Great winning barrels or is it great Bullets?

[Tim Singleton]

There are so many conversations about what barrel was the winner of such and such match using. Was it Bartlien, Krieger, Brux, Broughton, Hawk hill, Shilen.
Tons of interest in match equipment lists seeking out who is shooting what barrel.
Then hundreds of dollars spent on a new barrel only to shoot bullets through it that can never achieve the accuracy level the barrel has

I think there is no where near the emphasis placed on the bullets being shot by the competition winners as there should be
All most people want to know is what barrel is he or she shooting or even what scope, stock, trigger, rest, gunsmith.
Seems like a lot of times the bullets are the last thing spoken about

I'm thinking,
You should be wondering who's bullets they are shooting!

 

[Tim Singleton]

Then there are the guys that say
I don't care what anybody says my Hornady Amax shoots little groups all day
Running them through his Brux barrel is like running 87 octane in a top fuel dragster

 

[LRPV]

It takes two to tango.

 

[tuttlefarm]

I do not care who's barrel or bullets you use, if you can't reload equal to or better than your competition then you fall into the average shooter category..... Once you are great at loading, then components come into play.

 

[bsumoba]

I always tell people that what matters most to me is Barrels and Bullets...

I have a barrel that shoots a known good load with a particular bullet (180gr hybrids). It only has about 1,100 rounds down it. I now use it to test my next lot# of bullets only. Because I know the load, I can test whether the bullet stands up to the previous lot# in accuracy, vertical, etc. If it doesn't, I move on to the next lot#.

Once you have a known good lot # of bullets, testing barrels is then easier. Take the good barrels to the big matches, return the others or simply use it for smaller local matches or regionals.

 

[Tim Singleton]

I do not care who's barrel or bullets you use, if you can't reload equal to or better than your competition then you fall into the average shooter category..... Once you are great at loading, then components come into play.

Maybe so
How will you ever know if you can reload equal to the competition if you've never seen what a custom bullet can do

 

[Tim Singleton]

Tons of threads even articles on fliers. Ways to eliminate fliers. Questions on loads how to get rid of these fliers.
That groups was awesome until this one flier.
Maybe the flier is the bullets! People talk about great barrels that can shoot through a condition.
Maybe it's the great bullets that are shooting through the condition

 

[savagedasher]

Tons of threads even articles on fliers. Ways to eliminate fliers. Questions on loads how to get rid of these fliers.
That groups was awesome until this one flier.
Maybe the flier is the bullets! People talk about great barrels that can shoot through a condition.
Maybe it's the great bullets that are shooting through the condition

I have found many of the so called flyers are the loose nut. behind behind the gun . Mine sure has that problem from time to time.
Larry

 

[JimPag]

I do not care who's barrel or bullets you use, if you can't reload equal to or better than your competition then you fall into the average shooter category..... Once you are great at loading, then components come into play.

CUSTOM bullets and barrels make a huge difference in the disciple that I shoot and so does knowing how to come up with a load and the biggest thing is how to tune a rifle, and how to read the flags and pull the trigger at the right time and so on and so on, ect, ect, ect. There are too many things going on all at once to say one thing will make the difference in your shooting. It's all about the combination and getting them to work. It just like drag racing. You can have a ton of horsepower, but if you can't get it hooked up all your going to do is go up in smoke.

 

[Tim Singleton]

Jim, I agree with you.
The thing is without the bullets up to the task you can't learn how to tune a rifle or shoot the wind

 

[Tim Singleton]

There are bullets out there that are like a horse looking for boogers
The least little thing and that horse will jump out from under you
Some bullets will knot 3-4 in a little hole then the tiniest little condition change and it launches one way out.
The same little change a good bullet would shoot through or have a small effect on

 

[ShootDots]

I have had 3 "memorable" barrels in my "shooting life". It really did not matter what bullet I shot down them and almost any powder to propel whatever "decent" bullet I put down the bore. Those barrels would shoot tiny dots at 300.. I have had barrels that no matter what I have put down them, I could NOT get them to shoot well enough for competition. I had 1 bullet I tried in a .284 Shehane that literally shot as bad as a Blunderbuss! A friend of mine bought 1000 of those same bullets, for his rifle, that had 2 Shehane barrels, and could not get them to shoot any better than I could. His friend had a Shehane and a straight .284 and neither of them would shoot those bullets either! These were all the same bullet, just different lots. I have a 30-06A.I. right now that will not shoot the 200-20x's with any consistency, yet it is doing very well with 210 JLK's..

