Question about "throwing" a shot

1899

1899

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My friend and I were out shooting yesterday at 306, 408 and 496 yards. We were finishing up load work for our hunting rifles. Both of our rifles shoot well, but both of them have a bit of an "issue".

We do three shot groups as they are sporter/light contour barrels that heat up quite quickly (7mm RM and .300 WM). Both seem to consistantly group two shots very close to each other and one further away. This is not very noticeable at 100 yards, but does become pronounced at longer ranges.

At 306 yards the group was 2.15", and I called a flier to the left at the shot. Two shots were 1.18" center to center.

At 408 yards the group was 2.40", with two shots 0.966" from c-c.

At 496 yards the group was 2.06", with two shots 0.466" from c-c.

It appears as though the cold barrel shot is off from the rest of the shots. My friend's rifle is 100% certainly doing that - cold barrel 1st shot at one point, and then the next two close to each other.

You could almost lay the groups over each other, they look the same.

It is not as pronounced in my rifle with about 2 -2.5" difference, but in his it is - at 496 yards the "flier" is almost 5" away from the other shots. So what kind of solution should we be looking at?

Edit - there was no concern with wind.
 
A real honest 5" group at 500 is fine by my standards out of a hunting rifle! I'd call her a day.

Which way was the cold flyer high low or left right?


Other than a different load/ bullet, free floating the BBl bedding the action and cleaning the copper out I don't know what else to try. To be honest I have a few rifles that had a substantial cold flyer and was never able to fix it in any of them. Some shot slower cold and put the bullet low, some just had internal stress or possibly off center hole in the bbl and heat made the bbl walk in a predictable direction. Only way to fix those ones it is to re-bbl the rifle.

My test for a hunting rifle is not only to shoot for groups but to hunt with it for a week. Get the bbl a little dusty, bang it around on the quad for a bit, drop it in the muskeg, bring it from the warm house to the cold truck, bring it from the cold bush to the warm truck, get it wet, wipe it off with my sleeve, then shoot one shot and see if it is still were I left it. I got a few that may only shoot 1.5 to 2 MOA groups but will put that first one 3" high at 100 dead center every time. That is an accurate hunting rifle by my standards.
 
ROA - I am not saying it isn't good enough as is, just that it would be nice to have all of them going to the same spot. It must not be random as the results are consistant over many groups.

My rifle's flier is low and to the left, except the 496 yard group which was pretty much low with no horizontal movement.

For my friend it is always high - in line, but high. So in his rifle at 496 the first shot would be almost 5" higher than the next two, which are around 2.5" from each other (and most of that distance is horizontal).
 
1899 said:
My friend and I were out shooting yesterday at 306, 408 and 496 yards. We were finishing up load work for our hunting rifles. Both of our rifles shoot well, but both of them have a bit of an "issue".

We do three shot groups as they are sporter/light contour barrels that heat up quite quickly (7mm RM and .300 WM). Both seem to consistantly group two shots very close to each other and one further away. This is not very noticeable at 100 yards, but does become pronounced at longer ranges.

At 306 yards the group was 2.15", and I called a flier to the left at the shot. Two shots were 1.18" center to center.

At 408 yards the group was 2.40", with two shots 0.966" from c-c.

At 496 yards the group was 2.06", with two shots 0.466" from c-c.

It appears as though the cold barrel shot is off from the rest of the shots. My friend's rifle is 100% certainly doing that - cold barrel 1st shot at one point, and then the next two close to each other.

You could almost lay the groups over each other, they look the same.

It is not as pronounced in my rifle with about 2 -2.5" difference, but in his it is - at 496 yards the "flier" is almost 5" away from the other shots. So what kind of solution should we be looking at?

Edit - there was no concern with wind.
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My hunting rifle does this. Over all the groups are good but the cold bore shot is not in the group. When i shoot groups with this rifle I now shooot 1 or 2 shots then shoot a group.
 
Sight in the rifle as you will use it.

If you hunt, you better trust that cold bore shot. THEN know where a follow up will fall.

Within MOA, no biggie as an animal will never care. But if more, that is something that can cause a miss when least desired.

Tweak the load for a different node or get a better barrel. If things are consistent, you can tune for it. If random, as long as it allows for hits within your target that is good too.

you are very close to 1/2 min even with shots being "out". They may very well be within your group. Just shoot at the same target and see how 3x3rds form.

That is a better indicator of your actual group size.

Jerry

PS without flags, you may be getting more wind then you think
 
1899 said:
OK, that is something we can try. Would you be kind enough to explain how it could help?
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You get the bullets closer to their sweet spot that they like. You might try setting them further out, but I have always found that seating them deeper usually solves the problem.
 
One more thing, a couple months ago I did some work on a rifle to try to get it to shoot better. I have a bbl that strings shots as it heats up as well as has random flyers in the same direction. Always diagonal to the right. I set this bbl back a bit and re chambered. The total amount I moved the shoulder was equal to 1/4 turn. The bbl shoots exactly the same but now shoots diagonal to the left. The group clocked its self exactly the amount and in the same direction the bbl was turned.


