Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why would a rifle shoot 1/2 MOA at 100 and 2 MOA at 200 yd???

I guess I was under the mistaken impression that we were discussing the rifle of the OP. Which did shot MOA at 100. More than once.

I'm with you HuntnShoot. I think something is wrong, but I'm going to have to do some more testing to figure it out. As I said before, I'm not a professional or a trained sniper, but when I can sit down and shoot multiple groups of 3/4" or better at 100 and then 3"-5" at 200, something is off.........

Again, the op says 2 moa at 200 yards, that is a little bigger than 4" at that range. So what he's actually saying in the title of the thread, it's shooting about 1/2" at a 100 and a little more than 4" at 200.

I recently bought a nice, lightly used rifle and a higher end used scope (separate purchases). My first 2 range trips showed a lot of promise with every hand load I tried shooting 1.25" or better at 100 yd, and several shooting 3/4" or better for 5 shots. Yesterday I moved out to 200 yd with a load that had shot very well previously at 100yd and things went haywire. I shot 8 shots and had a 5" pattern. Frustrated, I moved back to my 100 target and rattled off a 4 shot group just under 3/4".





Personally I have had that happen with 3 rifles guaranteed 1/2 or better bought new. Fugging load they shot the target with beat the guarantee @ 100 fell the hell apart at the 2 and 3. Tweak here and there bingo. Had deer rifles do the same thing. Great at the 1 suck at the 2 and 3.
Nosler says expect, not guaranteed as I posted before. And I didn’t mis-read.

Mirage ?

With all these 5 shot groups, and I am assuming a newer rifle.

Could the bore be getting fouled?

Have you scoped the bore?

So what kind of tweaks? Bedding? Forend pressure? Action screws?

Bought used. Supposedly less than 200 rounds.
I cleaned the bore good this week and it didn't seem to be excessively dirty. I changed mounts (talleys) and scopes (conquest) and shot a few groups this morning. Didn't have a lot of time, but it appears to be more of the same.

Shot groups of 3.5", 5", and 2" at 200 yards and shot just over 3/4" at 100.

If the load that shot the 2” group was the same as the 3/4 then I would tweak around that. Plus if that is successive shrinking of groups at the 2, then don’t clean it. Forget the 1 and just work at the 2.

Some more comments on this thread:

First, we still don't know the make of rifle, cartridge, or anything about the ammo.

At first country boy said the wind wasn't over 5 mph, then admitted he had no way to measure it, other than guessing and looking at the local weather report. Then he said it was 2-3 mph, straight on.

We also don't the brand of either scope, or whether either is actually adjustable for parallax. Just because a second scope was tried doesn't mean the second wasn't part of the problem. Several years ago a guy on the Campfire asked me for a good powder/charge for 165's for the .30-06, as he'd just bought one, a model well-known for accuracy. I told him around 58 grains of H4350, and as I recall even suggested a bullet to start with. He couldn't get it to shoot, so I suggested trying another, proven scope. He still couldn't get it to shoot, and I didn't hear from him for a few months. At that point he PM'd me, admitting BOTH scopes were brand-new. He'd finally tried an old beater scope he had, as I recall maybe even a 4x, M8 Leupold. All of sudden the rifle started shooting sub-inch groups with the same load.

We're still lacking a bunch of info, and along with that, many of these rifle-diagnoses threads never get resolved because often its impossible to analyze what's wrong without being there.

Swifty, did you read the article on the 28 Nosler accompanying the handload chart you posted?

I do have some old Sinclair windflags, maybe not as sensitive as today's best but better than my ability anyway, and a bore scope and an Oehler proof chronograph, and parallax adjustable high power scopes that have a relatively narrow depth of field and remind me that the cross hairs and the target can move together or opposite to tell me which way to adjust and a good classic - not joy stick - rest and sandbags and on a good day - diurnal reversal low wind helps - I've shot some bragging groups. My experience has been in line with my reading that at some range the external ballistics will make the group go trumpet shaped that is the group will expand gradually up to a point then start getting much larger and larger yet - but not until the range is much more extended - obvious explanations like bullets coming apart and weird terrain and wind interaction excepted.

On the other hand I have also found that testing loads only at short range is a snare and a delusion and everything looks good at 50 yards and small differences at 100 yards can grow and be obvious at 300 yards and more. Mostly I have figured a difference in wind bucking and winds way out there, maybe bullet noses bumped in the magazine or melted plastic tips - too much caffeine and spicy food when I check for pulse in the scope - but I've always found loads that carried up just fine for my purposes with negligible effort.

I must be missing something so I'd like to know why the OP and the experts never suggested putting up paper in line at 100, 200 and 300 yards to check for group size at multiple ranges from the same shot string? Maybe even have a closer range aiming point and longer range paper target just in case the scope had parallax set for a rimfire or shot gun use - I've got a low power shotgun intended scope set for 75 yards - maybe I thought I could slip a bullet through a small opening in the brush? - mostly for kicking elk out of shady beds on the north face like whitetail in warm weather but the parallax setting is obvious when I move my head with the rifle on a rest? Shooting rim fire for score there are a lot of mechanical adjustments to keep a consistent cheek weld but shooting group at these distances I wouldn't expect any adjustments at all in the scope and let the group form where it may?

With all due respect, the OP has stated this information in his posts, to one of which you replied "OK."

