My 22 shoots 1/2" groups at 50 yards/meters all day! Really? Prove it!

Anschutz biathlon 64R

There haven’t been any posts in this thread for a while so I’ll try kick-starting it again. Yesterday I took out my, new to me, Anschutz 64-R biathlon rifle. For this session I had a Sightron SIII 8-32x56 MOA scope mounted. I shot all groups from the loaded magazine, rather than single-shot loading – I just wanted to see how it shot when mag-fed.

Target board is at 50 metres in the Kamloops, B.C. small-bore range. Temp was about 8*C with light wind at ~10 kph out of the east (from the right in the picture of the target board). I used two “surveyor tape flags” hung from the target board at 24 metres and at the 50 metre board. Tried some cheap CCI SV, but the best I could do was about .750” groups CTC. Also tried a few groups of RWS Target Rifle, but not much better than the CCI. Finally settled on mid-range SK Flatnose Match which the rifle seems to like.

Group sizes CTC:
0.341”
0.429”
0.424”
0.329”
0.254”

Average: 0.355”

While this rifle certainly is not shooting with the top tier rifles in this challenge, it’s pretty respectable and it hurts when I think about rifles I have that won’t make the challenge and that I’ve spent more on to try to get them to shoot. :)

Joe.

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redryder said:
Because then it destroys your aiming point?
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^^^^ This is the reason for not shooting out the bullseye.

Since I was shooting for groups I didn't worry about windage, other than to watch the flags during each group to minimize drift within the individual groups. To try to take out the bullseye the scope needed -0.250MOA windage and +1.375 MOA elevation with the SK Flatnose Match ammo I finally used for the 1/2" 5-group challenge. I had originally sighted into the bullseye with CCI SV, then dropped the elevation 1.500MOA to not take out the aiming point; I didn't change the scope settings when I changed ammo, but the average point of impact with the SK shifted to the right about .500MOA and up very slightly relative to the CCI SV.

I actually want to use this rifle for metallic silhouette shooting this summer. I'll be swapping a lower magnification scope onto the rifle. As a beginner anything over 10x is pretty unusable for me. Once the other scope is on, I'll need to determine the exact windage on a calm day and I'll need to get my "bullseye" elevations for 40m, 60m, 77m, and 100m. This will give initial scope settings to give me a good chance of knocking down the silhouettes. Consistently hitting a 4-6MOA silhouette standing unsupported is pretty tough, I find. Having equipment that can shoot consistently helps.
 
The weather is looking up and I can now lay prone a bit more comfortably since I don't have to shoot over a snow bank.
Tikka t1x, bone stock
Bushnell 3200 5-15×40
50 yards
Lapua center-x
Slight breeze
7°c
Caldwell bags lying prone

Group sizes:
.273"
.217"
.419"
.225"
.340"

Average = .295"
Groups were measured farthest edge to farthest edge then .218" was subtracted from that number.

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Im going to try this with my son's Biathlon rental rifle,( Annie) one of these days. The rifle can do it, not sure if I can with the diopter sights however.
 
NHunter said:
That's the difference between a hunting rifle and a paper puncher I guess....
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f:P:

Not really... hunting rifles don't hit POI at POA except for two specific ranges either... like lol, 3" ish high at 100 is the standard hunting zero for pretty much any non magnum hunting cartridge. Except for two specific points, where the bullet "rises" above line of sight and where it comes back down to zero, no hunting rifle has POA/POI match either. If you want POI to match POA, it's a trivial matter to put a few clicks on and make it so.

I'm staggered this conversation keeps coming up with shooters. I explained this exact same thing literally three hours ago to my absolute non shooter step father, and he grasped it instantly. If you're aiming at a 1/8th inch spot on the paper, it gets hard to hold the same POA when you have a 1/2" hole where your aiming point used to be. He literally asked the same question you did, as someone who's never held much less shot a gun in his life, and on the two sentence explanation completely got it. I'm just astounded that people that are into shooting enough to post here don't.

