This thread here sure has convinced me not to buy a used gun anymore.
Yeah, that's a fine point of the question I brought up.Why would you practice with anything but the best? Perfect practice makes perfect- not practice.
Hold down the safe.
Rapid fire sitting and rapid fire prone are hard on barrels.Why would you practice with anything but the best? Perfect practice makes perfect- not practice.
I use them for training
Rapid fire sitting and rapid fire prone are hard on barrels.
Life’s too short to worry about wearing out a nice rifle. That’s why the barrels can be replaced.Yeah, that's a fine point of the question I brought up.
One obvious answer was mentioned - to transfer wear and tear from the best rifle to a less expensive one that has no current job otherwise.
Another is to get some variety while still keeping up trigger time.
But your point is definitely valid also.
If you compete with a 1/4” rifle but practice with a 1/2” rifle youll never get better. Your 1/4”er will turn into a 3/8”er and youll be satisfied. The whole time youre practicing youll be thinking well that was the gun that wasnt my poor form. Never save anything- barrels are a component.
I don’t know about this. The barrels I’ve seen shoot .4 at 100 don’t hold anywhere close to .4 at 600. In theory .4 would be 2.4” at 600. Real world 600 yard groups with a barrel like that are typically more like 5 or 6”. To get to a real 2” rifle at 600 it needs to hold around .15-.2” at 100. If you have a 6” rifle at 600 you’re going to be dropping a lot of frustrating 9s and be questioning your wind calls whereas if you have a gun that would actually hold 2” at 600 and it’s going where you expect you can trust your wind calls much more.Much of that depends on your chosen discipline. For F-Class, THE limiting factor is reading the wind conditions. The difference in score in challenging wind conditions between a rifle that shoots 0.25 MOA and one that shoots 0.4 MOA is likely not going to be worth talking about, except over the [very] long term. Further, you can absolutely improve your wind reading skill with the 0.4 MOA rifle. Why? Because the precision is not the limiting factor, reading the wind conditions is. By practicing with the 0.4 MOA rifle, you can reduce wear on the 0.25 MOA barrel and it might last a little longer. There is no perfect "philosophy", but this one works. Ask yourself how many times that someone you know has lucked into a "hummer" barrel, then shot it out long before its time doing stupid stuff? I don't know a single one that wasn't sorry afterward they had burnt out a great barrel doing something other than winning matches.
I don’t know about this. The barrels I’ve seen shoot .4 at 100 don’t hold anywhere close to .4 at 600. In theory .4 would be 2.4” at 600. Real world 600 yard groups with a barrel like that are typically more like 5 or 6”. To get to a real 2” rifle at 600 it needs to hold around .15-.2” at 100. If you have a 6” rifle at 600 you’re going to be dropping a lot of frustrating 9s and be questioning your wind calls whereas if you have a gun that would actually hold 2” at 600 and it’s going where you expect you can trust your wind calls much more.
I came here hoping to be convinced this isn't true. Other than demoting the rifle to a discipline where the hold is well over 1/2 I can't come up with anything. Thanks a lot
My nerd brain jumps to wondering if it would be even better to practice with a 1/8 rifle, even if you had to go back to 1/4 for competition.
No if you have a 1/8” rifle for practice and a 1/4” one to compete with you do the hot swap and your 1/4” gun is relegated to the safe.