Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles 200 yard accuracy

“Just curious what this rifle, & factory ammo should group?”

Is this a serious question?

I’ll say it should be capable of sub 1/4” one shot groups but only if you do your part.

“Just curious what this rifle, & factory ammo should group?”

Is this a serious question?

I’ll say it should be capable of sub 1/4” one shot groups but only if you do your part.

Yes it was a serious question. My hunting rifle sets in a mechanical rifle rest where I can dial it up, down ,right & left. The trigger is half the pull, & the rest holds it almost perfectly still. I set it at 100 yds and it's a tack driver. I know I'm the error in the equation, plus the trigger sucks on the ar. I'm sure I can do a lot better, but 1/4" ? I doubt it.

The setup and ammo you are using is not condusive to fine accuracy. I would expect to see 4-5" groups at 200 yds. That ammo is minute of bad guy to about 300 yds.

The setup and ammo you are using is not conducive to fine accuracy. I would expect to see 4-5" groups at 200 yds. That ammo is minute of bad guy to about 300 yds.

Yeah, probably fairly close, but I wouldn't be too surprised that that combination would be around 2.5-3 MOA at 100 yards, so very likely 5-6" 200 yard groups, even with 5 shot groups.

It is what it is, maybe plus or minus a very small amount. But once in a while it might be better but usually there aint no Coupe De' Ville at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box.

And that's why guys build "precision" AR's.

MM

I'm assuming you're shooting 3 shot groups and here's the thing, unless you're getting a one hole group at 50 yards, you don't know if you're dead on.

Look at the groups above, those look great until you consider all 3, 3 shot groups are in different spots. Overlap them and they're over an inch. (no offense Ted) That's why 10 shot groups are better at telling what's going on. Trying to call zero off a 50 yard group is useless past that range.

Zero at 200 then shoot at other distances and see where you hit, right the results down.

Or zero at 100 yards and do the same because unless you're only concerned with getting hits somewhere on a full sized silhouette, you need to forget the 25, 50 or even the 36 yard zero. You need to know exactly where your gun hits at the distances you want to shoot in the conditions you are in.

I think for a little money, I would be dropping in a nicer trigger, and some 68/69 grain match bullets. Then consider accuracy.
Tough trigger and FMJ ammo is a plinker.

Ten shot groups definitely give you more insight into dispersion (range of hits off of point of aim), and so help to better adjust POA to be centered where you want the average shot centered.

I started using the ten shot groups on the 24hourcampfire black rifle challenge targets, and now all of my friends who care about accuracy are piling on.

Ten shot groups tell me more about minute of ground squirrel, which is what I'm using varmint ammo for.

I'm assuming you're shooting 3 shot groups and here's the thing, unless you're getting a one hole group at 50 yards, you don't know if you're dead on.

Look at the groups above, those look great until you consider all 3, 3 shot groups are in different spots. Overlap them and they're over an inch. (no offense Ted) That's why 10 shot groups are better at telling what's going on. Trying to call zero off a 50 yard group is useless past that range.

Zero at 200 then shoot at other distances and see where you hit, right the results down.

Or zero at 100 yards and do the same because unless you're only concerned with getting hits somewhere on a full sized silhouette, you need to forget the 25, 50 or even the 36 yard zero. You need to know exactly where your gun hits at the distances you want to shoot in the conditions you are in.

Uh oh bsa will be by soon asking how come they haven’t posted their targets to the black rifle thread..

Better triggers are never a bad thing, IMHO.

Doesn't make the gun any more accurate, but it definitely enhance the ease of which the shooter can shoot consistent groups, with the gun's inherent potential.

For $80, the LaRue trigger is worth the wait.........................

MM

No offense taken, you are spot on.

I was zeroing the gun for that ammo (new optic on the rifle) and making windage and elevation adjustments as I was going.

I was just throwing out some possibilities for being 4” high at 200 with a dead on zero at 50. I’m not sure he shoots 3 shot groups or 20, I just assumed.

Today I went out and confirmed zero on my Colt 6720 and H2 Aimpoint. If you recall I sighted it in and went to confirm zero at 200 yards on the windiest day of the year. Even then I shot a 3 shot group about 2” to the right but it was an moa sized group. Today I had no wind and shot another 3 shot group that was centered but one shot opened the group up to about 4” straight up.

I was shooting a paper pie plate with a 2 moa red dot at 200 yards so there was no need to try and do any better. I’m tickled with my results and it’ll kill anything I want dead. But it all started with a 10 shot group.

That’s me!