When you're hunting, hopefully you're not relying on groups to drop the animal. When you're target shooting, it's impossible to aim at the same spot if you obliterate it. It is trivial to adjust your POI if you need to. What's hard to grasp there?
 
LolaPP said:
If you're aiming at a 1/8th inch spot on the paper, it gets hard to hold the same POA when you have a 1/2" hole where your aiming point used to be.
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Have you had a look at the targets I use? You can center your POI dead center and have no issues holding a group. A combination of the diamond shape and "crosshair" lines enable you to line up precisely despite the "center" being shot out.
 
RabidM4U5 said:
Have you had a look at the targets I use? You can center your POI dead center and have no issues holding a group. A combination of the diamond shape and "crosshair" lines enable you to line up precisely despite the "center" being shot out.
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I haven't, no, but I can picture exactly what you mean; much like the target NHunter posted above? Indeed, that's the kind of target I'll use myself for crosshair reticle general purpose hunting centerfire rifle zeroing at 100. I still think having the center shot out is an unnecessary complication and distraction when shooting for group. Even if you have reference points outside the center of the reticle that allow for a consistent POI, to me that's far more work than focusing right on my POA. Aim small, miss small is absolutely true. I'll admit, if you're talking less than say 12x, the difference is minor. For scopes under that, a bigger aiming point is more suitable. When you're aiming with a 20x scope at 50 yards with a target dot that's just over half the size of a .22 hole, even aiming at a .22 hole can seem big.

I guess I'd ask to what end though? What's the point? Why shoot up your POA if you can put that group 1 MOA off to the side? Unless you doubt your ability to bring that POI back over, what's gained? For any precision shooting you're making corrections on your sight or via POA for any range except your zero anyway... I don't get the fixations on having POA match POI on targets shot for group. If they were shot for application, then yes, POA vs POI matters. Indeed, I like to shoot five groups on the same POA. Saves on targets and confirms your scope tracking... starting with POA = POI, I crank it say two inches left and two inches up, or whatever. Crank it around a four inch box, and shoot the fifth group at your zero. That's far more of a test and far more illuminating than firing five groups at the same POI.
 
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LolaPP said:

I guess I'd ask to what end though? What's the point? Why shoot up your POA if you can put that group 1 MOA off to the side? Unless you doubt your ability to bring that POI back over, what's gained? For any precision shooting you're making corrections on your sight or via POA for any range except your zero anyway... I don't get the fixations on having POA match POI on targets shot for group. If they were shot for application, then yes, POA vs POI matters.
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For me, I specifically designed my target for a quick, easy reference point that if all rounds were contained within the circle, I had a sub 1/4" group in my pursuit of that challenge.

 
RabidM4U5 said:
For me, I specifically designed my target for a quick, easy reference point that if all rounds were contained within the circle, I had a sub 1/4" group in my pursuit of that challenge.

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Well, that's definitely a reason. It would give you easy visual confirmation from the bench that your group was under a particular size, but you could also easily mill that with your reticle, right? And you still have to measure it at the end to score, so does it save any effort? Would you not achieve the same end with that 1/4" circle a half inch below your POA? It's an easy reference, for sure, but that doesn't mean it has to be at your POI. Much like a BR target has scoring rings at the POI well below the POA.

I see we made suspiciously similar targets for shooting. 22s at 50 yards lol... mine are the same but without the crosshair lines. Intended for the Sightron MOA2 reticle to center the 1/4 MOA dot and have the crosshair ends touch each corner. What's the striping for?

What about the group that's above the center? For 20% of those groups the inner bull didn't work and it had to be measured anyway...

Outstanding shooting, in any case. That's great. How did you sort the ammo?
 
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RabidM4U5 said:
For me, I specifically designed my target for a quick, easy reference point that if all rounds were contained within the circle, I had a sub 1/4" group in my pursuit of that challenge.

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I draw up my targets exactly like you, sometimes put an orange 1" dot in the 2" diamonds. I've tried many different shapes to shoot at and the diamonds seem to help me get the best groups. Squares also work really well with a dot in the middle as well.
 
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