The 1/4" @ 50 Yards Frustration Club Thread

[RickF]

Grauhanen, one of these days when I’m at the range I will do that with my 2500X. I am at the range virtually every day with it this time of year, put 100 rounds through it as usual today. I have a big shoot here in Cranbrook this coming weekend, and then in two weekends time is the IronMan in Missoula Montana. Two big silhouette competitions with some of the best shooters on the planet. Two days 22LR, then two days high power.

I know from experience the single-shot 2500X will do it, in fact I expect it to do that in calm conditions anytime I place it on the sandbags. It won’t do it with SK standard plus, there’s too much vertical in the groups. But Midas is almost boring, it averages .6” at 100m for 10 shots.

It is not exactly your normal rifle though, with two-groove Benchmark barrel, Leupold 25 power silhouette scope, and Bix N’Andy 2 stage trigger. The only thing that holds it back is the silhouette style stock with lots of drop at heel, not exactly designed for sandbags! . It has a 25” barrel and weighs 8 pounds 7.3 oz to make Hunter class. 2 pound 2 oz trigger. I shoot it in both classes.

By the way, you are being coy with “just put the crosshairs on target “. I am not a great benchrest shooter, I don’t practice it enough. But it is absolutely an earned skill.

 

[grauhanen]

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[RickF]

As soon as I get a day with decent conditions, I will try it. In the Kootenays this is a bad time of year to pull that off as it is always windy in the late afternoon, and that is when I normally shoot after I get off work. But I will do my best!

Worst case I expect to be in Prince George in a couple of months for the nationals. If I am, no doubt Eagleye and I will have a visit, and I will turn him loose with it to see what it will really do. He is a better benchrest shot than me.

 

[Eagleye]

As soon as I get a day with decent conditions, I will try it. In the Kootenays this is a bad time of year to pull that off as it is always windy in the late afternoon, and that is when I normally shoot after I get off work. But I will do my best!

Worst case I expect to be in Prince George in a couple of months for the nationals. If I am, no doubt Eagleye and I will have a visit, and I will turn him loose with it to see what it will really do. He is a better benchrest shot than me.

Beautiful Rifle, Rick!! And........I would love to wring it out off the bench. Which ammo does it dote on? Dave.

 

[grauhanen]

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[RabidM4U5]

This post doesn't qualify for this thread, but it was both frustrating and rewarding.

I'm not such a stickler as underthegun is. This is an open space to discuss the trials and tribulations of attempting the 1/4" challenge, and your post is welcome here. With just over a brick of ammo down the tube, that rifle is certainly showing promise of better things to come. You're going to have a difficult time deciding which rifle to focus on, not the worst problem one could have

I haven't had a chance to measure up my targets from yesterday's shooting, though I am certain I'll have something to post up here. I think I may have shot 5 in a row sub 1/4", but for the target layout and order of shooting it will not qualify for the 1/4" challenge The brick of Eley Tenex I picked up recently seems to be rather agreeable in my 455 custom, further testing might persuade me to purchase a case of it. Also got some Match and Remington/Eley Match that weren't so bad either. I'm not sure the exact round count through the rifle, I think on the plus side of 4000 but less than 5000 now, and it seems to be more consistent. When I see it produce groups like your's marked "dunno", and I know the ammo is good, I take it as an indication that it is time to clean it. There's also a familiar pattern there, that the best groups seem to be shot just before and/or just after a funny group such as the "dunno". One can only speculate towards the exact causation of such errancy, though it always make me think of Bill Calfee's blurb on the rifle that "pukes".

 

[grauhanen]

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[kamlooky]

Have you been attempting 5x5 sub 1/4" groups at 50 yards? Has it been making you pull your hair out in frustration? Well come on in, take a seat, grab a beer and vent that pent up angst!

Since we don't want to pollute the 1/2 @ 50 yards challenge thread with our near misses, this will be an open space for those targets that almost achieved greatness. Some rules for posting: It's got to be close, so your target will need to have A) Four groups sub 1/4", and one group over (no size limit, it ruined your day for whatever reason, come vent about it!) or B) Three groups sub 1/4", one group 0.250"-0.275", and one group greater than 0.250", no limit (see above, you were close, so dang close but [the wind, the ammo, the rifle, that 0.300 Win Mag beside you, etc, ruined your day]).

Example, I messed up one shot on a group that had potential to be a personal best for me in the 0.04's after four shots... but that fifth shot, I must have had a nervous twitch or something, but as soon as the trigger broke I knew I bunged it up. That's shooter error for you, 1 shot out of 25, 4% of shots fired, resulting in a whopping 13/256th of an inch group dispersion (above the limit of 0.25" for the challenge) definitively attributable to the shooter, but that's enough to spoil a 1/4" club attempt . Remaining vertical dispersion on the target is congruent with the MV extreme spread for this lot of RWS R-50 (can't blame the shooter there), ruining one other group by 0.007" (James bond would still approve of the group ). Horizontal spread might be attributed to the wind (as I do not use wind flags) or the steadiness of my hold, but it is so tight I cannot tell with any certainty what factor might be the cause. Regardless, the other groups are excellent specimens of rimfire accuracy, whatever factor causing them to spread out from a mechanically perfect 0.000" shot dispersion notwithstanding.



