FTR Bullet Choice
- Thread starter savageshooter86
- Start date
I snatched up 1000 Sierra 175s and have a box of Berger 185 on the way to also try
I an not worried about twist as Berger says 12 should be fine up to the 185 hybrids
I an not worried about twist as Berger says 12 should be fine up to the 185 hybrids
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
XTR said:
Let me also point out that it was Derek Rodgers who won the Nationals, which to my mind was a more difficult competition because it was longer (130 rounds to 95) and all at 1000 yards. The eventual World Champion finished 18 points behind and Russell Simmonds appears to have posted a DNF on the last day of the Nationals and a less than stellar performance for the first two days. I am not knocking anyone down here, just pointing out there were wide variations.
All this to say that if you are basing your buying decisions on the outcome of one event for one person, you may be disappointed. If you want to use the same stuff the top shooters do, you would do well to expand your sample size.
As XTR so eloquently said: It's not the bullet.
Just one comment about the 175SMK, be prepared to sort, trim and point the bullets. There is a reason some bullets cost more money.
bayou shooter said:
There are huge issues travelling countries and getting loads to work, compounded by the shortages. The Aussies went to Raton last year and this was one of the reasons....iron out getting the load to work.
Travel to another country, shoot on a foreign range and come second by 1 point..remarkable....but to take your point, when you throw into the equation those sorts of factors there is a lot to consider as to how well everyone did.
IMO the question is never "will I win with bullet x" (which is what we argue about) but "will it help improve my score".
I think it's also fair to point out that the FCN week was very much an acclimatisation and practice week for most visiting shooters. This was particularly so for European shooters, in the case of us Brits going from a country with temperatures in the 70s and a sun angle that provides considerable shade even at midday, to 90s and virtually no shade.
The GB F/TR team made a management decision that none of its members would shoot in the final day of FCN matches in order to provide a clear break and one day's rest before the FCWC matches, which is what we'd travelled to the USA for. Instead we entered two four-shooter teams on the Wednesday to hone team shooting skills and do a final selection of those shooting in the FCWC team matches, our priority over the two weeks most people were there for.
Russell spent Wednesday 21st August, the FCN team shooting day in the pits with Stuart Anselm the team captain, each marking a target on his own for one team. I reckon they both needed their day off before the 'Worlds' started.
That Russell arrived in Raton, acclimatised himself to an 'unusual' range with near unique wind conditions, to temperatures that were 20-30 degrees higher than those where he'd come from, coped with 'string shooting' requiring totally different techniques from the 'two on a mound' and 45-second rule used in GB F-Class and came 2nd overall in the FCWC 'individuals' by a single point was a frankly staggering performance demonstrating that he's one of the world's most talented long-range rifle shooters, a member of a really tiny elite.
This isn't to diminish Nikolas Taylor's superb win, or Darryl Buell's third place. For that matter, given the long period that it took to get through each match with six relays and a pits change somewhere en route, and the degree of conditions changes that often occurred between relays, any of the 10 competitors who scored between Darryl Barlow's 439 up Nikolas Taylor's 450 out of a possible 475 not only performed staggeringly well, and consistently well over six matches and two long days, but could potentially have been the overall winner.
What Russell's second place does show is that if he suffered any particular disadvantage out of using the 155.5gn Berger compared to the 185gn Juggernaut, or a 210gn VLD, 200/215/230gn Hybrid ... etc, it didn't handicap him to any great extent.
The GB F/TR team made a management decision that none of its members would shoot in the final day of FCN matches in order to provide a clear break and one day's rest before the FCWC matches, which is what we'd travelled to the USA for. Instead we entered two four-shooter teams on the Wednesday to hone team shooting skills and do a final selection of those shooting in the FCWC team matches, our priority over the two weeks most people were there for.
Russell spent Wednesday 21st August, the FCN team shooting day in the pits with Stuart Anselm the team captain, each marking a target on his own for one team. I reckon they both needed their day off before the 'Worlds' started.