I'm glad you said it. 3 shot groups are useless. Especially at 50 yards. It should be 1 hole at that range with a good rifle. 5 shot groups at 100 yards and further are much better, because you can see anomalies in group dispersion and gives you a better idea on seating depth etc. Then step it up to at least a 9 shot group. I generally run 10, just to be safe and that was the criteria on the black rifle and MOA all day long challenge here. That's the only way you are going to know what the rifle and shooter is fully capable of and where your true POI is. Just about anyone can pull off a tiny 3 shot group with a 1.5 moa rifle. You are giving the op some good advice and at least he told us what barrel he's using now, but everything matters when it comes to how accurate you can make an AR. Non freefloating hanguards are a small ding, so subtract for that. How much, who knows because every rifle reacts differently to that. Using chidt ammo is a huge detriment in accuracy. Scope mount? Cheap unproven scope. Those are still some unknowns. The trigger is a known and that is also subjective to each individual shooter. One guy may shoot a heavy trigger rifle just fine, where another is more nit picky about such things. Other guys hitting on some great things like wind and using wind flags. I'm guilty of not using them lately, but have been thinking about doing so since I've been working on my precision BCM build. Lately the wind has been blowing hard enough to rock my target stand and its a heavy stand. Wind pushes those bullets around enough to open up those groups.

I got a Timney impact trigger today. Installed this evening & I got 3.5 - 4 lbs with my cheap wheeler brand trigger gauge. I'm going to try it again 1st chance I get actually setting the scope for 200 yards. I know I can get somewhat better results than the other day, I just wasn't very steady. All the ammo I have is fmj. Mostly federal America eagle, quite a bit of frontier, & also some Winchester m855 which I have never shot. I will try again & report back with results.

I got a Timney impact trigger today. Installed this evening & I got 3.5 - 4 lbs with my cheap wheeler brand trigger gauge. I'm going to try it again 1st chance I get actually setting the scope for 200 yards. I know I can get somewhat better results than the other day, I just wasn't very steady. All the ammo I have is fmj. Mostly federal America eagle, quite a bit of frontier, & also some Winchester m855 which I have never shot. I will try again & report back with results.

I won't even shoot FMJ in 200 yard Standing Highpower. 2 MOA ammo uses up almost the entire 10 ring, before you even take into account holding error.

I won't even shoot FMJ in 200 yard Standing Highpower. 2 MOA ammo uses up almost the entire 10 ring, before you even take into account holding error.

I’m pretty sure no one uses 55gr fmj at the 200yd line..

No surprise, the ones that do are never in the winner's circle.

I won't even shoot FMJ in 200 yard Standing Highpower. 2 MOA ammo uses up almost the entire 10 ring, before you even take into account holding error.

I’m pretty sure no one uses 55gr fmj at the 200yd line..

Couple yrs back we had a Nasty guard (national guard)show up To a match shooting high power with sling no optics. He pulls out for ammo 62gr green tip he procured from the Arms room. He was the head guy for the guard team, anyhow he shot that stuff at the 600yd line. He ran out of elevation had to adjust front post to get more elevation lol. But he made it work, didn’t shoot a very good score like 130 something like that. Later I told him go buy some of that mag tech ammo loaded with 77 Sierra’s otm. He was like nope I want the guard to buy the black hills mk262 ammo.. I was like uh ok,, well he finally broke down went and bought some of that ammo and holy chit it did make a difference..

Coming off the 600 yard line, we compared scores...She shot a very respectable aggregate and 'effen cleaned my clock at 600 yards!! I want to say she shot a 194 and beat my 192 in a tough wind...Later I found that she had just fired a 491 in the NTI beating out Watson for the Women's Trophy that year.

I have a story about this...
A while back, I had been hearing about a hard holding WM (Woman Marine) who was shooting summer team and had just won the woman's Service Rifle Championship at Perry the month prior. I naturally thought they were referring to Watson...but I was corrected that it was not Red.

I was to meet GySgt Tamara Fode at the next match. The Marines were shooting M14's for Post and Station Teams, so she brought her personal AR and some store bought ammo. During the course of getting to know her, she showed me her ammo; 55's and 69's. You have to understand that military team shooters just shoot what they're handed. So..shooting without military support was uncharted territory for her.

She asked me if she thought they'd do OK at 600? I told her they weren't ideal, but if she watched her wind calls and was aggressive on the knob, she could do OK. Internally I was thinking "train wreck" and was tempted to give her some of my ammo, but I didn't bring extra that day.

