ES/SD vs group size

[Rsadams]

When they have competitive rifle shoots where winners are given awards, such as national champion, or world champion or event local events and smaller shoots. I have never heard of anyone getting fake wood for the lowest ES numbers. Its always the smallest group or the closest to the little tiny dot in the middle. Even braggers like me carry a wallet group not a copy of my ES or ED numbers.

Lol , I have a nice group i shot , maybe the best rimfire group I have ever shot sitting right beside me right now on my end table... GUILTY....

 

[Bill Norris]

Well seems we're way off task of my original ask, but that's ok it's all good info and I thank everyone for their input.

I'm not hung up on single digits at all, I was simply relaying what I saw. I have seen people say you need low SD/ES to help contain dispersion at distance. I wasn't trying to imply I thought "low" meant single digits, but in my powder testing I had a huge gap between low and next up. So I thought well if I can use the low SD/ES load and tune the group with seating depth then maybe I'll end up with the best of both and good groups at 100 and acceptable at distance. Most of my rifles I shoot to 450yrds, I simply find a powder load that shoots small groups and use that (coal is factory due to mags and such), like forever. The sage rats don't care... Then I got the idea it would be really cool to shoot at distance and a couple rifles fit for that. So here I am asking a few questions on stuff I've not really messed with.

My ask was "How much on average can a person expect bullet depth tuning to change group size? (in inches)"

I asked because I wanted to know for any given rifle what kind of movement I could expect. I know with powder it's in inches but I didn't really know for seating. Bill actually answered that with basically it's different with any given situation. Which told me what I needed to know. Do it and see. ;-)

Yea I think we all have to just bite the bullet and test whatever our set-up consist of. It's the only true info we will obtain.

 

[LCazador]

Hi guys,

I am new to the forum, but have been able to use a lot of discussions to figure out issues. I have tried doing a google search, but could not find the answer to my question.

I just bought a new chronograph to dial in my reloading skills. I have read that going off just group size is not a definitive of reloading practices, so I got the magneto sporter to see how well I am doing.

I was able to get single digit numbers for SD/ES on some of the loads but the groups were still bigger than an inch. The work up was based on the accuracy tech work up using the chronograph first, and then going back to check group sizes.

What causes single digit numbers and open groups?

Wrong powder! No matter how old this post is, using the wrong powder will not produce consistent groups and best ES.