The shooter, the firearm or the ammo? - 07/26/21
How would you rate these in order of importance for accuracy, speaking specifically of rimfires?
Looking at pictures of groups folks post here it seems like a lot of relatively run of the mill rifles are capable of excellent accuracy "if fed the right ammo" and "if the shooter does his part". Savage, Marlin, Ruger, etc., all seem capable of some very good to amazing groups.
Went out this morning to try out a couple of rifles, a 40 year old Kimber of OR M82 with a freshly mounted Leupold 3-9x40 (that was the highest magnification scope that would fit the low rings) and a box stock 11 year old Ruger 10/22 Tactical, that came with a 16” heavy barrel in a Hogue rubber stock; it had an equally old SWFA 10x42 scope on it. Fired a 10 shot group each with the ammo I have on hand – CCI AR Tactical, Winchester Super-X and my last box of Wolf Match Target.
Looking at the target here it’s obvious I’m not going to win any 50m benchrest matches soon but the differences in ammo are striking. The Wolf MT was the winner in both rifles but the CCI made a very good showing of itself, the Super-X sucked dog turds which is disappointing.
With the Match ammo a proven accurate bolt rifle and a factory barreled semi-auto both shot within .064" of each other, the common factor being the ammo.
To answer my own question, I’d put ammo at the top of the list with shooter skill and the firearm equal. Obviously, a top tier firearm with top of the line barrel, sights and trigger paired with a top grade shooter would print much better groups, but unless you want to compete in rimfire bench rest which is a rarefied sport to itself it seems that across the range of rifles from the $250 ones to the $3000 ones your best investment is to search for good ammo. Or to look at it another way, the accuracy difference in the decent affordable rifles vs. the super expensive ones seems to amount to maybe a couple hundredths of an inch at most provided both of them use top notch ammo. And shooter skill, including and especially the ability to read the wind, could reverse the ranking.
This may be stating the obvious to you guys who are really into your rimfires so I’m curious what y’all think.
50 meters, wind about 6-7 mph shifting constantly from 4 to 8 o’clock. Groups shot over a front rest and rear bag. No real effort was made to wait for calm conditions since it was getting really hot really quickly and the wind was picking up quite a bit as well. My goal here was just to compare different ammo in two different rifles to see if there was any commonality or if their appetites diverged widely.
Fwiw, I used this same 10/22 and SWFA scope to win Overall Match Winner in our club .22 silhouette championships back in 2010 and that was competing against several guys shooting Anschutzes, Model 52's and rifles of that grade. So even though it's not showing real bragging groups today, it was plenty accurate enough when you get off a bench and add in the human factor. But that's a thread for another day.
Looking at pictures of groups folks post here it seems like a lot of relatively run of the mill rifles are capable of excellent accuracy "if fed the right ammo" and "if the shooter does his part". Savage, Marlin, Ruger, etc., all seem capable of some very good to amazing groups.
Went out this morning to try out a couple of rifles, a 40 year old Kimber of OR M82 with a freshly mounted Leupold 3-9x40 (that was the highest magnification scope that would fit the low rings) and a box stock 11 year old Ruger 10/22 Tactical, that came with a 16” heavy barrel in a Hogue rubber stock; it had an equally old SWFA 10x42 scope on it. Fired a 10 shot group each with the ammo I have on hand – CCI AR Tactical, Winchester Super-X and my last box of Wolf Match Target.
Looking at the target here it’s obvious I’m not going to win any 50m benchrest matches soon but the differences in ammo are striking. The Wolf MT was the winner in both rifles but the CCI made a very good showing of itself, the Super-X sucked dog turds which is disappointing.
With the Match ammo a proven accurate bolt rifle and a factory barreled semi-auto both shot within .064" of each other, the common factor being the ammo.
To answer my own question, I’d put ammo at the top of the list with shooter skill and the firearm equal. Obviously, a top tier firearm with top of the line barrel, sights and trigger paired with a top grade shooter would print much better groups, but unless you want to compete in rimfire bench rest which is a rarefied sport to itself it seems that across the range of rifles from the $250 ones to the $3000 ones your best investment is to search for good ammo. Or to look at it another way, the accuracy difference in the decent affordable rifles vs. the super expensive ones seems to amount to maybe a couple hundredths of an inch at most provided both of them use top notch ammo. And shooter skill, including and especially the ability to read the wind, could reverse the ranking.
This may be stating the obvious to you guys who are really into your rimfires so I’m curious what y’all think.
50 meters, wind about 6-7 mph shifting constantly from 4 to 8 o’clock. Groups shot over a front rest and rear bag. No real effort was made to wait for calm conditions since it was getting really hot really quickly and the wind was picking up quite a bit as well. My goal here was just to compare different ammo in two different rifles to see if there was any commonality or if their appetites diverged widely.
Fwiw, I used this same 10/22 and SWFA scope to win Overall Match Winner in our club .22 silhouette championships back in 2010 and that was competing against several guys shooting Anschutzes, Model 52's and rifles of that grade. So even though it's not showing real bragging groups today, it was plenty accurate enough when you get off a bench and add in the human factor. But that's a thread for another day.