Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Getting an Idea of Accuracy at 50yards?

The typical benchmark for a particular load has always been a 100 yards. What I typically try loads at and use as my sight in reference. What are the thoughts on benchmarking a load at 50 or even 25 yards. Scoped rifle from a rest.

My reasoning for thinking this is I have a couple rifles that need from square one load development. I tore a tendon in my foot and even a few months later I am one gimpy sob especially on uneven ground. Unsure if I will even hunt this fall. I would like to whittle down my loads before having to walk the 100 yard range multiple times and being the guy that everyone is waiting on. The 50 yard range is typically guys shooting 22s that hobble around even worse than me.

It's a start.

It is better than nothing, and could get you started, so that you can whittle down to promising loads.

Why not just assess your groups with a good spotting scope? You could even use a target paper marked in grid squares if you wanted to have a means of measuring. Alternatively, do you have any mates? Perhaps one of them could run down and bring your targets back. I don't know what your other options are like, but here there are such things as an indoor range (to 50m) that has targets on tracks so you can press a button to bring them back, and another where the targets are electronically scored. There's also ranges where on club days there are people in the butts to mark your targets at longer distances.

If you have no other option I'd go with 50 rather than 25, and I'd also be thinking about parallax - either use an AO scope or pull your head right back and centre the light pencil in the lens to aim

Funny thing about the issue is that many feel compelled to do 100 yards. I think the relevance is more aligned with what gun/cartridge is at hand and the application. Prairie dogs in Wyoming? 100 yards zero on a .44 mag may not serve purposes. Counterpoint: A Creedmoor zeroed at 300 yards may not serve much use in the swamps I stalk around in, if only because a 50 yard shot is rare. Of the myriad of pigs I've put down over the last 20 years or so, one was beyond 25 yards. Likewise, I have shot a deer at a range beyond 50 yards but one time in my life.

I zero the Sneezer at 50 and know the drops at 100/150.

True enough DD. After all, if you are only ever going to shoot at 50 yards or less, then there's no real point in testing your loads further out. The thing is though that if you are going to shoot further out you'll ideally want to know how well the ammunition will shoot, and what the trajectory will be like, as the range gets longer. 50 yards may help you narrow it down a bit when doing your first accuracy testing though, and is better than nothing.

FWIW I haven't accuracy tested my bow past 50. Didn't seem much point testing my 1911A1 or Glock 17 past 50 either, come to that, though I guess it might have been interesting.

I could shoot 500 yards here, but I don’t have much of a desire to do so. Often when I’m trying out a new gun/scope combo, I’ll shoot a couple rounds at 25 meters or 50 before I go back to 100 meters.
I use an ap to check where the group would be at other ranges - sometimes I verify. But mostly I don’t shoot groups past 100 meters.
The old adage of sighting in at 25 yards and it’ll be right in at 100 yards might have been good for iron sights that are close to the bore, but with most cartridges the POI at 100 will be quite high.
I think if you sight in at 50 yards and your scope is 1.5” above the bore you’ll like where the POI is at 100.
Or if you want 25 yards sight it in1” low at that range.

Well Cooper shoots their targets at 50 yards and they are impressive, but that doesn’t mean squat at 100 as I have proven with 3 different rifles.
As said above a good spotting scope and maybe a target like this that gives you 6 bulls per trip. The one pictured works for varmint/ bench class for hunting rifles I use the 200 yard which gives 6 1” bulls.

My range is in my front yard...and when wind becomes much of a factor in testing I am not above firing at 50 yards. Doesn't tell the whole story, but good enough to throw out some loads. A lot of talk about bullets, 'settling down' (gyroscopically?) but I have seldom experienced it in anything but the .303 Brit Mk7 ball ammo, where I have personally experienced some dreadful groups at 100 yards (2.7 moa) and at the same firing session had the same ammo shoot 1.5 moa at 500 yds.

IT depends on the weapon, caliber & application. DD made the point.

As long as you have an accurate way of measuring the smaller group size center to center, it tells you as much at shooting at 100y does.

There's a difference between your zero distances and your testing difference. Don't confuse the two.

I test at 50 quite a bit, primarily when I'm up against some sort of deadline and it's pretty windy--as it often is in Montana. Wind-drift increases at about twice the rate of range, given the same bullet and wind, which means a given load will drift four times as much at 100 yards as at 50. That's a big difference, and the 50- yard testing allows me to sort out the better loads.

However, when using a scoped rifle parallax can be a problem if the scope's not adjustable for it--but that problem is easily solved by backing your head up until the edge of the field of view goes black. What you're then seeing is the exit pupil, and if you keep it centered in the FOV, there's no parallax.

I believe some gun writer once published an article about testing rifles at ranges other than 100 yards, titled "100-Yard Obsession," then republished a slightly revised version as a chapter in one of his books.

Also, a Norwegian fellow writing under the name , Johan Boarsnest covered the subject very well.

Perfect name for a true hunter.

ive seen that article..wasnt it written by Larry Root?

Seems like I’ve heard that name somewhere before. 😊

I agree. In the past four weeks I have bedded three different rifles. I shot them at 25 and 50 yards using different screw torque and loads. After I found the best combos I shot them at 100 yards. The groups at 100 were proportional to the 25 and 50 yard groups using the particular loads.

I have done it so often in the past I am confident if the rifle shoots tight at 25 or 50 yards it will continue to shoot tight at 100.

Thanks for the replies. Really don't have a shooting partner. My dad was but he passed last fall and I was the target runner. I work second shift and try to shoot mid day during the week, hard time to scrounge up a partner. Avoid the range like the plaque on the weekend.

I was going to post something to that effect last night when I first saw this thread. Almost pointless to shoot 50 yards, but if that's all you can do right now, that's what I'd do. I don't know how much faith I'd have in a load that is developed at 50 yards though. I struggle with the idea of shooting a scoped centerfire rifle at 50 yards. Generally minimum for me is 100 yards, then I stretch it out to 500+ yards to verify the load at range. One of my buddies shoots his rifles at 50 yards to dial in new scopes. He also shoots $65.00/box of factory ammo too. Neither of which I do. But to each his own...

Mike 7-08 you only need to walk down once with a card board backer that has multiple targets on it check your groups with a spotting scope. Mb

A guy could learn a lot by reading that gun writer’s articles.