I have always wanted to try to bend a bbl to introduce new stresses in to it to see if that would solve stringing issues. May try it one day...
 
Thanks Jerry. I am content with being off 2" at those ranges with the first shot. My friend, on the other hand, is looking at being off 5" at 500 yards with his first shot, so it is a bit of a concern. The good part is, as you point out, he knows it will be high so he can adjust his hold for that first shot. Hopefully we will be able get much closer to game, but it is nice to know exactly what your rifle does at those distances.

We will go out and do some more shooting, and try the 3 x3 shots to have a better look. He did do 2 x3 at 200 a few weeks ago and you could lay the two targets over each other and see all three holes.

With respect to barrels we are both already thinking about that. My rifle has maybe 500 rounds through it and his has about 150, so they both should have some ways to go. Mine is a Steyr-Mannlicher Luxus S (pre-SBS) and his is a T3 Lite.
 
Republic of Alberta said:
One more thing, a couple months ago I did some work on a rifle to try to get it to shoot better. I have a bbl that strings shots as it heats up as well as has random flyers in the same direction. Always diagonal to the right. I set this bbl back a bit and re chambered. The total amount I moved the shoulder was equal to 1/4 turn. The bbl shoots exactly the same but now shoots diagonal to the left. The group clocked its self exactly the amount and in the same direction the bbl was turned.


I have always wanted to try to bend a bbl to introduce new stresses in to it to see if that would solve stringing issues. May try it one day...
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That is very interesting. Jerry - is this what you mean by "getting a better barrel"?

Underthegun said:
*NOTE* this is assuming that you are running fairly close to the rifling already.
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Yes, I am 25 thou off right now (.284" 175gr Nosler Partition).
 
You gun is producing completely predictable results for a factory barrel.

all factor barrels are eiether made by hammer forging, which creates rifling by beating a heated barrel around a mandrel or by button rifling wich is created by pushing a rifling head down the barrel under tons of force. lots of accomplished shooters swear by cut rifled barrels like border, obermeyer, and krieger. I think a good button barrel will shoot as good.

both create stress in the steel. match barrels are stress relieved by heating them up, leaving them there and then cooling them very slowly. it is a time consuming and expensive process so in factory guns you don't see stress reliving done to anywhere near the standard you would see it on a match barrel.

shot one will heat the barrel and it will distort and follow on shots will fall in a different spot. in my army days you were given two "warming rounds" before shooting to qualify. they just call em foulers now
 
This may be one of the times a cryo treatment may work.
I have tried it twice out of desperation; once on a rifle like yours that would shoot a different point on cold shots the second time on a rifle that shot good groups but never a consistent point of aim. Worked the first time and didn't work the second time, cost me $50 a pop.

Snake oil? not sure, but I still have the first rifle and always will.

Dan
 
1899 said:
That is very interesting. Jerry - is this what you mean by "getting a better barrel"?
Correct. Properly stressed relieved match barrels have bores concentric with the exterior, much better dimensional tolerances, and tend not to change POI as they heat up.

Remember in F class, that first sighter means alot to how the next rds will play out.

After as many as 22rds, these barrels are expected to let the shooter hit a 1/2 min bull all the way out to 1000yds (1200yds in Bisley).

No one shoots a factory barrel unless they are required by rules.

Jerry
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Click to expand...
 
1899 said:
Thanks Jerry. I am content with being off 2" at those ranges with the first shot. My friend, on the other hand, is looking at being off 5" at 500 yards with his first shot, so it is a bit of a concern. The good part is, as you point out, he knows it will be high so he can adjust his hold for that first shot. Hopefully we will be able get much closer to game, but it is nice to know exactly what your rifle does at those distances.

We will go out and do some more shooting, and try the 3 x3 shots to have a better look. He did do 2 x3 at 200 a few weeks ago and you could lay the two targets over each other and see all three holes.

With respect to barrels we are both already thinking about that. My rifle has maybe 500 rounds through it and his has about 150, so they both should have some ways to go. Mine is a Steyr-Mannlicher Luxus S (pre-SBS) and his is a T3 Lite.
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Maybe rebedding can help??

But those barrel are walking way too much for my liking, even if they are repeatable.

Under the stress of the hunt, you may forget to hold off properly and now you have a massive error added to the reduced shooting capacity of the excited shooter.

Add in more error due to winds and changing ambient conditions.

I would really try and get closer.
Jerry
 
My hunting rifle does this. Over all the groups are good but the cold bore shot is not in the group. When i shoot groups with this rifle I now shooot 1 or 2 shots then shoot a group.
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Do you mean cold bore, or clean bore? There is a big difference.
 
stubblejumper said:
Do you mean cold bore, or clean bore? There is a big difference.
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Cold bore. My hunting rifle consistantly shoots 1moa 5 shot including my cold bore. When I shoot 1 warming shot and then a group I lose the pesky flier that opened up the group and the rifle tightens up to 5/8'' ish. Never really been conserned about it because for me 1moa is plenty good for the hunting I do. I do my best to make the first shot count any way. One shot groups are preferable when hunting is conserned
Also well aware of the clean bore vs fowled.:)
 
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