What am I doing wrong here? (Update - I went out again)

Some other suggestions:

Are you using the same brass for your reloads? If yes are you full or neck sizing? Try neck sizing only and try full neck sizing first.

How's is your scopes parralax? That could be changing your POI from your POA.

How are you setting your OAL? Is the ogive touching the lands or did you back if off a bit or is there too much of a run before the ogive touched the lands?
 
I'm using full sized Remington once fired brass. I don't have a neck sizing die here but I'm thinking of getting one. I have some Benchmark powder and will probably give that a go next, starting low and working my way up.
 
Also and there is so much more adviced to be given. Be sure your rifle is placed back in it's original firing postion.

We use to place masking tape on the front and rear of the stock to mark where it is sitting in the sand bags or brench rest stand so we can place it back in the same place when we're about to fire another shot. Also hold and rest your check on the rifle the same way and same pressure to maintain consistancy.
 
Thats a lot of jump on the 69's. seriously try them with the varget. Also your going to find that light bullets react fast to o.2 grains difference in powder charge so its quite easy to miss the nodes. Stop shooting in the wind also, even at 100 yards the drift on a 50 and 55 grain bullet is insane, especially when looking for a load and doing developement.

Try this. seat a bullet in a empty case really long, slide it into the chamber and hold the bullet tight to the lands. slide your cleaning rod down from the muzzle end until it touches the bullet and draw a circle with a felt pen around the rod right at the muzzle.
remove the case and bullet and close the bolt, slide the cleaning rod until it touches the bolt face and mark the rod again, measure between the two lines with your calipers and this will give you your coal to the lands. try it a few times and take the average. Its a poor mans trick but it works. I flat ended tip on your rod works the best, or a old plastic jag with the tip ground off. Use the same bullet you used to measure the lands to make your dummy round.

Now set the bullet 10 thou deeper and do your work up loads, when you find the best group you can play with the bullet seating depth to see if you can improve it. I have shot 1.5 inch groups to .2 inch groups with the same rifle and same powder load just by varying the seating depth in a .222 rem.

Precision reloading is more indepth then precision shooting, both take the same consistancies from start to finish, the slightest change will effect the end results and from what I am seeing, unless I missed something is your lack of work up loads. If you just picked a powder load from a book then I am going to suggest that that is what you did wrong.

Food for thought, load the 69 grain SMK with 24.7, 25.0, 25.3, 25.6 and 25.9 grains of varget with a coal of 2.500 and shoot five shot groups with these loads and post your results, we should see some sort of result with this. just looking at a group with one powder weight and one bullet tells me nothing, I could compare that to factory ammo and tell you to buy a different brand of ammo and try again until you find what your gun likes.

Hope this makes sense.
 
Pick one bullet!

This is what I do. Now you have a "benchmark" load. Use the 69gr SMK's.

Load up 10 of your 69gr smk, 23gr h335 seated at 2.435.

Now make 9 of the same but 23.5gr of powder. (batch 1)

9 at 24gr (batch 2) and another 9 at 24.5. (batch 3)



Set up 4 targets. one for your "benchmark" and 3 others for each of your "batches".

Shoot 5 of your "benchmark" rounds. See how they group and to foul the bore.

Then shoot a 3 shot group from batch 1. Then a 3 shot group from batch 2. Then a 3 shot group from batch 3. All on different targets.

Move your scope up 3 MOA (this way you can get all 3 groups on the same target) and shoot the batches threw that order backwards. Then go down to -3 MOA and shoot the last 3 batches in order from batch 1 to 2 to 3.

Finally shoot the last 5 round of your "benchmark" load to see how they group. I have found loads that shoot well from a clean barrel but not a dirty one.

If your "benchmark" load changes group size then you know you have problems with your loading process or your not consistently cleaning your barrel.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I wanted to compare seating depth (this time) to the previously shot groups. As I had something to compare to, I thought it would be a good place to start. I thought if I had a bad barrel it should rule it out. Now I will be picking one bullet/powder combo and wringing it out before moving on to the next one.
 
KDX said:
Thanks for all the advice. I wanted to compare seating depth (this time) to the previously shot groups. As I had something to compare to, I thought it would be a good place to start. I thought if I had a bad barrel it should rule it out. Now I will be picking one bullet/powder combo and wringing it out before moving on to the next one.
Click to expand...

Foul the barrel with the bullet/powder combo your are going to be testing. Then clean and foul the bore with the bullet you want to test.

I have never had luck shooting different bullets after each other.
 
Like others said looking at your groups I'd pick the 69 SMK and try 0.2 grain increments...

You also might want to go over your rifle make sure the action bolts are tight to torque specs and your scope bolts etc.

Weather can be a factor as well :)

I have those leupold bases on a few of my rifles I been wondering if they are preventing me from shooting tight groups... they are fine for hunting rifle accuracy but I have upgraded to a picatinny system on my target rifle I have yet to shoot it but maybe it will improve the accuracy maybe not. The windage screw system might psychologically have some effect on my shooting because I think its not a solid system. I'll try it out on Monday :)
 
As I said before, pick one bullet and work up a load. Random shooting will yield random results.

Also, stop shooting in a gale. If a tree without leaves is being tossed around, what do you think is happening to that bullet.

If you can move the table, it will move when you fire. That is a huge source of error. You would be better off shooting prone - just use the table top but get rid of the legs. Folding legs tend to be very wobbly.

Are the bags solid or can you easily squish the sides? Get them rock hard... THEN make then harder. Caldwell bags material is very soft and will stretch under load so your rifle can squirm inside the bags. Fill them with fine sand or sandblasting grit - cram in WAY more then you think you need. The material will eventually stop stretching and take a set. From that point on, if the bag is hard, it should work ok.

Understand that the Accustock was a wonderful idea but not made all that well. They should be bedded properly.

Work up a load on a stable rest, on a calm day. Alot of the error will dissappear and the true potential of the rifle can be realised.

If you can, have that action properly bedded. If you need help, let me know. Bedding those things is more problematic then conventional stocks.

Finally, check that scope base and ring set up. If it can move, it will and loose scopes don't work all that well.
Jerry
 
KDX said:
Some other groups I shot. Not too impressed to say the least.

IMG_3077Medium.jpg


IMG_3074Medium.jpg


IMG_3072Medium.jpg


IMG_3078Medium.jpg
Click to expand...

Wow, those look alot like they were shot with a Mini-14... :nest:
 
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