Coming off the 600 yard line, we compared scores...She shot a very respectable aggregate and 'effen cleaned my clock at 600 yards!! I want to say she shot a 194 and beat my 192 in a tough wind...Later I found that she had just fired a 491 in the NTI beating out Watson for the Women's Trophy that year.


Isn't Fleisshacker up your way?...was he not able to get your Guardsman squared away for ammo?

There’s much about shooting groups on this board but I got an amazing lesson in knowing your rifle/ammo capabilities and keeping things centered up.

The USMC runs the Division Matches in various sites across the globe, which is the first rung in their Competition in Arms Program (CIAP). Every Marine shooting for the MTU has won the privilege here first. Marines from across the fleet back then shot stock M16 A2’s with M855 Ball ammo (Green Tip) on the 5V targets.

The local club ran a civilian fun match the weekend before Div match day to give the Marines another chance to practice and to give the civilians the chance to shoot a little different style.
Civilians that showed up naturally brought their Highpower gear; heavy coats, tricked out AR’s and match ammo and shot alongside a handful of Marines shooting cloth coats, stock A2’s (with that crappy burst trigger, M855 and no mats.

Not a fair competition right? To encourage Marine sign ups we were handing out awards in a separate division for “combat rifles”.

But when the dust settled it was two Marines who were at the top. My civ friend Rudy who had just moved in from Oregon was third overall. How did two jar heads shooting with combat gear beat well equipped civilian including a few Master Class shooters?

Part 2 to come later.

There’s much about shooting groups on this board but I got an amazing lesson in knowing your rifle/ammo capabilities and keeping things centered up.

It usually takes about three matches for me to be comfortable with my zeros when changing scopes/uppers. I shot at Oak Ridge this past weekend.




That is both strings and sighters at 300, 22 shots total. This was my second match with a new upper. It was a good confirmation that my zero was 1/2 minute or so off. (I felt my NPA was slightly right of center). I shot a 195 with 5.





Sunday we shot a Leg match, made the 1/2 minute change, NPA was a little better. 99-2X (I stuck a 9 way out on shot number 8, knew it when I let it go)

Keeping things centered up is important, and difficult.

This is the 300 yard target. The course of fire to start standing, load a magazine with 2 rounds on a closed bolt, targets up, 70 seconds to get in prone position with a sling, no rest, shoot two rounds, change magazines, shoot eight rounds. The ten ring is 7" diameter, so it is a little over 2 minute angle at 300 yards. Tough target with a sling, 4.5 power scope, 4.5 pound trigger, getting in position, mag changes, wind changes, NPA, etc. and in the EIC (Leg) matches you get no sighters.

I won the Leg Match, got a hard leg, only need four to go out.

What? You mean you don’t shoot that off a bench with a rifle rest and sandbags?? Don’t go confusing bsa with CMP rapid fire rules..

I have read in this forum a couple of times about shooting Highpower off sandbags and benches with big scopes etc.

We must be following the wrong rulebook.

Congrats Mike!
Hope you enjoyed the chase!

What? You mean you don’t shoot that off a bench with a rifle rest and sandbags?? Don’t go confusing bsa with CMP rapid fire rules..

Edit- we had our first mid range match last week, and you could see the rust from the winter in alot of the scores. I didn’t shoot because I had to work.

When you figure out shooting is shooting, you'll be one step ahead of the game. As of right now, none of you cowboys have posted up any (let alone sub moa or moa) targets for the events started here in this forum. 79s tried, but nothing was even MOA, so he gave up. At least Rost had balls enough to shoot irons and post up a good score. Like I said, its all talk, unless you want to prove it. You are more than welcome to shoot those targets. Just sayin. Excuses are like azzholes too, "everyone has one".

bsa1917hunter,
Sorry there was a bit of jabs directed toward you following my post. That was certainly not the intent of my post. It was rather letting the score shooters know that with a skilled driver that understands how to center up and understand shot dispersion, even 55's and 62's can do more that what many think.

I've been around long enough to understand that folks have different reasons for shooting. You clearly like to wring out your rifle and ammo off the bench. Good for you for finding what you want out of your shooting. I was there at one time and wanted nothing more than to shoot little bitty groups. After a long while of chasing that down, I decided that I wanted more...Thanks to some team shooters, I was sold on position shooting with a sling as my next challenge. And challenge it was/is because I have terrible eyes. As difficult as it's been, I am strangely fulfilled when I succeed because of the depth of the hole that I started in. I was discussing with a friend what motivated us to compete and why many folk don't want to (not a jab pointed at you for the record). One reason we felt more folks didn't compete in highpower was the fear of public humbling. Your scores are tabulated, and your successes and failures are distributed very publicly (especially now a days in the internet era). Believe it or not...I like that.

