Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Clover leafs one day scattered the next??

I'm guessing the first group was a fluke or the scope took a dive.

I think a rifle that shoots well one day and not the next is the greatest mystery in shooting. We've all been there...

Heres what not to do:

1. Shoot centerfire rifles at 50 yards for load development.
Reason: waste of components and time.
2. Shoot 1 3 shot group and think all is well in the world.

First thing is to take you out the equation.Here is what I was taught.

Rest the forend on a sand bag, 4x4 and a 2x4 to get height. I have a rest I made at work one afternoon shift. .
Rest the butt on a sand bag.Pile sand bags behind the rifle. I use 3
Squeeze the sand bags to get the cross hairs perfect.Now don't touch the rifle, keep that left hand well away from the rifle.. Your rifle should be perfect, at rest with no inputs from YOU.
Gently squeeze the trigger, not throwing off the rifle.

I had my wife sew up jean pant legs and zip-tied the tops for sand bags We have concrete benches at the range.

Using that method for load development when I don't see a good group I know it's the scope.

To the OP
If your shots are less than 75 yards, just how bad are your groups?

At 75 yds. you should have around a 1.5" group or there about. Just how small are these deer? For about the last couple of hundred years a rifle that shot inch and a half groups was considered exceptional, then they started publishing gun mags.

Sometimes when this happens to me it could be too much coffee or just my shooting is off. I switch rifles or go to a rim fire and see if it is my shooting or technique before wasting a lot of ammo.

I would load up some of your old 225 gr . Loads and see how they are shooting now. Maybe your rifle don't like the 200 grainers.

If a given load puts 20 shots into a 4" circle, 3 of them are bound to be touching each other. Therefore.....

A single 3 shot group that is large tells you your load is not good. A single 3 shot group that is small doesn't really tell you much, other than where your point of impact is, because you don't have a large enough sample size to draw any real conclusions.

Maybe those three shots that grouped together were the three that were touching out of the twenty in the first group that were spread out over 4".

I look at multiple 3 shot groups over a long period of time when evaluating a load. The largest group indicates the accuracy of the rifle, not the smallest.

Most people seem to have that ass-backwards.

In the past when I had similar experiences as the OP, the most often problem was

Barnes bullets. Obviously not the OPs problem.

Most likely problems are bench protocol and coffee, imo.

This is well stated. Easy to visualize. Thanks.

The group went from less than an inch to three. I'm going to go back to the 225gr Sierra's and see how it doesn't if that doesn't show promise than I'll change scopes.

Good luck GSP - let us know what you find out.

Many powders are highly affected by temperature swings. Happened to me on RL22 & Winchester powders.

Go back to shooting at 50 yards if you want smaller groups...

If there was a single answer, oh what a world it would be....

My first thought when I read that change. If it groups the way you remember it did then the rifle and scope are ok and maybe start over with your load.

If you keep targets from several different trips to the range, you can stack them on top of each other. Hold the targets up to a light to see how well that rifle is really shooting or if there was a sudden group shift.

Wind conditions at the 100 yd range???

once i am on paper at 25 yds. i go to 100 yards that is where i hopefully can come up some good 5 shot groups . for just a standard hunting rifle 1 inch - 1 1/4 inch moa is good enough but i do have a couple of factory rifles that do shoot real well . but if i have put a custom barrel and have done some accurizing on this rifle i expect 1/2 to 3/4 - 5 shot groups at 100 yards with my hand loads. if its a custom bench rest rifle Bat action, Brux barrel and the best accessories, 4 oz. trigger and a big Nightforce scope then this type of rifle better shoot 2`s and 3`s which is 2/10 `s or 3/10`s and yes we all want a 1 holer all day long.
i do have a 35 Rem. mag. with a custom barrel /Savage action shoots 3/4 inch 5 shot groups at 100 yards 225 gr. bullets nice rounded group 2800 fps with a 24 inch barrel .so some 35 caliber rifles do shoot well ,but my 35 Rem.mag shoots well but you do get plenty recoil too ! try some 225 gr. bullets your 358 Win. might shoot better, i used 225 gr. Nosler Partitions i believe ? good luck ,Pete53

Our weather has sucked, to cold and windy to shoot. I'm going to go back to the 225gr it has shot well for decades and see how that works out. Hopefully the sun will come out the wind will cease and a calm morning avails it's self.

One-shot groups are always the smallest.