Help Humble Me

Jacobean

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First, the specs:

- CC IUR 15.7"
- Elcan OS3.0xB
- 62gr AE .223

I worked on sighting in my rifle and optic today at 100m. I was a bit discouraged with it all, partially because I felt I wasn't getting groupings indicative of the work, time and breathing I was focusing on while prone, supported at 100m. Only one grouping felt decent, but others seemed to dance around the 1" round stickers I had placed across my target. This, of course, lead to a difficult 100m zero for the Elcan. I know most people prefer the 25/200 but I want the solid 100m, as the retical has adjustment knobs for 100m increments.

Maybe my expectations are too high for it, or maybe I expect an X" grouping to be smaller than it truly is, and it's my mental imagery of what a 3" circle (for instance) looks like. But give me the brain power of the forum. What are realistic expectations from an IUR, Elcan os3.0, and 62gr ammo?
 
AE ammo, and a 3.4X scope likely won't give you MOA sized groups. If you are shooting factory ammo try some of the Match grade stuff. If you want max performance you have to brew your own. I was getting about 3" groups with AE 55 gr FMJ and a 1.5-4.5X24 scope, but my rifle will shoot under 1" with handloads and 15X magnification (Colt HBAR).
 
Your a terrible shot. You need to practice more before you even thing of shooting groups again. Now that we got the humbling out of the way what these guys said^

H:S:
 
First, the specs:

- CC IUR 15.7"
- Elcan OS3.0xB
- 62gr AE .223

I worked on sighting in my rifle and optic today at 100m. I was a bit discouraged with it all, partially because I felt I wasn't getting groupings indicative of the work, time and breathing I was focusing on while prone, supported at 100m. Only one grouping felt decent, but others seemed to dance around the 1" round stickers I had placed across my target. This, of course, lead to a difficult 100m zero for the Elcan. I know most people prefer the 25/200 but I want the solid 100m, as the retical has adjustment knobs for 100m increments.

Maybe my expectations are too high for it, or maybe I expect an X" grouping to be smaller than it truly is, and it's my mental imagery of what a 3" circle (for instance) looks like. But give me the brain power of the forum. What are realistic expectations from an IUR, Elcan os3.0, and 62gr ammo?

What lower/LPK are you running? More specifically, what trigger?

Also what were your actual group sizes? You talked about not being happy with them, but didn't really give us any numbers.
 
Lower is a CC enhanced (and I know that's mostly with regards to the furniture). It's a stock CC upper and lower; nothing changed on it whatsoever.

I guess I hear what you guys are saying. All the stock parts combined with meh ammo (considering both the factory and reload world) and a battle optic at best, tells me my hopes were set too high. Reloading will come, but not for a long time. I enjoy more active hobbies right now. Something too passive like that sounds better for the future, or winter months even.

For the record, I wasn't looking for MOA out of the box; I know that's an insane hope for something like this. I guess only being able to get to 100m near the end of the day, I was already tired and had dirtied the barrel with cheap warm up ammo that I likely didn't set myself up for any decent sight in shooting. Next time I'll try and be patient to start at 100 with decent ammo and go from there.

Here are two groups at 50m, prone supported, 55gr FMJ Barnaul (what fowled it up a bit).

E0XW1E6.jpg


@rkm456: I wish I had actual numbers or photos for you. I try to keep shooting as one of my more relaxing hobbies, but when I can sometimes get frustrated trying to sight in, I get a bit tunnel visioned and think I won't care about looking over my results at another time. I guess if I had to look back at today, most 10rd groups would fit within a 6" circle, with one or two groups going larger. Best group was 5rd easily in a 4" circle, but sat low of my 1.5" low if the 1" sticker dot I was aiming for.
 
that upper can perform but you need at least a 10x quality scope if you want to see under 1.5 with that upper
also discipline breathing and trigger control are key when shooting for groups
that first group at 50 meters isnt bad if you take out the flyer, unfortunately the flyer is due to you not the ammo or the rifle
 
that upper can perform but you need at least a 10x quality scope if you want to see under 1.5 with that upper
also discipline breathing and trigger control are key when shooting for groups
that first group at 50 meters isnt bad if you take out the flyer, unfortunately the flyer is due to you not the ammo or the rifle

I can definitely live with 1 flier from a group. Seems the general curse anyways. I own it for sure. I guess my frustrations came from seeing nice and tight at 50 and feeling wildly off at 100. But next range day I'll be sure to take pics of all distances and groups and come back for more opinions.
 
My VZ58 does group like that with the factory 69gr ammo (forgot which one) I did a 10 shot group and i Had 2 flyers at the same place and 8 within 1''. Don't leave out your flyers, they count.
 
Please forgive me, but are we talking about groupings at 100m? You cannot even begin to see the subtleties yet. Get out to at least 3 times that and you can now start to get out of the "background noise". I do not personally know the platform or the optics, but I shoot long, 100m is almost a handgun range. Ring the gong at 1600m 3 of 5 and you can now brag. Did I help on your humble? Oops, I shoot a 45/70 Govt in Black Powder; not this heathen smokeyless crap.
 
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I guess my frustrations came from seeing nice and tight at 50 and feeling wildly off at 100.