That Russell arrived in Raton, acclimatised himself to an 'unusual' range with near unique wind conditions, to temperatures that were 20-30 degrees higher than those where he'd come from, coped with 'string shooting' requiring totally different techniques from the 'two on a mound' and 45-second rule used in GB F-Class and came 2nd overall in the FCWC 'individuals' by a single point was a frankly staggering performance demonstrating that he's one of the world's most talented long-range rifle shooters, a member of a really tiny elite.
This isn't to diminish Nikolas Taylor's superb win, or Darryl Buell's third place. For that matter, given the long period that it took to get through each match with six relays and a pits change somewhere en route, and the degree of conditions changes that often occurred between relays, any of the 10 competitors who scored between Darryl Barlow's 439 up Nikolas Taylor's 450 out of a possible 475 not only performed staggeringly well, and consistently well over six matches and two long days, but could potentially have been the overall winner.
What Russell's second place does show is that if he suffered any particular disadvantage out of using the 155.5gn Berger compared to the 185gn Juggernaut, or a 210gn VLD, 200/215/230gn Hybrid ... etc, it didn't handicap him to any great extent.
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
Sorry for taking so long to come back here, one of my daughters had two swim meets yesterday and then I loaded ammo for the upcoming Texas state match next weekend because I will be out of town for the week. If there was some type of award for not getting a point across properly, I would certainly be in contention.
Let me just say that for the last 39 years of my life I have been making a living masquerading as a software engineer. This means I have designed and built systems to accomplish tasks. One of the things we do as engineers (I don't care what type,) is to accumulate and analyze data with the goal of producing information that then allows us to build things based on this information.
Do you know what I call Russell Simmonds second place in F-TR FCWC shooting 155.5gr bullets?
A data point.
At this moment in time, we do not have the data from which to extract information to decide which bullet weight or style is the clear winner. We have people who have done really well with anything from 155 to 215 grain bullets and I certainly have not seen any data from the top 10% to say "this is the bullet which you must have in order to be competitive."
So, my point was that if someone starting from scratch wants to spec out a rifle to shoot a specific bullet, choosing the bullet of one winner of one event is not optimum. As XTR had said and which I completely agreed with is: It's not the bullet.
To explain that further because it seems I didn't explain it well enough; it's not the bullet, it's a combination of a lot of things, foremost among them being the shooter. At this level of competition everything counts, but the shooter is absolutely the alpha and omega, so to speak.
The other factors are: the rifle, the ammo, the bipod, the relay, the target assignment, the order of shooting, the pit service and so on. The conditions are the conditions.
Laurie, I was not aware that the GB F-TR team stayed out of the Thursday match.What I do know is that it affected the other shooters, because there were several people missing on the line that morning. I know because I was squadded with someone who didn't show up and we had to scramble to get somebody to score for me. I have no clue with whom I was squadded but that person missed out on seeing me shoot a 199-7x that morning not using 155.5 or 215 or 185 Juggernauts, just my usual JLK 180 LBTs. (Memory plays bad tricks on aging people; it was during the FCWC, not the FCNC that my squad mate did not show up and I heard from one of the officials that there were many people missing.)
In 2009, the F-Open world switched to 7mm bullets after the FCWC at Bisley, where the 7mm bullets ruled. That's an example of a decision based on information, not a single data point.
I think the jury is still out on the F-TR bullet weight selection and it's still blurry because as XTR said: it's not the bullet.
Let me just say that for the last 39 years of my life I have been making a living masquerading as a software engineer. This means I have designed and built systems to accomplish tasks. One of the things we do as engineers (I don't care what type,) is to accumulate and analyze data with the goal of producing information that then allows us to build things based on this information.
Do you know what I call Russell Simmonds second place in F-TR FCWC shooting 155.5gr bullets?
A data point.
