From 1” to 0.6” back to 1” group 3 loads

[Florida Wally]

I have been reloading for many years, mostly pistol and plinking rifle. I have loaded for hunting, but I only needed to hit a 3” spot inside of 150 yards where I hunt, and I have been successful at that. I have been experimenting with precision shooting in the last couple of months to see if I want to make a hobby of it. By experimenting, I mean doing it on a budget until I get better at in before making a larger investment. I have a Browning X-bolt .243 with a 20” barrel 1/10 twist which is a light hunting rifle. I use a 3-9 scope and shoot at 100 yards. My goal is 1/2 moa groups with the gun. I am still using mostly Lee dies, but I got an RCBS precision mic for shoulder and bullet depth. I loaded 70 grain SMK’s with IMR3031 starting at 35 grains and moving up .5 grains up to 37 grains. I try to bump shoulders back .002 on fired brass, but with the dies I have I get +/- .001, so I bump .001 to .003. Jump is .020. Today the work up with 5 shot groups was 35g - 1.639”, 35.5g - 1.166”, 36g - 1.143”, 36.5g - 0.593“ (my best group ever) and 37g - 2.062”. My question is - is it unusual to go from 1+” to 0.6” back to 2” within three 0.5 grain incremental loads? If it is unusual should I question my shooting ability and if it isn’t, where should I go from here load wise. Should I load .2 grain increments or something smaller than .5? What would you experienced shooters think/do?

 

[chromatica]

Part of your spread might just be explainable as statistical variation. Try shooting several groups of each load. I like to shoot two groups of five shots with each load. Generally I move up in charge weight by .3 grains. When I find two adjacent loads that look promising, I'll go back and explore the interval with .1 increments. I will look for accuracy nodes at 100 yards and also muzzle velocity flat spots.

As I go up in charge weight, if my groups go wild, I might suspect that I'm not doing a good job of recoil management.

 

[grovey]

Welcome to the forum. My take is: Lee dies are capable of reloading ammo, but how well? I'd feel better with Forster, Redding,RCBS FL dies... in that order. I'd pass on the RCBS precision mic, and buy Hornady's bullet comparator and their headspace gauge set . These will allow you to measure the shoulder bump, and where your seating depth is in relation to your lands. Gives you repeatable reference points to work from. I can't speak to you or your rifles ability, but sub MOA is decent for factory hunting rifles. From what you say, it sounds like you might could get a 1/2" load with that combo. I load .3 gr increments for load development in 243-308 cases.

 

[Martin52]

.......doing it on a budget until I get better at in before making a larger investment. I have a Browning X-bolt .243 with a 20” barrel 1/10 twist...... Today the work up with 5 shot groups was 35g - 1.639”, 35.5g - 1.166”, 36g - 1.143”, 36.5g - 0.593“ (my best group ever) and 37g - 2.062”. My question is - is it unusual to go from 1+” to 0.6” back to 2” within three 0.5 grain incremental loads? What would you experienced shooters think/do?

Based on the above key points I'd repeat the test and if you get the same results consider further testing above/below 36.5 gr in 0.2gr increments.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

What kind of wind flags do you have? Invest in at least a couple before you go any further and go practice with them every time you shoot. You may want to try another powder, ive never found anything that liked that one. Welcome to the club and ask all the questions you can. Sounds like youre well on your way to improving your whole technique

 

[1shot]

First, welcome to the forum. I'm in agreement with several previous posters in regards to making smaller jumps in powder weight. With that said, I would try some different powders. IMR 3031 worked OK for me in a 30-30 hunting rifle, but nothing else. You might want to look at H-4831sc, RL-16, or VV 160.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[Richard Coody]

So your seating depth is 0.020 off the lands correct? I assume that is mag length?

I think I would use the powder charge for your best group and start a seating depth test. If you are not limited to mag length then try 0.010 off. And from your .020 off seating depth start backing off in .005 increments. See if anything jumps out at you. With a hunting rifle 3 shot groups and a little time to cool is a good idea. My deer rifle likes a 0.130 jump with berger VLD hunters

Find a seating depth and then fine tune you powder charge. I always look for a wide node for both seating depth and powder charge with a hunting rifle even if i have to give up a little precision. That way it is less likely to go out of tune with environmental changes.

