Accuracy in the cold?

P-J

P-J

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
39   0   0
Location
Wild West
So I went out today to sight in my Remington 700 tactical, and my trusty savage .223 rem BTCVSS or something like that? (thumb hole varminter) I was getting very strange results. The chronograph was all over the place, and I decided to stop paying attention to it.

The Remington I had shooting .5" groups (@100yards) with my current load, but today I couldn’t even get under 1", then I tried a new varmint load (125 gr TNT's) and shot one .25" 5 shot group.... followed by a 1.5" group with the same bullets from the same batch within 5 min....

I got mad, blamed the Remington, and switched to my Savage. With my 69 gr loads I have shot .300" or under all summer at 100 yards... today I couldn’t hold .75"! Then I sighted in a 55gr V-max load I am trying, I got decent results, but then after a one group it opened up and shot to the right about 1"???


I am at a loss, I have put hundreds of rounds down the savage, and more then a few hundred in the Remington, both have always been very consistent, but today things just fell apart, even with my old trusty loads.

So I am wondering what the temperature does to things? I rarely shoot in the cold, and today was~ -10c, I thought my groups might be lower but, things just seemed so random today I was wondering what others experience’s are with shooting in the cold?
 
Mebbe you were just cold and shot crappy because of altered breathing and/or the odd shivers? Or a differential in the layer of clothing denied the rifles to be shouldered like they were when you got those groupings? What about the wind?

I don't mean to insult your intelligence or anything, I only mention these things because they are factors that alter markmanship (regardless if rifle is supported or bipoded) and you hadn't mentioned them in your post.

At -10, I seriously doubt it would have affected your ammunition or even your rifles to the least amount. At -30 you would notice a marginal difference in the ammunition and a sluggishness of the rifle's action.
 
I was using Varget in the ammo that seemed to change the most. I was only using cci large rifle primers.... maybe I will try it again with LRM's and see if it helps, I did have 49.5 grs of powder in the TNT loads. the Chrono was saying my loads had a etreme spread of 100+ fps.... even though it was the same batch with the same scale that chrono'd extreme spreads of 20 fps in +15 weather....

The .223 was all SRM cci primers however with varget and AA2230.

Ammo was @ -10. ;)

I agree and hope the poor groupings was just me, I just felt like I was doing the same thing as when I could manage well under .5 MOA. But you're right, I had thicker clothing, and my finger was getting numb.... I won't worry too much until a warmer day. It just seemed like accuracy went out the window.

On a positive, I did recover 2 168 grn A-max bullets, they seemed to expand much better then I thought they were supposed to! :D
 
Work UP in load value 0.1 to 0.2gr increments until the gun goes back into tune.

You are not going nuts. COLD will affect your load AND your rifle.

I have found that even temp stable powders will change a bit when temp changes more then 20C.

I am sure you will find a new 'great' load.

Jerry
 
Do what Mysticplayer said. My 223 required a .2gr correction for a 20deg temp drop. .1 gr either side of the sweet spot and my .25" groups go to .6+"
 
Are you using wind flags? After that the most important factor is:

From personal experience, humans become poor shooters when they are cold. The fingers become stiff and can’t feel the trigger very well, three layers of insulation make it difficult to consistently shoulder the gun, your freezing breath fogs the scope lens, and your so miserable that you rush the shots just to get it over with so you can go home and get near the wood stove. If you enjoy ice fishing while seated out in the open on a five-gallon bucket, the Norse Gods must be with you.

You can compensate for ambient conditions to a degree with load adjustment, but the human factor, in my opinion, is overwhelming. My benchrest rifle under nice summer conditions will consistently shoot groups half the size that I can shoot during the winter. It’s mostly because of me, not the gun.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom