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

There's a good chance your first group was just a lucky group. Nothing wrong with 50 yards of your scope parallax well let you do it. Maybe hold your eye back a little until you get some shadow ring and use that to center your eye.

There's also a MAJOR factor at work here. Despite all the experts and experience, there's no way to tell WTF happened from reading about the "symptoms" on the Internet.

A good example occurred a year or two ago, when a guy had a rifle shooting a great at 100 yards, but then groups went to hell at 200. There were all the usual guesses--scope parallax, the bullet somehow "destabilizing" in another 100 yards, different range conditions--etc. etc.

After multiple pages of guesses, it turned out the guy's range had different 100 and 200-yard ranges. Consequently he set up at a different bench to shoot at 200--and the rear bag was just behind of the rear sling-swivel stud. Consequently the stud was hitting the bag during recoil.

He tried it again with the rear bag in front of the sling-swivel stud, and the rifle shot groups right in line with those it shot at 100.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Possibly so, just like PistolCraft mentioned in his post on the first page of this thread, RJ

at my rifle range which is only a 25 yard pit /100 yard berm and also at other ranges i have seen and heard many odd / weird things , even people shooting some rifles with bad scopes but bottom line we all need to help shooters for safety reasons. rather your a doctor, dentist , teacher , writer, farmer, truck driver , salesman or like many of us just a retired blue color worker who just like to hear a gun go bang. its all about fun , being positive and helping all shooters.

Pistolcraft,

Yes, I saw that post, but the sling-swivel stud suggestion was semi-buried among a list of possibilities.

The amazing thing about he thread I mentioned is that it went on...and on...and on.... Only after a pile of posts, most super-technical, did the simple solution appear--and far more often than not the simplest solution turns out to work.

Yes John, threads like these can definitely "over think" a problem. RJ

Well I managed to get back to the range and shot the tried and true 48gr of h4895 and a 225 gr Sierra. As usual the groups ranged from 1.25 to 1.5 at a 100 yards with the scope set on 6X. I went to the 200 grain bullet a Remington PSP and 49gr, 49.5gr and the 50gr load that started this thread. 49.5 proved to be the best with the groups about the same as the 225gr load averaging just a touch over 1.25 inches at 100 yards. This was three three shot groups with each load. The cloverleafed group at 50 yards must have just been the gun Gods smiling on me but the 49.5 grain load will be fine for the application I'll use this for. I wish I had the chronograph with me but I didn't. Next time it will go along as I need to load up for deer season and check the zero before I hunt with it.

Sounds like you will now at least have some confidence in you rifle and load, Good hunting! RJ

Yeah, a single 3-shot group can give false confidence; something that's happened an untold number of times to shooters and hunters through the years.

Yep.
That's why a lot of guys don't want to hear about your single best 3 shot group. Want to hear about your 10 shot group, or 2 consecutive 5 shot groups, or 3 or 4 consecutive 3 shot groups....

Amen to that!

Most of these 'fixes' are just basics not being taken care of. And usually, the basics are the details that get omitted.

Good shootin'.-Al

Thanks, Al!

Yep, they're usually simple stuff. One of my buddies phoned me in a panic a few years ago, saying he thought the barrel of his .270 Weatherby Magnum was "shot out," since it started shooting 2-inch groups. I asked how many times he'd fired the rifle, and he guessed about 500--which I automatically divided by two, having found that guys who guess how many rounds they shoot don't shoot all that many. I said I'd take a look at it--and the bore was essentially copper-plated. He had "cleaned" it a number of times, but not with a solvent that would get rid of much (if any) copper. I really cleaned it, and the rifle started shooting great again.. (Oh, and my borescope only showed a slight amount of throat erosion, about what I'd expect in a .270 Weatherby Magnum after maybe 200 rounds.)

Mule Deer,

I hear 'ya. Most of the 'trouble' I see and am asked to help with is very, very basic stuff. Your Weatherby experience reminds me of a pals 25-06 that I pillar bedded and did load work for. Over the next 12 years, it worked great on antelope, white tails, big mule deer and a couple of black bears. When I'd initially done the work, I set him up with some good cleaning gear...a Delrin rod guide with solvent port, Dewey rod, bronze brushes, Dewey jag, good patches, Shooters Choice solvent, Hoppes #9 for long term storage, etc.

Fast forward a dozen years and he brings the 300 cases I'd originally done and loaded for it back to me to be processed, along with the rifle. All the cleaning stuff was still in the original packages and in the exact cardboard box I'd sent the stuff home in with him all those years before.

The primer pockets on about 100 cases had been rattled pretty hard..the result of "Some prairie dogs I shot" on a scorching August day.

The bore looked like a copper mine. I just cleaned it, dropped the IMR4831 down a full grain, rezero'd it and sent it home with him. He's piled up a bunch of critters since with it.

I wonder how many scopes have been replaced and guns sold/traded when all they needed was a little love, maintainence and attention to basics?

Good shootin'. -Al

Thats some good info to remember.

Actually, he had a 6-shot group. He simply adjusted his scope after 3 shots. I have a rifle that will cut a 3/4" circle @ 50 yards - 10 shots. It will hold 3/4" out to 100 yards. It will hold 1-1/2" out to 200 yards with the same load. I have a sporter weight barrel, so shooting a 10-shot group is not needed. A 5-shot 1-1/2" group gets the job done.

I do agree that 50 yards is not the proving distance. But nothing wrong as a starting point for new load development.

Switching to decaf solved some of my shooting issues. You aren't a machine or shooting exactly the same way each time. Even putting down the rifle to look through the spotting scope will result in a different hold for the next shot. I was pretty surprised how just moving the front bag back farther toward the receiver tightened my groups. Helping guys sight in for the deer season was always an exercise in decorum for me when they thought it might be their load, scope mount or other excuse when I knew darn well that they wiggled.

Yep. That's the thing about taking the time to do load developement and shooting on a regular basis. Once dialed in, you have pretty much eliminated all excuses. If you miss...its the shooter. Humbling!

Its "happened to an untold number of times to shooters and hunters throughout the years" because of ignorance. They won't admit it though and keep shooting those 3 shot groups, thinking when they shoot a one holer, they are good to go. Generally not the case. Again, 50 yards is not the place to be checking cernterfire rifles. Rimfire, maybe, but not centerfires. Regardless of how many shots are fired.

Actually, 50 yard testing for centerfire rifles can be VERY useful--especially in windy conditions. This is because wind-drift at 50 yards is about 1/4 as much as at 100 yards, in the same conditions. But this required some comprehension of the effect of scope parallax, which many shooters don't understand--or, especially, don't understand how to compensate for.