 

[jelenko]

I'd like to echo the point about recoil management.
I compete in 'cross the course' high power rifle where we should from sling supported positions - i.e., not benchrest. I struggle with recoil management when I go to test a load to differentiate between 1" and 0.5" at 100 yards.
My point being that with groups in the 0.6 to 1" at 100 yards, your set up and technique have a big influence on the group size.

 

[Intheshop]

Not all scopes are worth a hoot. High magnification masks a lot when it comes to acuity. Your 3-9 makes very good sense on a hunting rig..... just because they're such a popular size isn't a reason to not use one.

If you can get a chance,start looking through as many different 3-9's as possible. I have a B&L 3-9X40 with Japanese glass,bought "broken" for 15$ off evilbay(we fixed it)that is more clear/precise than any scope I've looked through. Just sayin,you "might" be leaving something on the table with your optics.

Recoil management is a huge deal shooting sporters. Which also,is placing extra work on a scope BTW..... that books could be written on the subject(recoil).

Good luck with your project,and welcome to the best shooting resource on the web.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

Really matters what the groups look like(shape). Stringing vertical much different than a horizontal dispersion. Take you best powder load and test seating depth, paying close attention to wind and rifle support. I try and load test on days when I can't feel wind on my face. A load that is consistent sub moa out to 300 yards with a factory sporter and 3-9 is pretty good. Especially if you can put the cold bore shot in moa bullseye each time(using wind read), accurate and precise shooting. The featured content-shooting skills and technical sections contain a lot of useful information, has helped me greatly.

 

[tominboise]

I've had good luck with Lee collet dies. I don't know if that is what you are using. I would also ask if you have a concentricity gage of some kind to check the run out of your die set up. I presume all the components came out of the same lot. Was the brass new or once fired?

The comments about powder choice are spot on. It was suggested to me on this forum, regarding a 243 I was working with, and it made a huge difference.

 

[Florida Wally]

So your seating depth is 0.020 off the lands correct? I assume that is mag length?

I think I would use the powder charge for your best group and start a seating depth test. If you are not limited to mag length then try 0.010 off. And from your .020 off seating depth start backing off in .005 increments.

Yes, 0.020 off the lands. I am not limited to mag length and I’ll try 0.010 off the lands and back off in 0.005. I was thinking I would start seating depth testing after I found the powder charge for the powder/gun combo.

 

[Florida Wally]

I've had good luck with Lee collet dies. I don't know if that is what you are using. I would also ask if you have a concentricity gage of some kind to check the run out of your did set up. I presume all the components came.oit of the same lot. Was the brass new or once fired?

The comments about powder choice are spot on. It was suggested to me on this forum, regarding a 243 I was working with, and it made a huge difference.

l’m not using Lee collet dies, just Lee FL sizing and bullet seating dies. I will upgrade soon. This was the 3rd time firing the brass. Same lot. I used Brass previously for hunting loads.

 

[Florida Wally]

Really matters what the groups look like(shape). Stringing vertical much different than a horizontal dispersion. Take you best powder load and test seating depth, paying close attention to wind and rifle support. I try and load test on days when I can't feel wind on my face. A load that is consistent sub moa out to 300 yards with a factory sporter and 3-9 is pretty good. Especially if you can put the cold bore shot in moa bullseye each time(using wind read), accurate and precise shooting. The featured content-shooting skills and technical sections contain a lot of useful information, has helped me greatly.

If I look only at vertical dispersion, 36.0 grains and 36.5 grains are clearly better than the others. Those two powder increments are 0.5” better than the others and I can see a trend of the groups closing with load increments below 36.0. This is what I was hoping to find with overall group size. I’m going to do some research on vertical dispersion vs horizontal.

 

[Hohn]

A couple points to consider:
1) LEE dies are perfectly capable of loading consistently good ammo. They are just a bit harder to use perhaps than some others.
2) Your sample size is too small to conclude much from. Load up the same test and shoot it again and I guarantee you the exact same pattern will not repeat.
3) It will be pretty difficult to achieve half moa with any regularity with a 9x max optic. Even off a rest, it's really hard to hold that tight. When you go to a high mag optic, you finally realize just how big your wobble really is and why a full machine rest and such is all but necessary to achieve that goal with any regularity.

4) I'd encourage you to define your goal in terms of groups size AND confidence. For example, do you want to be able to shoot 50% of your shots within a half inch or 90% within an inch? Which is more useful? Which can you test and prove?

EVERY rifle is half moa now and then. Just through randomness most guns will eventually put together a wallet-photo-worthy group. But one decent group isn't the goal here-- it's consistent excellence. This is why I started match shooting for midrange. I wanted *quantifiable data* under real world conditions of just how accurate my rifle and loads were. My first match, I shot 14/20 into a 1 moa X ring and all 20 into a 2moa 10 ring. Statistically, then I could say it was 70% confidence of sub-MOA or 100% confidence of sub-2MOA.

My point here is that if you don't define a confidence value (90%, 50% whatever), you'll never know when you've achieved your goal. And you won't have any real way of measuring your progress.

 

[Ned Ludd]

Another mention regarding the scope here. A 6-9X optic is great for hunting, not so much for shooting small groups. Something in the 15-20X (or higher) range might help you minimize not only the group size, but the variance between groups.

 

[Oleg S]

What is your setup for testing? Are you shooting with bipod or front rest and rear bag? How heavy is your trigger pull?

 

[K22]

I have two Browning X bolts, a 223 Rem and a 243 Win, Hunter Models with the wooden stocks so I thought I might first address some issues I had with these model rifles. I actually had the synthetic stock on the 223 Rem replaced with a factory wooden stock because the synthetic stock would "torque / twist" off my shooting sticks making accurate shooting a problem. The wooden stock eliminated this problem. The 243 Win came with the wooden stock.

These rifles are light weight designed more for hunting applications than for sustained precision shooting meaning that you have to be very consistent in your hold, cheek weld, shoulder pressure, squeeze, and follow through, etc. to obtain consistent results. While the aforementioned shooting issues are important for all rifles, they became more so with light weight rifles even with the relatively light recoil of the 243 Win. Shooter skills are differently a significant factor when you start talking about groups in the 0.50 range.

Mine came with the actions factory bedded and barrels free floated but the triggers on mine were not good for precision shooting. I could only get them adjusted down to 3.5 to 4 lbs. I did find a rifle smith that reworked them down to a consistent 2.25 to 2.5 lbs which made a huge difference in my ability to shoot precisely. Don't expect to shoot great groups with poor triggers, i.e. heavy pull, creep, over travel.

With that said, after fixing the triggers, mine shoot extremely well for a hunting rifle meaning consistent sub 1 moa with occasional groups approaching 1/2 moa. For a factory rifle, even with tailored reloads, this is about all I could hope for which meets my needs for hunting applications. With regards to spread of groups, with these rifles, it's not uncommon for me to occasionally experience spreads of about 1/2" from group to group, e.g. a .700 vs. a .750 vs a .650.

For the 243, I've had my best results with the Sierra 85 grain BTHP and IMR 4064 or IMR 4350 and Federal 210 Primers. I've found that it takes at least a .5 grain change in powder for any noticeable change in group size for cartridges the size of the 243, especially with the aforementioned powders. However, IMR 3031 is a lot faster so maybe smaller changes in powder can produced a noticeable change on paper, I don't know because I've never used this powder in a 243.

If I was interested in precision target shooting I would opt for a heavy barrel rifle in a caliber more friendly to barrel wear than a 243. Don't get me wrong, I think the 243 Win is a great cartridge. I have 4 of them and have been shooting this caliber since the late 60's. Where it shines is in the role of a dual purpose hunting rifle for deer, varmints / predators.

 

[Florida Wally]

What is your setup for testing? Are you shooting with bipod or front rest and rear bag? How heavy is your trigger pull?

I am using a front rest and rear bag. Trigger pull is factory, approx 4 lbs. it is a lot, but it is smooth to me.

 

[Oleg S]

I am using a front rest and rear bag. Trigger pull is factory, approx 4 lbs. it is a lot, but it is smooth to me.

Using 24x scope and trigger with lighter pull helped me a lot when I started shooting for groups.