Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Why do we ignore the horizontal?

Chosen from an Audette

6.5 Creedmoor/139 Scenar/H-4350




600 yard group with chosen load

My question still stands. I doubt very many of us can be supremely confident that there is absolutely no movement of the rifle during barrel dwell time of the bullet.

I have no doubt that I have far less experience than you at long range shooting but I do have access to a 600 yard range and have flung a fair amount of bullets out at the 4, 5 and 600 yard targets from both the bench and prone with bipod with some pretty accurate rigs. I've done a fair amount of load development with chronograph and shooting for groups at those ranges, just haven't done a ladder test yet, hence the question.

Not trying to start a pissing contest here but I think your response to my original post was not productive in the least and came off as arrogant and rude. I'll not post any further on this threat except for questions related to ladder tests in an effort to get it back on topic.

Sorry you felt that was as that was not my intention. I was simply answering your question.

The point is that if your shooting skills are at a level where you can't be consistent enough to not affect the test, it doesn't matter what range you try to develop a load. Piss poor shooting fundamentals will affect results and a guy might as well shoot factory ammo.

You're threatening to piss in a contest with me?

LOL

Fair enough. No sore mangina on my part. Although I do think I can take you in a pissing contest. I can dot the eye of a cheerio with a first round hit all the way across the room from the toilet. I developed that load with a ladder test but my wife got mad at me for not cleaning off the impacts of the hotter loaded rounds from the lid.

Been "checking the harmonics" eh?

LOL - I maybe inexperienced

BUT - You are too ignorant to answer a simple question!

Ray, you're killing me, it was a joke, man!!!

Everyone's feelers get hurt around here.

Lighten up!

Harden up chopper Reid, Google it!!

LOL!

Whatever, joke, playing - Your post screw-up my whole points on topic.

The OP asked about ignoring the horizontal.

Just think about this in reverse: If you WERE to find a good (small) vertical response point shooting a ladder, you wouldn't ignore the vertical because of a bad horizontal ?!

No - You should further test that point shooting some groups. The ladder IS NOT the end of your testing, its the starting point!

Ray, I understand the question. My answer is, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Or find an accurate load. Or use the results of a ladder test.

Personally, I've tried them. Now I just find a load that shoots good at 100 and then stretch it out and see if it holds up at long range. Works for me.

I guess that just shows my inexperience with long range shooting too, but that's a burden I'll have to bear.

Smoke,

Actually my preferred method is also to work-up loads at 100 yds and then stretch it out to longer range groups, too. Because most of my hunting is within 200 yds. I've only used the type of ladder described for 2 rifles that did double duty as LR hunting and targets where I had expectation/possibility of 300 to 600 yds shots. Thus since I had already done some load work-up I could use smaller 0.1 grain steps and 20 shots would cover 2 full grain load spread. If you have a dedicated LR rifle and haven't tried it out - Just do it. 20 shots at 300 yds in an afternoon range session will be fun.



OK back to topic - My second point I was going to make:

We have some great info and theories in these 3 pages. But it should always come down to shooting the groups at the range yardages you expect to use'em.