Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire One hole groups, all day long?

I have some acquaintances who shoot a lot from the bench, don’t worry about wearing out barrels and would like to bet you on hitting 10 inch steel plates standing at 200. And one of the them will make you dig at 300.

Offhand, I'd say you're wrong, and anyhoo, if you don't wear out a barrel now and then how are you ever going to justify a new barrel?

Flintlock, 50 yards:


.38-55 100 yards:


Both of 'em shot while upright on my hind legs.

I cheated on this one, elbow rest:


Pleas note there are a bucket full of one hole groups on the targets above. And the pie plate died peacefully.

and why not,

its entertainment

ya!

GWB

This past year I took a little different approach. I bought a new Tikka in 308 and after mounting a Leupold scope it would shoot a little over 1” at 100 yards.

There is a shooting range near the boat landing I use to launch my boat to go to my camp. Every Friday on the way to the landing I would stop at the range and shoot one shot to make certain a first shot from a cold bore went where I wanted.

Knowing where that first shot went was more important to me than eventually shooting a 3/4” group.

Free ta boot !!

Several have mentioned cold bore 1st shot.
👍👍👍
Wont wet clean a center fire barrel after confirming zero prior to deer season.
Bore snake em several times between the shots at the range.
Then boresnaked for hunting after that last range shot.

That 1st shot out of wet cleaned and put up for the year barrel is always a flyer at some oclock position 1 to 2 inches off the zero.
Then bore snake it....
# 2 3 4 5 boresnaked shots in between outta the "conditioned" barrel are on the bull. Looking at previous Tgts also confirms 0 scope drift.

Copper clean every 25 30 rds.
A storage clean in between the copper clean #,s is just Hoppes#9
Which is easily negated back to a hunting condition barrel with the 1st shot.



On the opposite end of the spectrum is a wet clean then dry bore rountine between shots for my Kodiak .45 inline ML.
Like to keep it that way for consistency and I'm only taking 1 shot with that during ML for the year anyways.


My Savage 220 is a dry clean bore snaked rountine also for a hunting conditioned barrel.
1 shot for the year with the 220 also.






The 1st shot counts the most...

YMMV.....

Garbage can lid.
Call me Shakey.

May go a 100 rounds or more between cleanings...and even then think it unnecessary. Have yet to have a first shot miss that was the rifles fault.

Haven’t missed one that was standing for awhile. Have when they were moving out, but I couldn’t blame the rifle.

Addition: Thinking on it...would much rather have a rifle that shot well dirty....than one that only did so when relatively clean.
And again when referring Big Game, most are big.

If I can cover a three shot group with a nickel at a 100 yds and keep them in the bottom of a coke can at 300+ I’m good to go. Knowing what’s going on in between the muzzle and the target is just as important imo. I mostly just shoot off the shelf ammo that my gun likes.

Put #3 in between those two and you will be good to go!!

I am perfectly content with 1.5 MOA out of my big game hunting rifles.

I once asked a gunsmith if he could do anything mechanically to the rifle he was working on for me that would negate me peeking over the scope, jerking the trigger, and rolling my shoulder into the recoil? I'm guilty of that when I get excited/in a hurry while hunting. IF I remember to take just enough time to think the word "squeeze" my bullets get placed exponentially more accurately. Shooting upland game over my flushing dog wreaks havoc with my rifle shooting if I don't take the time to think "Squeeze". There's an embarrassingly large number of coyotes that have run away unscathed when I tried to shoot them with a rifle using sloppy shotgunning technique.

In regards to the OP:

1. I'm not good, consistent, patient, observant, nor meticulous enough to shoot 1-hole groups "all day long", it really doesn't matter if the rifle is that capable, because I'm not.

2. I sight in my hunting rifles dead on @ 200yds. Actually shoot targets @ 200, not 1.5" high @ 100 and call it close enough.

3. I prefer the Redfield/Champion grid targets for sighting in and I prefer using the diamonds in the corners vs. the center. The corner diamonds are 3" tip to tip.

4. My goal @ 200yds is to keep 5 shots inside that diamond and have the group centered near the middle of the diamond. That's with a good BR front rest, sandbag on the rear, solid bench and "ideal" wind conditions.

5. Assuming I've achieved #4's goal, now it's time to get the hunting rifle off of the bench and shoot steel from field positions.

If I'm trying to make a move on a deer using terrian to my advantage.
With a nothing to lose but everything to gain situation.
Running, jogging , slow walking over a short or long distance.
I'm looking ahead for a tree to brace on, or if not a kneeling position to take the shot.
Having a tight grouping zeroed rifle compensates for error.
Most important thing IMO when your blood is pumping and your breathing is fast.
Is to exhale and shoot at the natrual 1 to 2 second max pause at the bottom of your breath and let the crosshair settle down naturally from the exhale onto your shot.
You might get away with repeating 2 or 3 cycles of a respiratory pause doing this to get off a shot.
But that 1st cycle is your money maker.
After a couple of cycles of doing this .
Your lungs and blood are screaming for 02 if ya cant get it done and your vision will blur on ya faster at the bottom of your exhale.

JME......

One hole groups in the field:









They work every time.

I really love carrying my customized mauser 8x57 versus the mod 70 ot6

7.75 pds scoped and loaded versus a almost 9 pd mod 70 classic sporter in same condition.

Poor ole ot6 aint seen the woodline since fall 2017.

That 8x57 is a perfect woods rifle to me.
Lightweight to me.
Easy to carry
Accurate
Hard hitting with 196gr SPCE bullets at 2592 fps.

1st shots are money..........

Good post on getting the job done. I have never had the training you have but I have had to just stop for a second, relax and take a few deep breaths to gain my composure. Of course that is not always an option.

Big difference betwixt hunters....and shooters!

True, rarely in the field can I get into a position that I can take full advantage of a super accurate rifle. I like accurate rifles as much as the next guy and spend a lot of time getting the best out of my guns and loads, but anymore it’s not the most accurate rifle that’s going into the field. Usually it’s a beater that I don’t mind if it gets scuffed up.

Consistently, or once in awhile? When I was 18, I won 6th place National Champion in the Master Class at the national matches at Camp Perry. 16 out of 20 shots, offhand at 200 yards, were inside of the 12" aiming bull. Only 16. With respect, I don't think your friends can consistently hit a 10" bull at 200 yards and, if they can, why waste time shooting groups off the bench. Unless, of course, they are a competitive bench rest shooter.

Acquaintances not friends.

They will monotonously ring steel standing at 200 yards when they grow tired of shooting groups.... and a couple summers ago the one was over 50% hits at 300 with a .338Fed.

As far as Bench vs offhand, when they show up at the range they come with a bunch of guns. And between the rifles and scopes they a pushing a nice truck between their group. How many? I don’t know, they just have more than a few, few of which are not custom and they are there for the day.

The boys are “shooters”.

Addition: I’m not in their league, but if I had to bet on myself shooting a one hole 3 shot bench group, or ringing steel offhand at 100. I’ll be standing.

Addition again: I forgot to mention they are shooting their bench groups down on the far right benches...at which they can only shoot at the 400-500-600 banks