.223 flyers

[Glenn Powell]

I am having a bugger of a time with my five shot groups with my .223. The rifle is a Sako l461, bull barrel, load 25g h335, 52g SMK, lapua brass, CCI BR. I get 4 rounds in a bragging worthy hole, and one a half inch or so out. The flyer is not consistent it could be the first to the last, no rhyme or reason. I don't know why and it is getting extremely frustrating! Its not horizontal and its not vertical, and I am almost certain its not me. I am not anal about weighing brass and bullets, should I be? I do weigh each charge, and have a hard time getting my crono to pick up the bullet, so I don't know the velocity. Any help there would also be much appreciated.

 

[Kings X]

Could be a number of places.
My first change would be bullets.
Second change would be seating depth.
Also need to check bullet run-out.
Good Luck

 

[fredhorace77]

imo the first thing you need to do is get wind flags...then learn how to read them...welcome to the world of benchrest shooting...thats most shooters life story...that fifth one always ruins a good looking 4 shot group...lol.

 

[Glenn Powell]

I am trying flags, will admit, first one or two down the barrel I check flags, after that my concentration seems to go fully to trigger, breath, hold, and everything else but flags. What really got me was when I had 4 right in there and the fifth flew, got pissed and threw another at it, and it got swallowed with the 4.

 

[fredhorace77]

Lol. Thats how it usually goes. At my range they provide so called flags. They actually work really good for me. They have a hole in the ground filled with a peice of pvc pipe and the flag is on another seperate piece of pvc pipe that will stand in that hole. On the top of it is a simple piece of surveyors tape. I shoot with both eyes open and watch my first flag with my left eye(right handed shooter) and i can see the next 3 flags thru the scope.

 

[Glenn Powell]

I can't shoot with both eyes open, physically. My eyes won't let me, when I focus on something close up one eye will dilate while the other won't. Found that one out when I went to help the local police with drunk testing. They lickered a bunch of us up made us blow in the tube then go do all the tests police give DWI drivers. The look on the first ones face when he made me focus on his finger was a goodin. Stoped everyone and said "hey y'all come check this one out!"

 

[quartermaster]

If 1 out of 5 is only out a 1/2", maybe you should check the case weights at least once or twice to see if it makes a difference. Could your barrel be heated on the 5th shot and hitting the stock? Maybe check bullet runout also.

It seems to me if you have a 1/2" flyer with a 5 shot group, you must have a good shooting rifle, so maybe checking the consistency of your loads may rid you of your problem.

Flyers can drive you crazy. Hope you get it worked out. Keep trying.

QM

 

[nastynatesfish]

If its a random round it's hard to say. I'd leave all as ismaybe check neck tension.

 

[Larryh128]

I think that I would go with the last post about neck tension. You didn't mention annealing & with the case life out of a 223, it is very likely that you have some very hard necks. I used to see the same thing before I started annealing. WORLD of difference. You can anneal 10-20 cases using a drill & a socket & check it out.

 

[Glenn Powell]

These cases have only been fired 4 times, I typically annneal after 5, when I go through a 500 count box of bullets. I typically load 100 at a time and spent all day at he range shooting. The rifle seems to group best when pretty hot, but I don't put more than 10 down range at a time, I am not ready to burn up this barrel just yet. I have put well over 4000 rounds through it, and it was used when I got it. Thanks for the suggestions, I will sit down this weekend and anneal, weigh, sort, and go cross-eyed checking runout.

 

[BoydAllen]

Back in the day, I used to trim my cases so that they were never any shorter than .010 under the maximum. Sometimes in my pursuit of what I thought was precision, it was as little as .005. That was a mistake. One of the fellows that does some lecturing on loading for benchrest, Jack Neary, has pointed out that it does no harm to have necks .025 shorter than the maximum and that it may have some benefits. In any case, I would start out by trimming them a little short, and doing a good smooth job of chamfering. Then I would pay close attention to variations in the force required to seat the bullets.

Another thing that can cause these sorts of inconsistencies is the bedding of the barreled action in the stock.

I would also take a look at your rest setup. If you have to pay so much attention to controlling the rifle as you pull the trigger, it makes me think that your bags may not fit your rifle very well, and that you are having to work too hard on keeping your point of aim.

Occasionally I see someone that has his rifle sitting on the bags so that one or both sling swivel studs are too close to their respective bags. This can cause thrown shots if the one of the studs runs into the bag during recoil.

I presume that you check your action screws from time to time. Sometimes I come across fellows who are having problems who have not attended to that detail, or have a scope mounting screw that is a little looser than it should be.

Good luck with your rifle. Let us know if you figure it out.
Boyd

 

[Glenn Powell]

I learned the hard way about sling studs, riped the bag on my Caldwell BR. I am not crazy about the bag I have on the rest, grips the rifle too much, and I just got a good rear bag that I might have packed too tight? As to trimming cases I typically use Lee trimmers on everything, they fit so nice in the dye case, and I don't have to fiddle with changing trim length for different cases. Chamfer, d-bur, cleaning neck, and primer pockets, I use the RCBS case master, vld chamfer, and stainless steel brush for neck cleaning inside necks. As to the action screws, 35in# front, 25in# rear, and I bump the butt to settle the action. The bedding I am not too sure about, the l461 dose not have a recoil lug on the action, it sits on a metal block, flat.

 

[jhelmuth]

Well... lots of good possibilities have been mentioned. I'd like to suggest the following.

[1] Get the chrono problem fixed so you can at least determione if there is a likely problem with load consistency. I know you seem to be sure it's not that, but the prrof is in the actual data and until you can "see" what's happening on the ES/SD of the group, you cannot rule that out. I'd suggest that this is a very important data point if you really want to solve your mystery.