At this moment in time, we do not have the data from which to extract information to decide which bullet weight or style is the clear winner. We have people who have done really well with anything from 155 to 215 grain bullets and I certainly have not seen any data from the top 10% to say "this is the bullet which you must have in order to be competitive."
So, my point was that if someone starting from scratch wants to spec out a rifle to shoot a specific bullet, choosing the bullet of one winner of one event is not optimum. As XTR had said and which I completely agreed with is: It's not the bullet.
To explain that further because it seems I didn't explain it well enough; it's not the bullet, it's a combination of a lot of things, foremost among them being the shooter. At this level of competition everything counts, but the shooter is absolutely the alpha and omega, so to speak.
The other factors are: the rifle, the ammo, the bipod, the relay, the target assignment, the order of shooting, the pit service and so on. The conditions are the conditions.
Laurie, I was not aware that the GB F-TR team stayed out of the Thursday match.
In 2009, the F-Open world switched to 7mm bullets after the FCWC at Bisley, where the 7mm bullets ruled. That's an example of a decision based on information, not a single data point.
I think the jury is still out on the F-TR bullet weight selection and it's still blurry because as XTR said: it's not the bullet.
Denys, I agree 100% with both parts of that statement. The 'evidence' from the GB league series where we have some people use 155s, some using 210s, others switching between the two depending on conditions, and one guy shooting the 230gn Berger Hybrid at rather high velocities with excellent results is that over the course of the seven annual rounds on three venues, the pluses and minuses of one weight over another tend to even out. The sole exception is the annual Long-Range Challenge at Bisley which includes 1,100 and 1,200 yard stages where 'heavies' offer a substantial benefit even in benign conditions. (From 2014, the 1,200 yard stage will be dropped.)
I think the other factor that comes into play is the rifle stock and bi-pod configuration / specification and shooter's style and preference. We know that everything has to be 'good', maybe near perfect for good national / international results in F/TR, but maybe the heavier the bullet, the closer everything has to be to being perfectly optimised. (Same as using 223 Rem / 90s.) Not everybody likes the rifle characteristics of shooting heavies either. I went down the external ballistics data strongly recommend heavies route a year or two back and shot worse. having returned to the 155.5, I find it a lot easier to concentrate on the wind and range conditions and worry less about gun handling. I'll probably give the 200gn Berger Hybrid and full-house loads a 'go' at some point in due course, but at the moment feel that 185gn is as heavy as I'll normally ever use.
I have a lot of 185-200gn bullets left over from my earlier enthusiasm. I suspect they'll be used up in club matches over modest loads of Viht N150 that look for group size at relatively low MVs and recoil.
Congratulations on your 44th overall in the 'Worlds' individual matches. I was very pleased to make 90th, my target being to make the top half of the field. Ironically, my 'best' match in my own view had an apparently poor score, 61.2v in the Day One 1,000 yarder. I drew the wet and dark relay - just like being at home!
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
It's funny because I actually finished 22nd or so in the Nationals which were all shot at 1000 yards. I was 26 points behind the leader. Then in the Worlds, I finished 25 points behind the leader yet wound up in 43rd place (I guess I counted differently.) I actually shot less well in the Worlds than in the Nationals, yet the former had 800 and 900 yard ranges, whilst the latter was all 1000.
I kept wondering about this until it dawned on me that "you perform as you train." All I ever shoot is 1000 yards throughout the year. I never shoot the 800 and 900 ranges and I think that's what got me; I am too specialized. I HAD to shoot in the practice day simply to get some type of zero for the 800 and 900 yard stages.
I don't "chase the spotter," I check conditions all the time and adjust as needed. I found myself over-compensating at 800 and 900 yards, and this was made worse by the high elevation at which we shot. I'm a sea-level guy and acclimatization, as you mentioned, is very important in this discipline. I know my rifle and ammo extremely well, but I had issues wrapping my mind around the shorter distances.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I kept wondering about this until it dawned on me that "you perform as you train." All I ever shoot is 1000 yards throughout the year. I never shoot the 800 and 900 ranges and I think that's what got me; I am too specialized. I HAD to shoot in the practice day simply to get some type of zero for the 800 and 900 yard stages.
