Group question - flyers and seating depth (bullet jump)

[tominboise]

I t can be very hard to eliminate the one shot out of the group problems. Why? Because there can be several reasons why that is happening. Bad brass, scope ,front rest not set up right, bags not filled right, poor load, fouled barrel, badly wore barrel. The list goes on and on. Tominboise stated he was using crappy brass. WHY????? If you want to see consistency you have to get all your ducks in a row. It helps to be anal about what you are doing. If you know something in your set up is not as perfect as you can get it, replace, or change it. I anneal every time I reload my neck turned Lapua brass after every firing, and once in a while I find one that seats the bullet with more effort. I put these aside for a chronograph test. After shooting 5 rounds that seated harder I had a speed change as high as 50 FT per second, and 4 of the five were out side of previous group shot with the same seating pressure, which I do by feel. I do not have a seating gauge yet, but will soon.
I cant count how many times I was asked by another shooter why their not shooting well, and found a lot of things that were pretty obvious why they were not shooting well. Some not so obvious. Lots of little things can cause your flyers, and with out asking, and being able to go over' and go through their rifle, rest, and bag set up, loads, barrel condition as far as barrel wear, barrel fouling, etc etc etc. I had one shooter complaining about poor grouping with his 22-250. I asked how often he cleans his rifle which he has been shooting a lot, for the past 2 years. His answer.....I don"t clean it. Another said about every 200 or so rounds. Bore scoped em both. Both extremely copper, and carbon fouled. I have had many shooters tell me that their barrels are clean. Bore scoped. Yep you guessed it. Terribly fouled. From my many experiences it can be hard to be online with a shooter (s) trying to figure out why the guns are not shooting very well. Some issues are obvious. With some you just really don't know his or her set up's etc etc.
Bottom line is..... if you want to have your rifles shooting well, and with consistency you have to go through every thing you are doing, and using. Even then, I wish you good luck curing the flyers. I wish there was one thing that causes this problem. Lots of times it is more then one thing. Doug

Crappy brass comment insofar as it's Winchester brass from some fired factory ammo as opposed to Lapua, Norma or some other high quality brand. I have been sorting by weight and runout to get my batches as consistent as they can be. I need to measure the bullet jump. I clean after every session (typically 20 rounds or so), using Butches Bore Shine and a jag, and Wipeout if necessary for the copper fouling.

The rifle weighs 9.5lbs with scope and has a Rifle Basix trigger I put in breaking at 3 lbs. I am throwing charges using a Redding measure. The scope is mounted in a DNZ one piece mount.

I appreciate all the input - I have been reloading since 1972 but am always trying to learn and improve, since most of the loading I have been doing in that time has been for hunting cartridges in hunting rifles.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Crappy brass comment insofar as it's Winchester brass from some fired factory ammo as opposed to Lapua, Norma or some other high quality brand. I have been sorting by weight and runout to get my batches as consistent as they can be. I need to measure the bullet jump. I clean after every session (typically 20 rounds or so), using Butches Bore Shine and a jag, and Wipeout if necessary for the copper fouling.

I appreciate all the input - I have been reloading since 1972 but am always trying to learn and improve, since most of the loading I have been doing in that time has been for hunting cartridges in hunting rifles.

If youll mark the brass on a flyer try it again and see if it does it next time. Sometimes youll have a bad piece

 

[Ccrider]

I use a small punch. Could not find marker that would not wear off over time.

 

[chop house]

I put it breaking at 3 lbs.

if you are comfortable with doing it, or even just temporarily as a test, lower the trigger weight for use on the bench. see if the flyers fly less far.... so to speak.

 

[243winxb]

1970s
Rem 600 mohawk 243 win. 18 power scope.

2 different bullets/loads. 2-5 shot groups of each. 1/2" & 1 1/4" both. Flyers made the 1 1/4" ones.

2000. Buy fl bushing die. Sort 100 Rem brass into 3/10 gr weight groups, after uniforming flash hole & trimming.

Use match grade primers & good match grade bullets.

Learn how to hold rifle as it rides the bags. Maintain same cheek pressure on stock. Little to none is good.

Do not choke on the pressure shots, #4 & #5 shots. When 3 bullets are making a nice clover leaf, the pressure is on.

This is what got rid of my group killing flyiers.

