Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Shooting Days are Over

Today I managed getting back to the range after three weeks. They had it closed for a week and a half updating the grounds and adding security equipment. Then, I had problems with my leg and couldn't get out but decided I was going today come hell or high water.

I took a new Savage Predator Hunter 22-250 with a scope just mounted to bore sight and a Model 70 270 with a new scope to also be bore sighted.

After getting both sighted in, I had six different loads for the 22-250, five rounds each. All were shot at 100 yards. The best I could do with them all was a 3/4" group and one flyer that opened the group to 1 1/4" or so. The rest were maybe an inch to 1 1/2". From a 22-250? I've apparently gotten so I can't shoot anymore. Even though a new rifle, new scope, new brass I should have done better than that. Most disappointing and debilitating. I almost wish I hadn't gone.

Just because it's all new does not guarantee an accurate rifle. I bought one of the first Leupold 3.5x10 50mm scopes ever to hit Greenville and it delivered poor accuracy. To double check I mounted an old Tasco World Class 6x on the rifle and the groups immediately shrank to about 3/4". Before I couldn't get 1.5 inch groups with the Leupold.

Factory rifle? No factory turns out all accurate rifles.

I could give a flying hoot about groups. Bench and paper is about as miserable/boring pursuit that I know of, sans visiting in-laws...

but...you are still shooting. probably 99% of the American males can't say that.

Dont give up. Look into techniques on how to break in a new gun.

Keep shooting. Some guns need a few hundred down the pipe to really find their groove.

What else you gonna do?

Did you give up when you fell off your bike the first time.

Cmon dude.

Sounds like a challenge to me, not a reason to quit. While not stellar accuracy, it is close to good accuracy. Last deer rifle I bought, we never found out the group size at 100 because all the shots weren't on paper. A barrel given to me turned it from a 7mm-08 into a 338 fed that shoots great. Fun times.

May God see to it that you always have problems such as these.

I guess I ought to feel lucky I made it out there with this problem leg. I had to stop twice on the way back from tacking the targets up.

It was all probably me. Mirage was bad at times at 16X but I had it on that to see the half inch squares on the bench rest targets. Oh, well...maybe better next time now that the brass if fire formed and I've got an idea with powder/bullet combination shows more promise than others. Still, you'd think 38.5 gr of H380 and a Sierra bullet would shoot bug holes.

Heck we all have bad days at the range...all I have to do is take a rifle out to make the wind blow

Could be something as simple as seating depth.

There ya go. Keep hammering away Kitch.

I guess I'm just aggravated. Between a stopped up femoral artery causing your foot to go numb and calf to cramp, we had to contend with carpenter bees harassing us, flies, and a sundry of other varmints flying in your face. That's summer at the range, however.

I only shoot one-hole, one-shot groups...

But you're making lot's of conclusions without gathering any real data...

New Rifle...bedding, crown, barrel channel...?
New Scope...??
Load development...?

1 1/4 groups might just mean a little load work up is in order, or it could mean any of the above need to be refined.

Lots of scopes are shipped out defective NIB. To assess a rifle, I always start with a known to be stable scope and go from there. Yes, 16x will amplify mirage, if it's a hot day.

Also, with a new barrel, I clean out all the oil and take it to bare metal with JB, then sterilize with alcohol and coat the bore with a little dry graphite, and I do all this before I fire round one!

If not, it can, (and still might), take up to 30 or more rounds before the bore coppers up in the right places and settles down. Some factory barrels are like that.

If they are not worked on a little bit before firing, new factory barrels that aren't lapped are basically rough as hell, and often have to be shot a little to wear off the rough spots. Some barrels will do this every time they are cleaned to bare metal, which is why I have developed some protocols to deal with those.

Anyway...I won't go on, but the point is to eliminate the variables one-by-one before you make any conclusions.

At least with me, I know it's not my trigger work...:)



Actually I do... I mostly know when I missed up and lost concentration, and that right there is helpful.

I was breaking in that new rifle cleaning after every shot until I had shot ten. Then, after each three shots, etc. I made sure the stock screws were tight before I left and double checked the mount and ring screws. Checked for parallax before starting and waited several minutes between shots. All those things that should have added up to better groups...IMHO. I got it sighted in with two rounds so that was a plus!

Well, maybe better luck next time,. All those bullets were 55 gr. Perhaps I'll try a different weight next time along with another 55 gr. Perhaps the 50 and 60 gr bullets. Powders were H380, Varget and 4064. I guess I was expecting much better results than I got for the caliber.

A barrel often won't shoot well when it's clean. More often than not, it seems.

If you like the break-in process, fine, but groups shot during that process may not reflect a rifle's true accuracy potential, especially if there is any trace of oil left in the barrel.

It may take shooting a box of ammo to clean out any oil residue if you try to shoot it out. Any trace of oil will open groups up.

That's a waste of bullets and powder to my way of thinking.

This .22-250 frustrated me for years:



It would put 2 or 3 in one hole, then toss the next 1�" away. But I kept after it, and eventually shot three tight groups in a row, as shown. Better yet now, new loads I try in it seem to be much less fussy. I'd now ask for a lot of money, if someone wanted to buy it.

I always find I am worse at shooting, after a long layoff. Keep at it, and keep challenging yourself to do better.

In the above Ruger, Varget and 50gr Ballistic Tips were the hot ticket. I plan to experiment a little with Big Game in the future.

1 out of 10 trips is good for me during load development. When they are good, they are very good.

But then some of us prefer to shoot groups, and hate inlaws so much we never had any to bitch about.....

I can't shoot worth a damn when body parts are hurting... been shooting a lot more handguns vs rifles over the past several years.... much easier to change targets at 7 yards than 100+ yards when walking uneven mountain ground....

I shoot air rifle some indoors.... been working on recurve bow shooting again...I expect to perhaps be reduced to shooting spit wads at a TV screen some day...

Adapting to life changes is part of the process. (Full disclose: Some days I might be found screaming " This SUCKS!" prior to getting into an "adapting" mode again ).

There's a reason it's not called H385.

I read that once...

I no longer can shoot as well as my guns are capable of, don't mean I'll quit!