Okay, so I wound up shooting 99 handloaded cartridges today. Was supposed to be an even 100, but I mangled the first case I tried to handload. Nosler 175g Custom Competition HPBT bullets, Winchester brass, Winchester WLR primers, 41.5 grains of IMR 4064 powder.
Iron sights, shooting offhand and occasionally using my fist as a rest. 40 yards at the Pheonix indoor range. Was a bit awkward as the booths seem to be made for people about six inches shorter than I am, so I was hunched over pretty good and it required some substantial contortion to use my fist as a rest.
I've shot maybe 20 bullets out of a rifle in my life before today, and that was mostly about 7-3 years ago. Last I checked a few years ago I've got 14/20 vision and I was not wearing my glasses today. So, this is probably a pretty good example of a low-end rookie shooter's accuracy.
Something to the effect of a 6 inch nine shot grouping by the end of today, from something close to a 14 inch ten shot group at the beginning of today. That's a 50% improvement over the course of maybe an hour.
I fully expect a decent shooter with optics to be able to get an easy three or four times better accuracy than I can. By the end of it the barrel was almost too hot to touch.
I figure that doing it this way, as opposed to three shot groups, is a far more fair assessment of practical accuracy especially as the barrel heats up and the groups start to open. I laugh a little when people post an impressive sub-moa three shot group that's an easy six inches away from the center of the target. Small groups are kind of pointless if they're not hitting what you're aiming at.
I tend to shoot low and left, even with pistols. Might be something I'm doing, but I think in this case the sights are contributing. For the last 9 shots my point of aim was about six inches to the right and six inches upwards from the center of the target. You can see the bullets walk across the targets as I aim progressively further upwards and to the right from the first target to the last target. So, I think the sights might legitimately be a little off, or maybe I'm holding the rifle strangely.
Behold!
And now I start cleaning it.
P.S. I am never taking my Boyt case to the range again. Probably somewhere around 32-36 pounds with the GSR and six unloaded mags in the case. 24 pounds empty, according to the Boyt website. Easily-scared public be damned, I'll be carrying it in my denim soft case/bag as soon as I finish sewing it. A quarter of the size and weight and much easier to handle.