John, I think he said it is a Nosler 48 rifle chambered in 7mm08. His handload was a 150gr. ELDX running about 2720 fps. The factory loads were Federal 140gr. NBT running around 2800 fps. An interesting part of his OP, is he states the loads he fired off had shown good accuracy "1.25" or better" on the first outing, but then states he tried them at 200 yards on a different day. I honestly don't think he is working with a good "proven" load. Things like a change in temperature can drastically effect the accuracy of a load, depending on how finicky the rifle is and what powder he's using. Again, he doesn't give specifics on the load. Hell, he doesn't even show pics of the groups. Now about the scopes he's using: The first scope he tried was a Leupold VX5HD (what power range, I don't know). Now it's a "Conquest" of which flavor no body knows. Does it have a parallax adjustment? Who knows. What power range? Who knows. I believe he's being very tight lipped. According to what he said, he doesn't want to "point fingers" if he ended up buying a "junk" rifle or scope. In his words, not mine. Like swifty said, Nosler has a 3 shot guarantee of 1 moa at 100 yards, with their ammo and probably their shooters. The rifle sounds sufficient enough to meet their accuracy requirements. I'm like you though, read enough of these kinds of threads and think to myself, send the damn thing to me. I'll shoot it and if it doesn't shoot well enough, a little tinkering like swifty said and it will be shooting lights out. A lot of these threads don't have enough information and getting that info from the op's seem more like pulling teeth, than anything else. I can see why you get tired of such threads as this one.. and some of these guys wonder why stick is so damn hard on them...

Posted this on 1/28. Be happy to provide more details and answer any questions if it helps solve this mystery.
The scope that I swapped to this week is a proven zeiss conquest 3-9x40 that I took off my daughter's rifle along with a new set of talleys.
Original scope was a 3-15x44. I promise I'm not trying to hide any details now and not trying to be vague, I'm the one asking for help and suggestions.


My range session today was cut short, but it appears the change in scope didn't help.
Wind today was again barely noticeable and pretty much straight at my back.
My range has dense woods on 3 sides, so wind has never been an issue.

I really appreciate all of the help and suggestions and I'm going to keep working on this as I have time.

What I actually said was that every load I tried was 1.25" or better at 100 yrds. The load I settled on after the first days testing has shot 3/4" or better at 100 every single time. And I realize that 4 or 5 groups don't really prove anything, but I feel like the rifle is showing good accuracy......probably better than I'm capable of on a regular basis. I'm just having a hard time understanding how a load that does good at 100 will be bad at 200?

country boy,

Thanks for reminding me of the specifics about the rifle, etc.

Some other people on this thread have also said that the two things they've seen open up groups at longer ranges are wind (especially), and to a certain extent scope parallax--though parallax normally has a far greater effect beyond 200 yards. In fact that was the very first response to your post. Do you know how to check for parallax?

I'm still doubtful about the wind, mostly because I've actually measured wind a lot. Most shooters have very little idea of wind velocity unless they do, and also don't understand how much it can affect bullet drift, even at relatively short ranges.

Combining a little parallax and wind drift can make a considerable difference, even at 200 yards.

You also mentioned that your groups at 200 were scattered side to side, while your brother's were more vertical. Somebody else mentioned a slightly canted reticle as a possibility, but this shouldn't affect group side IF the reticle is aligned with a vertical line on the target the same way for every shot. But if not, at 200 yards, tilting the rifle from shot to shot, even slightly, can make considerable difference. In fact it can make considerable difference even at 100 yards, especially with a relatively high-mounted scope. I have a buddy who was having enormous problems getting a new lightweight rifle to group accurately, and he eventually asked me to help. He'd mounted a scope with a pretty big objective, which required high mounts--and it turned out he was tilting the rifle a little, differently for each shot. I coached him some, and the problem went away.

You've also stated the rifle was rested on sandbags, front and rear. Was the same rest used both at 100 and 200? Did you check to make sure the front sling swivel stud was sufficiently in front of the bag to not bump it during recoil? Did you rest the forend on the same place every time? Some rifles can definitely be affected by forend placement.

Some relatively lightweight rifles can also be affected by the hardness of the front rest. Even sandbags can be compacted hard enough to affect groups after some shooting. With lighter-weight rifles I've found a folded towel over the front rest can make a big difference in group size, as was recently discussed on another thread.

I rarely get a chance to shoot at 200. When I do my guns/loads that deliver sub 1" loads almost always open up to closer to 3." I blame that on me. Your case is different. Your experience is that if you have a one inch gun at 100, then it's a two inch gun at 200. I would be inclined in this case to remove the shooter as a variable. I'd try one more scope (one with adjustable parallax if possible) if possible. It's a pita, but maybe remove a scope off of one of the guns that you get 2 inch 200 yard groups with. At that point I'd say you have eliminated the scope as a possibility. That leaves you with a gun that misbehaves.

You said it's lightly used. How often do we read here of someone who can't get a gun to behave and they "send it down the road?" You may have had a gun sent down your road. I hope you can get everything worked out. I will be following this thread with interest.

Yes MD I did, I also read several reviews which I suppose I could dig up again but they were with a M48 in 7-08 and they mirrored yours for accuracy @100 but stating the 200 were very disappointing seems the rifles would open up past 3”.

Am still trying to figure out how that happens, without outside factors being involved.

Quite a few shooters believe bullets "destabilize" as they get farther from the muzzle, but bullets actually become more stable at "normal" ranges as velocity decreases.