Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting 200 yard groups??

I left a post a while back about a boone and crockett reticle on a VXL. After finding a range that I can shoot at 200 yards I'm clearly not ready for a 500 yard shot at an Elk this season. I usually get nice tight groups at 100 yards but cant seem to duplicate those groups at 200 yards.

Im shooting a Kimber Montana 300 wsm and shooting Winchester Supreme 180 grain accubonds. I know I have a good rest but my groups are not as tight as I would think they would need to be to ever take an attempt at a 500+ yard shot at an animal.

I went back to the range and shot some Federal premium 180 grain barnes triple shock. I shot one Winchester and then one federal and continued this for a half dozen rounds each ...Different impact points but grouped about the same.

I am shooting off bags resting the gun between shots and know im totally steady. I can easily fit a Cd over my groups but this is only 200 yards. Is this what I should expect with factory ammo at this range and would handloads help? I reloaded 15 years ago with a friend but not sure if I'm committed (or organized)enough to get into reloading . Till I work this out I feel stuck shooting 300 and under.

Thanks John

Mathematically,200 yard groups should be twice the size of 100 yard groups,but often this isn't the case.Usually 200 yard groups are a little larger than that due to factors such as more effect of wind,not being able to place the crosshairs quite as precisely,mirage etc.
Then again some bullets start to become less stable at longer distances resulting in larger than expected groups.
On the other hand,some bullets don't fully stabilize at 100 yards,so 200 groups can be smaller than predicted.

A friend of mine swears he learns more about his loads at 200 and 300 yds than he does at 100. I beleive him. Right now off a bench with a rest, my Mod 70 7 mm Rem Mag is shooting under and inch at 200 yds. It is intersting to see how that bullet behaves out to 600 yds (we have a great public range). I was working up loads the day I shot that group ( a coupel of times) so I loaded up 40 rds to go shoot out to 600 on paper to see how it does react. Now I just have to find a fairly calm day.

I think I would try handloads. I'm new at it but have seen every gun we have improve. Some was a big improvement and some just a little but all improved.
A good friend of mine has a 700 270wsm. He tried a couple factory loads and was getting 2" groups @100yrds. I loaded some up for him and the first 3 went just less than half an inch. The groups grew as powder increased. The factory loads shot 3200fps and the handload was 3100. I guess some like it a little slower?? This gun also shoots 4-5" groups at 300 but he is happy.

Another thing to check is parallax of your scope at 200.

Have we made this clear as mud yet? JonA is right in that you need to have a consistent cheek weld to the stock.

My control load is a factory load I bought 100 rds of. Out of my Mod 70 it would shoot 1 1/2" at 100 yds and 3" at 200 yds.

One other thing I did was to clean my rifle according to the instructions with Doug Burche's Ultra Bore Coat and then installed the UBC. Eliminated the copper fouling problem I was having and enhanced my group size. With the control load it shot 4 shots touching under 5/8") at 100 yds.

The results you're getting are not particularly surprising. I would not expect to match a factory rifle and factory ammo and have suitable accuracy past 200, maybe 250 yards. There are no guarantees handloads will do any better, but the odds improve when the brass is sized to fit YOUR chamber, not just any .300 WSM chamber, with OAL to fit your gun's throat, not just any .300 WSM's throat, and so on. Besides, to practice enough to have any business shooting that far, you're going to go through a heck of a pile of ammo. Factory ammo is more expensive than handloaded ammo once you load enough to overcome the initial cost of the reloading equipment. Factory ammo, even nominally the same, varies a bit lot to lot so just buying a box of the same load that worked last year does not mean it will shoot as well.

Group size changes per distance changes are seldom linear. Often it's something like 110% bigger for every 100 yards added, some kind of exponential decay. Once in a while you get improvement for a while (in terms of angle, not absolute size) because of initial instability of powder blasting by the bullet base such that a bullet has to be some distance downrange to "go to sleep". Once in a while there's a "wall" where things just suddenly, non-linearly go to h*ll. I've had guns that shot well enough at 300, say MOA, go to 2 MOA by 350. I've had guns that shot 3/4 of an inch at both 200 and 300. You just never know until you get out there and shoot.

I would suggest a two-phase approach. First, test your chosen load at the greatest distance you would consider using it and evaluate the results. If it's not accurate enough, then you've shot past the limits of you/gun/load combined and need to shorten up the distance. That is true of factory ammo or handloads. Second, to save money, get the most practice per dollar spent, and to tune the ammo to your specific rifle, get into handloading again.

There is no cheap way to get from "point A" to reliably taking 500 yard shots. If cheap is important, sneak closer, lots closer.

Tom

Learn to shoot well at that range, and you are stuck in a good place for hunting just about anything. You will not embarrass yourself to many times. The long range guys work to get good past 300yd. If your willing to put in the effort great, but it's not needed to be a successful hunter. The stalk is exciting in and of itself.

Battue

With some testing you may find that in your rifle a given bullet will not shoot its best riding on top of fouling left by another type of bullet. You may be observing this when alternating gilding metal Accubonds with copper Barnes.

A similar thing happens with certain powders, even with the same bullets. For example it has been noted that Reloder 15 doesn't like to follow Varget.

By alternating types you aren't letting either one settle in.

I"m with mathman on this, anytime you switch powders or bullet brands, you run a bad risk of inaccuracy, lets just say what you are doing might work, but is not the best idea for trying to get accuracy.
Others note a lot of good ideas too.

Reloading is one thing, but have the gun floated and bedded, or bedded and tensioned, and the trigger worked on is a good start.
Then dry fire at 200, you must see basically NO movement in the crosshairs as the "hammer" drops....
And do check parallax.

A final note, I haven't used 100 for anything in many years, I start at either my 200 or 300 yard bench at home. Unless its my MZ rifles.

Jeff

If 500 yard shots are your goal, you really must find a place to practice 500 yard shots.

It's impossible to know how things will go at 500, based on 200 yard results.

I use 100 yard targets to get the scope on paper, after that it is 200 yards for comparison of different loads. I am not surprised that your load disappointed at longer range, that is about normal for the first load you test.

I have not hand loaded for a long time, I just can't find the time to do it. I have discovered that usually a factory load can be found that will shoot 5 shot groups close to MOA at 200 and 300 yards, these loads are often not very impressive at 100. So if I would have been trying to pick the best 100 yard load I would have overlooked the good ones.

My 300 WSM will put Federal Premiums 165 TSX into about 2 1/2", 5 shot 300 yard groups. You may also want to try 180 TSX and 180 Partitions as they also shoot well in mine.

Good luck.

Here's what I know, except for the well practiced and skilled 300yds is a very long shot. At the range I frequent there are two steel plates at 300yrs. One is about 10" across the other about 5". Many shooters are able to hit the larger one with some frequence but the 5" plate is a real challenge for all but a few. I'm talking big game rifles here. And shooting from a bench. Shooting from the sitting position is way to much for almost all. Add some wind and all bets are off.

Thanks for all the replies... I found my self in the back country today with my rifle and range finder. 500 yards is far!! I could not find any open area with that range to shoot at but did find a clear safe area at 365 yds. I shot two rounds off shooting sticks and hit a 12" area. I will stick with my 300 yard limit this year and work on getting myself in better condition for hiking.

I was talking to a buddy about this and he said become a better hunter and you wont need to shoot at 500 yards.

Thanks for the help John

PS cant wait for opening day!