This is where a more powerful optic will make the difference, as mike stated a minimum of 10X if you want to be consistent. You can do well with a low power optic, but the higher mag makes repeating the feat easier. A nice light trigger helps as well, but you can work around that by how you manipulate it. I'm assuming your CC trigger has plenty of travel like most mil-spec triggers. I regularly pooch my first shot because of the travel on my trigger. I assume you know not to release the trigger after you break the shot, but to let it off slowly just till the reset to eliminate the travel. Avoiding the travel on the first shot is easy, but first you need a bi-pod or bag to shoot off. I use a child's knapsack with a bag of sand in it to give it some weight and some rags to take up the extra space. I'd suggest a proper shooting bag, or rest (I like the bag better), but this works pretty good, and cost me nothing but time, and a few things I had wasting space around the house...back to the trigger. Get your rifle settled into the bag (or whatever), get your rifle on target, now draw the trigger to the rear, hold it, and charge the rifle. Now you can release the trigger to the reset so your first shot is just like the rest...just make sure you have the rifle in your shoulder and on target for obvious reasons.


As for ammo, Fed Gold Medal Match, or Black Hills is likely the best off the shelf stuff you can feed it, but you'll pay. I'd give both Hornady 75gr Match, and Hornady 55gr V-Max a try. You can probably get 20 75gr Steel Match, and 20 55gr V-Max for the cost of 20 GGM.
 
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Please forgive me, but are we talking about groupings at 100m? You cannot even begin to see the subtleties yet. Get out to at least 3 times that and you can now start to get out of the "background noise". I do not personally know the platform or the optics, but I shoot long, 100m is almost a handgun range. Ring the gong at 1600m 3 of 5 and you can now brag. Did I help on your humble? Oops, I shoot a 45/70 Govt in Black Powder; not this heathen smokeyless crap.

This is not the intended purpose, he is testing the accuracy potential of a semi auto service rifle at 100 meters.
shooting a 223 at 1600meters is just plain stilly
 
@rkm456: I wish I had actual numbers or photos for you. I try to keep shooting as one of my more relaxing hobbies, but when I can sometimes get frustrated trying to sight in, I get a bit tunnel visioned and think I won't care about looking over my results at another time. I guess if I had to look back at today, most 10rd groups would fit within a 6" circle, with one or two groups going larger. Best group was 5rd easily in a 4" circle, but sat low of my 1.5" low if the 1" sticker dot I was aiming for.

I'm much the same in that I'm nowhere near a point where measuring for MOA is necessary. Having said that, I shot my 15.7 IUR upper yesterday at 50m with a Vortex Spitfire 1x on it, seated from a bench but not from a rest (and I say this as someone who is not a good shot) my groups looked about the same if not a little smaller. It could be the indian and not the arrow. Maybe worry about sighting in, or shooting for quality groups rather than trying to do both.
 
Your sarcasm detector is off Mike.

Edenchef: What constellation and star charts are you using to align that shot?

I really like Strelok.

This is not the intended purpose, he is testing the accuracy potential of a semi auto service rifle at 100 meters.
shooting a 223 at 1600meters is just plain stilly

My comment was that 100m is far too short to actually test the accuracy potential of pretty much anything other than a .22. The groupings are normally just too small. It is only at longer ranges that the groups open up and begin to give useful information about the possible cause(s) of inaccuracy. IMHO, shooting at 100m is not going to make someone a better shooter, but it does stroke their ego.
 
I really like Strelok.



My comment was that 100m is far too short to actually test the accuracy potential of pretty much anything other than a .22. The groupings are normally just too small. It is only at longer ranges that the groups open up and begin to give useful information about the possible cause(s) of inaccuracy. IMHO, shooting at 100m is not going to make someone a better shooter, but it does stroke their ego.

I agree, but if you cant shoot at a 100, why bother at 600, get your groups small at 100 then move on to the environmental factors for distance

learning to accurately shoot is an iterative approach
 
But wouldn't it behest a shooter to work towards the latter in order to get a more accurate former?

Before I continue, let me reiterate. I am not a good shot.

In my experience shooting a gun with the intention of it shooting point of aim requires a different set of skills than shooting for pure accuracy. Sighting a gun in would be best done with as many variables removed as possible. Where shooting for accuracy would be the act of having a shooter control those variables.
 
This is where a more powerful optic will make the difference, as mike stated a minimum of 10X if you want to be consistent. You can do well with a low power optic, but the higher mag makes repeating the feat easier. A nice light trigger helps as well, but you can work around that by how you manipulate it. I'm assuming your CC trigger has plenty of travel like most mil-spec triggers. I regularly pooch my first shot because of the travel on my trigger. I assume you know not to release the trigger after you break the shot, but to let it off slowly just till the reset to eliminate the travel. Avoiding the travel on the first shot is easy, but first you need a bi-pod or bag to shoot off. I use a child's knapsack with a bag of sand in it to give it some weight and some rags to take up the extra space. I'd suggest a proper shooting bag, or rest (I like the bag better), but this works pretty good, and cost me nothing but time, and a few things I had wasting space around the house...back to the trigger. Get your rifle settled into the bag (or whatever), get your rifle on target, now draw the trigger to the rear, hold it, and charge the rifle. Now you can release the trigger to the reset so your first shot is just like the rest...just make sure you have the rifle in your shoulder and on target for obvious reasons.


As for ammo, Fed Gold Medal Match, or Black Hills is likely the best off the shelf stuff you can feed it, but you'll pay. I'd give both Hornady 75gr Match, and Hornady 55gr V-Max a try. You can probably get 20 75gr Steel Match, and 20 55gr V-Max for the cost of 20 GGM.

This is great advice. I'll start my day off with fresh eyes and hands while incorporating your techniques. Coming back to this a couple weeks later, I think I was expecting too much and being too hard on myself. Will come back and update in the coming weeks.
 
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