I don't "chase the spotter," I check conditions all the time and adjust as needed. I found myself over-compensating at 800 and 900 yards, and this was made worse by the high elevation at which we shot. I'm a sea-level guy and acclimatization, as you mentioned, is very important in this discipline. I know my rifle and ammo extremely well, but I had issues wrapping my mind around the shorter distances.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
I would think your scores would go up in string fire. The thing I remember about pair-firing back in the 1980s was that I would forget the hold I used and the conditions I was looking for waiting for the other bozo to fire, get scored and then recording his score. Plus listening to him come up with excuses for a bad shot.
Give me the quiet serenity and grace of string fire any time.
Give me the quiet serenity and grace of string fire any time.
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
I have no clue, but I know that I do not since the JLKs do not require those extra steps; the meplats are very clean and very small from the box.
XTR
F-TR obssessed shooting junkie
paulT said:
Seriously, if you are just getting into this stop right now and understand this part, this is the kind of stuff you do to get the last point that may make a difference in winning or second. It won't make up for missed wind calls.
If you are new to long range shooting nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing you do at the bench will make the bullet go anywhere near the center of the target if you can't read a switch.
It's late in the yr now. Most places don't have many matches left this yr. Get your gear together, get your load worked out, try to get in some practice, and shoot any matches you can find. It is way more important that you get a load that is shooting under .5MOA at 300 or 600 if you have the range to test than that you squeeze the last fraction of BC out of your bullet.
Concentrate on the things that will make big changes first, (neck tension!) then start nibbling on the edges. You can't buy skill, you get it through practice, which is why BBs like this are filled with discussions of bullets and bipods.
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
Let me just expand a little bit here, if I may.
While what XTR is saying is true, there is more to the story, in my opinion.
What we are talking about here are two distinct operations; one is performed to rectify a manufacturing "flaw", ragged meplats while the other is intended on increasing the BC of a bullet that may have been reduced by a combination of trimming and just plain big-ass meplats.
Now, mind you, I never have to do either because as I said before, my bullet of choice does not exhibit the problems, so I'm speaking from theory here, not first-hand observations.
To me, the bigger problem is the ragged meplats because this can bring on some inconsistencies at long ranges, where the BC of the bullet varies from bullet to bullet depending on the shape of the meplat.
Accurate wind calls are the key to doing well in F-class competition and no amount of trimming and pointing will get you into the 10-ring if you can't judge the wind properly on a consistent basis. In that, XTR is absolutely correct.
However, that said, the one vital quality that one must master, (if one can master a quality,) is to hold vertical at the target. This is absolutely critical because if you can't hold vertical you will drop points even with spot-on wind calls. What is the use of calling the wind dead on and then watch your bullet hit the 8-ring a 6 o'clock?
The last thing you want to do is leave points on the loading bench or due to lousy marksmanship. Not only that, but inconsistent bullets will make you wish that the rings were squares and your missed wind call is paired with a shot that also misses vertical and instead of a 9 at 3 o'clock, you get an 8 at 4:30.
Bullets with polymer meplats don't suffer from these issues and neither do bullets with clean meplats from the manufacturer. It's up to you to decide what amount of crappy meplats you can put up with.
And XTR is also right about consistent neck tension and all the other aspects of ammo preparation; these things influence your vertical hold as much as, if not more than the ragged meplats.
Everything has to be right to do well at long distance, but most critical is wind calls.
While what XTR is saying is true, there is more to the story, in my opinion.
What we are talking about here are two distinct operations; one is performed to rectify a manufacturing "flaw", ragged meplats while the other is intended on increasing the BC of a bullet that may have been reduced by a combination of trimming and just plain big-ass meplats.
Now, mind you, I never have to do either because as I said before, my bullet of choice does not exhibit the problems, so I'm speaking from theory here, not first-hand observations.