Funny story (at my expense). One year competing at Camp Perry in the Presidents Match, I shot a good score at 200 Standing and a good score at 300 Prone Rapid. Unbeknownst to me, the CMP was updating the scores on their site in real time, so my friends back home were well aware of where I was in the ranking (better than I even, because I only knew my score but not everyone else's). Each of the 1500 or so competitors were vying to be one of the top 100 shooters to be part of the Presidents 100 and I apparently was well in the running after two of the three stages. Well, after the first 10 shots at 600, I was still in the running until I cross fired. I put a round on someone else's target which scores a big fat ZERO. Needless to say, I didn't make the Presidents 100 that year....and I caught a lot of grief when I got home. So much for my private misery... But you know, I'm still good with putting my scores on the big stage out there because my wins (as small as they may be) are similarly public.

I don't shoot for groups a whole lot anymore. The group bug has left me and shooting groups is just a means to an end for me. The end is a load that scores well for 22 shots after 66 shots were fired previously. I'll screen with 5 shot groups, then I'll test the promising ones with a couple of 10 round groups then I'll shoot a 20 round group before I take it to full distance at a practice match to make a final determination.

For the record I do shoot 3 shot groups with my hunting rifles...with a twist. I keep a composite target in my travel pelican and that 3 shoot group needs to stack on top of the previous 3 shot groups because I value stability of zero over a bug hole shooting rifle that put's em in a slightly different place each time.

...and just for fun's sake, I'll see if I can dig up some groups to share with ya'll.

It's been interesting reading everyone's posts. My Bushy was $600 at time of purchase, & my PSA was $350 total. This is not including optics. What type rifles, component, & optics, or irons are you folks using?

When you figure out shooting is shooting, you'll be one step ahead of the game. As of right now, none of you cowboys have posted up any (let alone sub moa or moa) targets for the events started here in this forum. 79s tried, but nothing was even MOA, so he gave up. At least Rost had balls enough to shoot irons and post up a good score. Like I said, its all talk, unless you want to prove it. You are more than welcome to shoot those targets. Just sayin. Excuses are like azzholes too, "everyone has one".

I was waiting for all the non-HP shooters to put up HP scores!

I always find it funny that HP cowgirls are so closed minded that they have to jump in and tell everyone else how good they are.

Everyone has their idea of what fun is, mine is shooting plates as fast as I can, could care less how big my "groups" are as long as the plates are ringing. But I like to shoot most anything. I've done my share of chasing the sub MOA groups, even shoot sometimes offhand in different positions, never tried a coat or a real sling. It's all good.

I always find it funny that HP cowgirls are so closed minded that they have to jump in and tell everyone else how good they are.

I was waiting for all the non-HP shooters to put up HP scores!

I think as a competitor, you have to have a certain amount of striving and need to be on top. Sometimes that leaks into conversations. For the record, I thought I was actually airing my failings. The others were sharing their strivings and process for getting there.

I'll say it again, if you enjoy a certain type of shooting - good for you. I even enjoy hearing about the different types. I'm not a "bang and clang" (term I just learned) shooter...but I suppose I was one as a kid because I begged my welder uncle to make me a T1 steel plate target. That was fun in a binary sense...you either hit it (clang...actually "whack") or you get silence.

UPhiker. Great story.

I always find it funny that HP cowgirls are so closed minded that they have to jump in and tell everyone else how good they are.

Everyone has their idea of what fun is, mine is shooting plates as fast as I can, could care less how big my "groups" are as long as the plates are ringing. But I like to shoot most anything. I've done my share of chasing the sub MOA groups, even shoot sometimes offhand in different positions, never tried a coat or a real sling. It's all good.

Uphiker,

Guys like Butch are remarkable shooters, it is difficult to make the P100 once or twice much less multiple times. Since the match is only held once a year there is a lot of pressure to make that one chance count. Add in the fact the you shoot against all of the military team shooters, well you get the picture. Problem is now the cut is around 289 or 290. If you crossfire you are out. I shot the P100 in 2018, with a 99-5X at 600, 98-3X at 300, but those scores were easy because I blew my offhand, there was no pressure. Headed back in August for my fourth attempt.

...

Zero at 200 then shoot at other distances and see where you hit, right the results down.

Or zero at 100 yards and do the same because unless you're only concerned with getting hits somewhere on a full sized silhouette, you need to forget the 25, 50 or even the 36 yard zero. You need to know exactly where your gun hits at the distances you want to shoot in the conditions you are in.