I said all this to say this: If you do not have a really good barrel, it will not be competitive no matter what it is fed. If you have a "hummer" of a barrel, it probably will shoot almost anything really well. If you have a barrel that is finicky, it may want only 1 bullet and or 1 powder. I think a REALLY GREAT bullet can bring out the BEST in a GREAT barrel, that needs a GREAT PRECISION LOAD! Take any one of those "legs" away and the rifle may shoot very well, however, it will not shoot to it's fullest potential!

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Its very rare to find a barrel that cant be tuned to win matches in my experience. I do not think many in f-class are shooting custom bullets. Which leaves us with Bergers mainly. What I have seen is, IF you have a good lot and you sort them, they can shoot as small as any custom. I would say, you could give a champion most any barrel and bullet and he would find a tune that works and still win matches in a lot of cases. Seems like those guys never get bad barrels....

 

[6BRinNZ]

Tim, what criteria are you using to make these statements? One mans flyer is another mans 1/2 moa group.
Berger bullets are shot in Fclass as they offer the balance of consistency, ballistics and quality for that type of shooting - where the group for any given shooter (IMO) on average much much wider than it is high (nothing to do with the bullet)

 

[LHSmith]

Its very rare to find a barrel that cant be tuned to win matches in my experience. I do not think many in f-class are shooting custom bullets. Which leaves us with Bergers mainly. What I have seen is, IF you have a good lot and you sort them, they can shoot as small as any custom. I would say, you could give a champion most any barrel and bullet and he would find a tune that works and still win matches in a lot of cases. Seems like those guys never get bad barrels....

I only have experience in Short Range Benchrest. I am sure you are familiar with Tony Boyer's and Mike Ratigan's books. I believe it is safe to say that the vast majority of competitors in that discipline are in complete agreement with what is written about barrel quality. I have seen it. That is , some barrels despite judicious tuning will never get you a win, some may get you a win with judicious tuning -IF you minimize mistakes (gun handling and condition reading), and a very, very few will get you a win with little correction in tune and despite the operator making wind reading errors.
Perusing through recent Super Shoot equipment lists, you find that Berger (even with their "semi-custom" Column bullets) is pretty much absent from the equipment lists. Not surprising, since even the winningest current custom bullet makes always seem to be lot specific.....and then specific only to a particular barrel.

 

[LHSmith]

Tons of threads even articles on fliers. Ways to eliminate fliers. Questions on loads how to get rid of these fliers.
That groups was awesome until this one flier.
Maybe the flier is the bullets! People talk about great barrels that can shoot through a condition.
Maybe it's the great bullets that are shooting through the condition

Junke Machine. But after the learning curve of using one and checking every bullet, you'll find yourself in an asylum. Shooting competition is supposed to be fun, and range time ALWAYS trumps bench time.
Just as it is paramount to develop TRUST in your gun to do well, likewise you just have to develop trust in a certain lot of bullets respective to a certain barrel.

 

[1shot]

For me, it all boils down to consistency. If the barrel is GTG, then the shooter needs to be consistent with his reloading and his shooting technique. The bullets must be very consistent from one to the next, or the potential of everything else stated previously will never be realized.

Lloyd

 

[Ned Ludd]

BR and F-Class are two different animals. Precision requirements are different, [some] reloading practices are different, strings of fire are different, therefore direct comparison of the two may be very misleading. In F-Class, the vast majority of shooters are using Bergers, with an occasional Sierra, Lapua, Nosler, or Hornady offering thrown into the mix. It is rare to find F-Class shooters using custom bullets. Give me a good Bartlein/Krieger/Brux barrel and a Berger bullet and I will find a load that gets the job done. This whole thread sounds to me like someone is trying to drum up business for a custom bullet.

 

[Tim Singleton]

I'm not trying to drum up business for anyone
I do not shoot F class
If the guys that do are happy with the accuracy they get with their Bullet of choice that's great.
I don't think John Whidden shoots the Amax

 

[Tim Singleton]

The point of the thread is the priority of the bullet IMO isn't given enough thought by most
A lot of people do understand this but by an large it seems to be given little consideration