 

[chop house]

here is some load work i was doing on a mdl 12 204 ruger. one showed me just how much neck tension (and it's proxy seating depth) can drastically alter performance. the other underscores Dusty, ccrider, and other's comments about marking the brass from errant shots to analyze later. I've also heard guys say two strikes, yer out.

first, a random coal of 2.330, then seated 0.065 deeper at 2.265 (about book length), then seated at 2.265 with 0.002 more neck tension. (Yes, it was windy. no flags. I was interested in vertical dispersion):



the next shows a group with a low 'flyer'. i most always track and number each shot, replace brass in same cell, and get out the measuring tools later. in this instance, the low shot datum measured short by at least 0.001. i guess it could be a variety of causes (cause and effect and all that) since i was fire forming brass, but the brass or load was different, that much is pretty certain and showed itself on the datum measurement:



so this may not apply at all to your question, FWIW, YMMV, etc

 

[tominboise]

As further info, I measured my bullet jumps today and the 68gr Barnes is 0.061" and the 95gr Sierra is 0.151". I use the Sinclair tool to measure the jumps. So i am going to load up a couple of groups with a 0.020" and a 0.040" jump for both bullets, to see how they respond. I may not get out to shoot these until later this week or maybe next Monday, but will post results when I do.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

Follow the Savage stock screws torque instructions in the technical section here. And the Berger bullets seating depth procedure should save you components and time.

 

[Forum Boss]

The thread starter, Tominboise, reveals this is a Savage, presumably with factory barrel: "This particular rifle I traded into and am playing with it to see how it can do. It is a Savage 110 243 Win, sitting in some sort of laminated target stock, full floated, blind magazine, sporter weight barrel."

If it's indeed a factory barrel, that may be the end of discussion. I had a Savage with factory .260 Rem barrel. Four plus a flyer (one flyer opening group to 0.7-0.9 inches at 100 yards) were almost constant with a few 3 and 2. Constant split groups.

I tried everything -- four different powders, 6 different bullets, different primers, turned necks, tried necking up .243 and necking down .308 Win Lapua, tried various seating depths. All to no avail. The gun just gave flyers.

Then I screwed off the factory barrel and screwed-on a prefit 6BR PacNor. Problem solved. The first measured group (rounds 16-19, 4 shots) made a ragged hole about 0.170" -- Witnessed. The gun never showed the tendency to toss flyers with the new barrel, and consistently shot in the twos. Here are NINE 3-Shot Groups at 100 yards with two different powders and various seating depths.

So these days, when I see problems like the OP describes, I always ask: "Is this a factory barrel?" That may be the whole problem.

If there were 10 Forum Boss Commandments, one would be "don't waste time and money on an erratic factory barrel".

 

[INTJ]

The thread starter, Tominboise, reveals this is a Savage, presumably with factory barrel: "This particular rifle I traded into and am playing with it to see how it can do. It is a Savage 110 243 Win, sitting in some sort of laminated target stock, full floated, blind magazine, sporter weight barrel."

If it's indeed a factory barrel, that may be the end of discussion. I had a Savage with factory .260 Rem barrel. Four plus a flyer (one flyer opening group to 0.7-0.9 inches at 100 yards) were almost constant with a few 3 and 2. Constant split groups.

I tried everything -- four different powders, 6 different bullets, different primers, turned necks, tried necking up .243 and necking down .308 Win Lapua, tried various seating depths. All to no avail. The gun just gave flyers.

Then I screwed off the factory barrel and screwed-on a prefit 6BR PacNor. Problem solved. The first measured group (rounds 15-19, 4 shots) made a ragged hole about 0.170" -- Witnessed. The gun never showed the tendency to toss flyers with the new barrel, and consistently shot in the twos. Here are NINE 3-Shot Groups at 100 yards with two different powders and various seating depths.

So these days, when I see problems like the OP describes, I always ask: "Is this a factory barrel?" That may be the whole problem.

If there were 10 Forum Boss Commandments, one would be "don't waste time and money on an erratic factory barrel".

But @Forum Boss, we know that can't be because the general consensus on this forum is the flyers HAD to be your shooting technique.......

(Yes, I am engaging in sarcasm......)

 

[BoydAllen]

The best way to handle this is by process of elimination. If the action has not been bedded, bed it, and check the bedding with a dial indicator. Getting into the finer points of load discussions with an unbedded rifle is silly. Have you checked your scope base or bases to see if the screw that is going into a blind hole is actually clamping the base or just tight in the bottom of the hole? Are your rings either lapped or Burris Signature? Have you tried swapping scopes? Are you shooting over flags? Have you had another shooter shoot the rifle to see if there is a difference? Have you looked into the bore with a bore scope? I have recently worked with someone that has a bore scope, shooting 85 Sierras with 414 in a .243 and he found out just how dirty it can be, especially when the load is not top pressure. Another shooter was having problems. Luckily he also has one of the new, inexpensive scopes. After the considerable hard carbon deposit was cleaned out of his barrel's throat the rifle shot a lot better. The list goes on. Think of it as an adventure.

 

[Dessert]

I’ll just hazard a guess here, I bet the Forum Boss knows a thing or two about shooting.