Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Two out of three and OAL

On 07/05/05, I wrote this:
"You can cure this common problem with many rifles by seating the bullets a quarter turn deeper on the seating die and trying another group. You may have to keep repeating the process, but that 3rd bullet usually comes into the group.

The opposite is true if you find your rifle shooting larger triangular groups. Magazine OAL permitting, try seating the bullet out a quarter turn and repeat the groups. You will enjoy the surprise.

Remember that there are many generic statements made on this kind of forum and if something does not work, try something else.

I pay little heed in exact quotes of leade for bullet seating and learned from the bench rest boys who commonly don't even know what powder charge they are using, but try it up and down until it works".



Seating die adjustment has been repeated a couple of times since, with detractors who never tried it, legions of experts who opined it couldn't work, and sometimes followed up by readers who tried it and found it worked for them. This usually ended the thread. Facts can be upsetting.

A few years ago I followed up by stating that my tests also determined that the thinner the barrel the finer or less adjustment was needed to record a change. I also noted that some rifles were less responsive than others. Particular standouts in my testing were Browning heavy barreled rifles both in bolt action and semi auto loading format which obviously predated the Aussie Buy Back period after 1996. The Browning Boss rifles of nearly 30 years ago now had short and thin barrels usually around 20" so in the case of the 270 chambering, ballistics were compromised and blast considerably increased as part of that trade off for accuracy.

These tests also included removing the Boss unit to determine the raw baseline for accuracy from those particular rifles as they were all factory bedded and free floated. It was overall, poor. 2 inches not rare and sub half inch and half that, achieved when the Boss unit was tuned to favor barrel vibrations. These thin barrels required movements that could be measured in thou rather than inches. Very small which were learned through trial and error at the bench. One rifle in particular, tested every week or 2 for 6 months before I wrote it up. There was no instructional material provided with these early rifles. I was on my own.

When looking at these type of threads, it always pays to reread the first one, the OP, then note the growth of opinion and guesswork that evolves in the responses until they stray from the OP brief just as this thread has.

Responses should not be about "I know more than you so you need to listen" or "blustery negative hypothesis" or "negative pontification where the theory hasn't been tried", surely?

Has one single person stated they tried it in X number of rifles over X amount of years and only found success X number of times?
Has anyone tried it enough to state that these barrel formats showed promise and these didn't? Or, these manufacturers or models responded better than others?

Keeping targets or pics of targets is terrific record keeping, the best, because you can re-shoot that same load next week and determine whether you had a good day only, or a repeatable result. I have repeat groups that emulated the original. That is called evidence, not opinion. I have rifles that shoot better than me as I obviously don't have the eyes I did when I started writing, but I sure put a lot of rifles and loads over the bench and chronograph. Even the local range master once told me he gets calls at the range asking whether I actually shoot rifles (am I there?) or am I all BS? I get it, don't care and call it as it was at that time.

If you haven't tried it, you don't know. If you have tried it, you can at least note the rifles and design formats that didn't produce results.
Where you fit into this picture, you know, so nothing more need be said.

Welcome to democracy on the internet, your freedom to choose..........Carry on, as they say.

Maybe i missed it, but i didn't see where the OP said how big the 3 shot groups in question were at 100yds. Is the rifle seesawing the groups from one impact point to the other every shot, or is it printing the first 2 shots close together, and the 3rd shot is the "flier"? 3 shot groups is all i do for development, but these are backed up at least twice before i'm convinced. I've been known not to shoot the third shot in a group if the first 2 shots are too far apart for the group to suit my needs, as it isn't like the 3rd shot is going to close the group. Assuming you've already did seating depth testing when you settled on the load, so i doubt you find any help there.

I'd look over the action screws first, and if nothing is found there I'd redneck bed the action with a few layers of blue painters tape. 2 layers, and a third layer under front action screw. I've tightened up a few 700's this way, and on those i also taped the back of the recoil lug as well. Easy to do, and easy to remove if it doesn't help.

I agree with what some others have said about what is considered the accepted protocol. I would add this. Just some food for thought, prefaced with the acknowledgement that everyone wants the tightest groups possible. Sometimes however, tight groups aren't needed, or even possible, no matter what you do..

I posted these 40 and 60 shot targets. Both were formed using a number of different loads from a 6x45mm bolt action rifle. They were shot at 100 yards using a std contour barrel with a bipod, from the bench. I don't know if this applies to your rifle or not, but it's something that anyone can mull over.

If it's a deer rifle and the expected range of encounter is 300 yards or less, all the bullets fired at either of these 8.5x11 sheets of paper will anchor a deer. The only thing I would do is move the group to the bull. These were test loads. A three shot group can be a acceptable indicator of how well your rifle will shoot - if they land approximately where you aim. A third shot that is considerably far away from the other two, say 2 or 3 inches, is probably the shooter. Whether it's a factory load or a handload, and the scope is properly zeroed, proximity is what you need.

For comparative purposes, the heart/lung kill area on a whitetail is about the size of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. In these two cases, all shots impacted within that 8.5x11 paper.

Unless it is a varmint or target rifle, these two groups demonstrated the capability of my rifle. I don't know which shots hit first. Some were probably pulled or affected by the wind. Regardless, any one of these would have meant a successful hunt.

I understand the desire to shoot tight little clusters, but having a tack driver isn't always possible. For a rifle that you really like, or has sentimental value, shooting 3 shot, 2 or 3 inch groups at 100 yards might be all you need.

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