[2] Assuming you can verify the loads as NOT being the issue, take yourself out of the equation by having the group shot from a really high quality rest setup. You don't have to own such a setup (but it helps obviously) - just ask around and see if you can't find someone with the rig and who'd be willing to help you find out. In my opinion, the shooter is almost always the reason for a "flyer".

[3] Assuming you rule out the "nut behind the bolt" ;o) now focus on the rifle. Look for points of stress which might not show up until the heat build-up rears it's ugly head. For Savages, this seems to frequently be at the rear tang (where the safety is located), others may be predominately in the reciever/action area. Also look carefully at the trigger mechanism. Also look carefully at the bore - is it copper fouled?

[4] If all that fails to find the culprit, you are probably experiencing accuracy drift from wind conditions. Look at adding flags and uping your game by learning to read the wind and conditions.


Good luck....

Jim

 

[Beau]

4,000 rounds is getting up there for a 223.

 

[BoydAllen]

The idea of using a stainless brush to clean necks does not appeal to me. Perchance are you actually cleaning all of the powder fouling out of your necks, down to bare metal? If you are, that is a mistake.

 

[Glenn Powell]

Yes, there is no carbon in the necks when I am done. I do it with all my reloads, 300WinMag, 358 Norma, 6.5x284, 223, and 30/30. All shoot great, the flyers from the 223 being the exception. Even the 30/30 is sub inch! The 358 is a half incher as is the 300, and the 6.5 will go 1.25 @300. All are hunting guns, and the 223 is technicaly a varmint rig,and as of right now, my only precision practice rifle, and the only one I shoot five shot groups with. I have always been under the impression to clean the necks to get consistent bullet tension. Am I mistaken?

 

[BoydAllen]

As long as the rifles shoot well, then by definition, you don't have a problem, but some may tell you that if you put a clean, dry bullet in a clean dry neck, that over time, there may be a kind of bonding that can take place, that can cause bullet pull to become much greater than it was when the ammunition was assembled. I can only speak for myself, and from observations that I have made in the area of competition benchrest (short range) but it is my feeling that seating force is more uniform when a glaze of powder fouling is left in case necks. To my knowledge, no one who competes in short range benchrest cleans all of the powder fouling out of his necks. One more thing, I have always made a practice of working up loads for my varmint rifles with the bullets seated .006 to .010 longer than touching. I probably should also mention that I have all the tools needed to do this with precision. I mention this not so much for your benefit, but for those who have a habit of referring to their shooting "jammed", with no more precise description than that.

 

[Glenn Powell]

That makes lot of since. I have not "jammed" bullets yet, but have gone far enough to kiss them. Typically my 223 loads are .005 off lands. I also full length size with .001 shoulder bump, I gave up neck sizing because runout was poor, at best. My next go round I won't clean up the necks. Black bear season starts Sunday so I don't know when I will be able to give all this great info a go, if the weather is crappy I will load up some stuff and give it a go. Another question: should I index rounds that show runout? I have read that if you have rounds with poor runout to mark the bullets so they are all fired in the same position in the chamber. Could this also be a factor with my flyers? Thanks for all the fantastic info.

 

[BoydAllen]

Just for giggles try this. Put a worn out bronze bore brush on an accessory handle. Pull push it all the way in your case necks, and pull it out. Do this two times per case. Use some 0000 steel wool to remove the powder fouling from the outside of the necks, wiping them off afterwards. Assuming that your cases don't need trimming, run them through a Lee Collet die, making sure that the mandrel is the right size to give you the proper amount of neck tension. (I like .002), then run them through a body die that has been set for a shoulder bump of .001 to .002. Check all the cases to make sure that you have at least .001 bump. Now you can measure your case runout. You may be pleasantly surprised. When it comes to seating bullets, I think that the Forster Ultra is one of the best threaded alternatives. The reason that I said to check the bump on all of the cases is that if one has more spring back and does not bump at the setting that you are using, it will shoot out of the group a little. An arbor press type die, like a Wilson, will give you better seating feel. The reason that I put jammed in quotes is that I object to it being used that way. The proper way to describe bullet seating that is longer than touching is a given number of thousandths longer than touching. Jam is a specific length for a particular bullet, that varies from rifle to rifle, and by neck tension and friction. You would say that your bullets are seated at jam or so many thousandths off (meaning shorter than) jam. If I tell you that I seat "jammed" for my .222 it does not tell you enough to reproduce what I am doing, but if I tell you that I am seating .005 longer than touching, as determined by a Sinclair tool, using firm thumb pressure, you can recreate what I have done with a fairly good chance of success. A lot of times I get the impression that guys that write about loading their bullets "jammed" may not even have a clue that a couple of thousandth difference in seating depth can be significant for tune. It's like they are trying to tune a piano with a pipe wrench. You, on the other hand, do not seem to fit that description, based on your description of how you bump shoulders and the distance that you seat off of the lands.

 

[K22]

Lots of goods suggestions, I'll add a few on shooting technique:

Are you avoiding canting the rifle to one side or the other?

Are you following through with the shot?

Are you avoiding pushing forward with your shoulder as you pull the trigger?

Is the rifle level between the front and rear supports?

Are you maintaining constant finger position on the trigger?

Not a benchrest technique and the bench guys will freak out at this suggestion :-[ but I've shot some of my best five shot groups (in the .15 and .2's) holding the fore end of the stock to prevent free recoil. This may make it worse especially if you're new at it but you might just try five rounds and see if it helps. If you try it, the trick is to maintain a consistant grip on the fore end through out the shot all the way through follow through.