So, I'm just going to drown my sorrows now with a fresh pint of homebrewed New England Style IPA, liberally hopped with Motueka, Kohatu, Nelson Sauvin, Zythos, and El Dorado for a tropical fruit/citrus delight in my glass.



1/4" at 50 yards... if I was any closer, I'd have done it. Ooohhhh it's a bugger.

Is that?
No, can't be?
Is it?
Cripes.
The reebfrappahbeercheenoe in its finest...…...
Me Lawrd, now I've seen it...………………………………..

Oh, nice shewt'in too.

 

[RabidM4U5]

Is that?
No, can't be?
Is it?
Cripes.
The reebfrappahbeercheenoe in its finest...…...
Me Lawrd, now I've seen it...………………………………..

Oh, nice shewt'in too.

Protein/Polyphenol complexes, it's what the Toronto hipsters pay $7 a bottle for

Was out shooting on Sunday, testing out some new Eley I bought and using up the last box of RWS R-50 I had. Another close call, but for the one group that went squirrely into the 0.5's for no apparent reason. Wasn't the wind, as it is vertical dispersion, doubt it was the ammo, wasn't the shooter... All I got is that the rifle just seems to want to misbehave now and again.



I thought I might have done 5 in a row sub-1/4" here, was just a few thou shy of that. I use 0.215" as my raw group correction factor, if I used 0.220 instead, those would be sub 1/4". While I marked group 1 as "clean bore", I did fire 10 rounds of Eley Sport to lube up the barrel first, though it would seem Tenex preferred it's own lube noting the vertical stringing that went away by group 2 onwards.



The beer keg is empty but my Vienna lager is just about ready to tap.

 

[grauhanen]

sja

 

[RabidM4U5]

The target below was shot at 57 yards with Midas +

Edit to add: To use the same correction factor to each group as Rabid -- the starter of this thread -- does, .005" should be added to each group size on the target below. With a .215 correction factor, the groups become (left to right): .180, .241, .351, .211, .242"

Very nice, you've got several real shooters there Glenn. Now you've reached the point that I've been stuck at for the last year. I don't know what it's going to take to break through this plateau and nail 1/4", I've been trying every trick up my sleeve to no avail.

As far as your group measurements, eh, you're shooting at 57 yards so a scoring handicap is appropriate. That's 14% further than 50 yards, so a correction factor up to 0.245" would give you the equivalent group sizes as if you were shooting at 50 yards. I see no issue with you using 0.22".

 

[grauhanen]

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[mikeystew]

Nice looking beers! Big fan of homebrewed NEIPA, and I like the hop selection too. I've been using quite a bit of Eldorado myself lately, goes awesome with mosaic and cashmere.

Nice shooting too!

 

[grauhanen]

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[grauhanen]

sja

 

[grauhanen]

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[yodave]

figured while i was playing with the tuner looking for the sweet spot I'd have a go at it since I had a clean target pinned up at 50 meters, so I shot a 0.232, 0.340, 0.273, 0.233 0.214........3 out of the 5 groups made it in, I didn't have enough ammo to give it another go

not sure where the good benches went so had to shoot off this piece of ####, but all in all the old old winchester T22 ammo still shoots as good as the day I bought way to much of it, but man does it stink

 

[Chilly807]

Interesting rifle.. what is it?

I remember the T22 from years ago, over 30 years ago in fact. We used to get it on occasion at the junior shooting program I belonged to at that time.

To put things in perspective, our usual ammunition was C-I-L Standard Velocity in the plastic "slide" boxes of 50.
It seemed like it was OK stuff for Sporting rifle shooting compared to the trash that's available today, although the serious guys still shot Eley in those days. I think it would be on par with SK Standard Plus in today's world.

 

[45Auto]

Interesting rifle.. what is it?

I remember the T22 from years ago, over 30 years ago in fact. We used to get it on occasion at the junior shooting program I belonged to at that time.

To put things in perspective, our usual ammunition was C-I-L Standard Velocity in the plastic "slide" boxes of 50.
It seemed like it was OK stuff for Sporting rifle shooting compared to the trash that's available today, although the serious guys still shot Eley in those days. I think it would be on par with SK Standard Plus in today's world.

Yes, used to shoot a lot of that CIL and a lot more of CIL Canuck back in the 70's when shooting Sporting Rifle class for SFC. Agree, back then T22 was good ammo. And if you were serious, Eley Tenex was the ammo to use. Yodave is doing quite well w. T22.

 

[yodave]

Interesting rifle.. what is it?

I remember the T22 from years ago, over 30 years ago in fact. We used to get it on occasion at the junior shooting program I belonged to at that time.

To put things in perspective, our usual ammunition was C-I-L Standard Velocity in the plastic "slide" boxes of 50.
It seemed like it was OK stuff for Sporting rifle shooting compared to the trash that's available today, although the serious guys still shot Eley in those days. I think it would be on par with SK Standard Plus in today's world.

it's a swindlehurst built by Kelby, top of the line stuff that is no longer available and sadly nothing available that compares to it, thanks to Jefferson I have 2 of them