To me, the bigger problem is the ragged meplats because this can bring on some inconsistencies at long ranges, where the BC of the bullet varies from bullet to bullet depending on the shape of the meplat.
Accurate wind calls are the key to doing well in F-class competition and no amount of trimming and pointing will get you into the 10-ring if you can't judge the wind properly on a consistent basis. In that, XTR is absolutely correct.
However, that said, the one vital quality that one must master, (if one can master a quality,) is to hold vertical at the target. This is absolutely critical because if you can't hold vertical you will drop points even with spot-on wind calls. What is the use of calling the wind dead on and then watch your bullet hit the 8-ring a 6 o'clock?
The last thing you want to do is leave points on the loading bench or due to lousy marksmanship. Not only that, but inconsistent bullets will make you wish that the rings were squares and your missed wind call is paired with a shot that also misses vertical and instead of a 9 at 3 o'clock, you get an 8 at 4:30.
Bullets with polymer meplats don't suffer from these issues and neither do bullets with clean meplats from the manufacturer. It's up to you to decide what amount of crappy meplats you can put up with.
And XTR is also right about consistent neck tension and all the other aspects of ammo preparation; these things influence your vertical hold as much as, if not more than the ragged meplats.
Everything has to be right to do well at long distance, but most critical is wind calls.
XTR said:
I am new to competition shooting and can tell you this is the best advise you can get along with getting a stock that fits "your" shooting style as Laurie mentioned earlier. If you are two targets over and ten feet high after recoil you spend all your time getting back on target and not enough reading the wind. During load development I shot several 5 shot .5" groups at 300 yards off the bench but can barely get Expert scores in a match.
After a crash course in 308 development to finish the Worlds, I am quickly adopting the philosophy of ENOUGH and TRUST.
Enough mechanical accuracy so I can hit the X/10 ring.
Enough ballistics so my bullet will fly true enough to hit the X/10 ring.
Test and tweak every part of your system to reach a level where you TRUST your set up. Regardless of what it is, you must believe that when it goes bang, the bullet WILL go to where you want it to.
Be ruthless in your testing and gear. If you do not trust, that is not good enough and you will have doubt. This gets expensive but get rid of anything you do not trust.
The biggest culprit are barrels. They wear much faster then most want to admit or can afford to admit.
When you have both Enough and Trust, then learn to read the wind. There is nothing you can do with a 308W to cheat the wind so I feel there is no point in chasing the hottest loads.
Find a set up that matches your balance for recoil, accuracy, vertical and costs.
Dead reliable, predictable, trackable loads and gear. Not necessarily the most expensive or "fancy". Like a old pair of jeans - it just fits... even on a bad day!
That way you can trust an "out" as a function of condition NOT shooting.
Now focus on the wind cause that this only thing separating you from the podium.
YMMV.
Jerry
Enough mechanical accuracy so I can hit the X/10 ring.
Enough ballistics so my bullet will fly true enough to hit the X/10 ring.
Test and tweak every part of your system to reach a level where you TRUST your set up. Regardless of what it is, you must believe that when it goes bang, the bullet WILL go to where you want it to.
Be ruthless in your testing and gear. If you do not trust, that is not good enough and you will have doubt. This gets expensive but get rid of anything you do not trust.
The biggest culprit are barrels. They wear much faster then most want to admit or can afford to admit.
When you have both Enough and Trust, then learn to read the wind. There is nothing you can do with a 308W to cheat the wind so I feel there is no point in chasing the hottest loads.
Find a set up that matches your balance for recoil, accuracy, vertical and costs.
Dead reliable, predictable, trackable loads and gear. Not necessarily the most expensive or "fancy". Like a old pair of jeans - it just fits... even on a bad day!
That way you can trust an "out" as a function of condition NOT shooting.
Now focus on the wind cause that this only thing separating you from the podium.
YMMV.
Jerry
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