good data/visuals right here on this thread by @TK-421. He listed his gun and the ammo for each of his tests and the results were fantastic. I would encourage everyone to look at those numbers and compare them to the podcast numbers, where they were using an "accuracy fixture" aka rail gun.

So first- if you are not interested in having a discussing with me about this, I’ll stop as I don’t care.

His results are so far outside the norm/consistent that can be expected with hunting/non specific match built rifles that it’s a true outlier. As an example- from a Wiseman with multiple top quality barrel, in an indoor range, Hornady ELD-M 6.5cm ammo is around .9 to 1.3 MOA mechanically for 30-50 shot groups. Yes, barrel allowed to cook between 5 shot strings. And it’s not just Hornady- when shot for statistically relevant sizes, ammo and guns just aren’t that precise.

Here are a few things that I have questions from the podcast:
1. they described their test apparatus as basically a rail gun with 1.25" barrel, should be about as accurate as can be, correct?

Correct.

2. Their group sizes as stated in that podcast for 3 and 5 shot groups were quite large for that type of setup as compared to examples shown here which were with factory rifles actually held and aimed by a person. Why?

Because people are cherry picking targets and/or cherry picking individual rifles.

3. I'm assuming they are using new brass for each test. I've always thought fire forming brass to your specific chamber would produce more consistent results? Maybe I'm wrong?

You don’t know the answer to that. But the differences aren’t that great between new and once fired. Mean radius seems to tend less with once fired versus new, but ES doesn’t shrink all that much.

4. Are each barrel they are using for a specific cartridge test chambered exactly the same?

Not 100% on this specific tests, however on all that I have seen, yes.

5. Was anything done differently to account for the barrel wear? Like they said, "each time you pull the trigger something is changing". Well, if they are burning out barrels but keeping the load the same, how are the results supposed to be consistent?

How are you accounting for barrel wear between your zero confirm and your shot for hunting? This whole “the barrel is changing too much for 20-30 shots” is literally just an excuse from people that do not understand statistical relevance and that want to believe a fairytale. I watched a bartlien 1.25” straight contour chambered by one of the most respected in the business, fired from a wiseman in an indoor range, put multiple 100 round groups into 1.5’ish MOA and when overlaid the worst round made it like a 1.7 MOA group. Using an acoustic target, there was no statistical difference between 3 and 5 shot group strings at 50-100 rounds on the barrel, and the same at several hundred rounds in- bit was there any measurable POI change.

6. They talked many times about accuracy expectations...what are their expectations for their "accuracy fixture"? Is it even capable of shooting small consistently?

The ones they had last I saw are capable of less than 1/100th of an MOA return to battery from shot to shot.

Reason I ask this is because Miles said he has NEVER seen a true 1/4" gun. Well, all he has to do is look to the results of Br comps like I said above. Many are winning with aggs, across many groups/matches, in the .2's and .3's. Might not make a difference in this conversation but it makes me question once again their expectations and components.

They were talking “true” .25 MOA rifles for 30-50 round groups. BR rifles aren’t .25 MOA guns when statistically relevant shot group sizes are used. The baseline start of statistical relevance is about 30. Do not adjust zero or shift aimpiont on true BR rifles, and shoot 6 separate 5 shot groups on different targets, then overlay all 6 groups on one targets- those 30 shots are not going to be .25 MOA- or it would be few rifles, even BR guns, that will do so.

7."using a 3 shot group to zero your rifle, you are doing a disservice to yourself. To clarify, that is with this rifle and ammunition. It's gonna vary depending on the capability of the rifle". Something I thought was an interesting comment.

That’s been discussed here a lot. If someone Venice they have a .5 MOA rifle based on a couple/few three shot groups- they really have a 1.5+ MOA rifle. Zeroing off of 3 shots absolutely will result in errors of zero.

It was never explicitly stated either how they do load development. They glossed over it a few different times but never to a step by step level. I'm curious about that as well. They say, "I seat the bullets .025-.035" off the lands and forget my seating die is adjustable. Then I will try 10 shot groups with 3 or 4 different powders that applicable for the cartridge and those are just kind of feelers, and like Jaden was saying, if those are horrible I'll just pitch them. If any of those are good I'll shoot them as 20's and take the best looking one out of that. That's all I do." So where/how do they know where to start looking at the powder charge? For Jaden, he says at the end of how he does load development "if he doesn't get the results with the powders/bullets, either change your expectations or change the barrel because barrel/bullet combination is kind of unique". Ok, I totally get that because I've observed that a few times where a bullet just wouldn't shoot well in my gun no matter what I did. Ironic that the last bullet that happened with was a 212 Eldx. With all that being said, especially the part Jaden brought up, did they "grade" the barrels they used in their testing for that particular bullet?

Do you actually think they were using savage barrels for their shooting?

I’ve made the offer, I’ll make it again- I am willing to show you in person that what you think is happening, isn’t. You can do all the shooting. The only stipulation is that all shits count- you can not for any reason throw out a “flyer”.