long range accuracy

bob257

Well-Known Member
i shoot a257roberts ai.stiler action/walther target hunter barrel.24".
The rifle shoots.25inch at 100yds and 1.25'@300 but when i push it
out to 400 the groupes open up to 4inchs.
I shoot 117gr sst @3050fts velocity spread of 7to12fts.
could it be possibe i need a bullet with higher bc to inprove group,
or is possibly shooter errror.
have got a leupold vxl 4x14x56 on rifle.would be grateful for any one"s thoughts.
 
yes load all my own.use all the same cases and neck size .
And only full size when cases get tight.
 
Wind is going to be a major player in accurate shooting at 400m. Do you use flags (note the plural) and can you make calculated allowances for even 2mph changes? Sorry if these are idiot questions but they are the obvious starting point for anyone wanting to stretch the range.
High B.C match bullets are few and far between for .25cal', but Berger make a 115g V.L.D if you can find any.
 
Those are not `idiot questions` but facts of shooting life.
Between 1951 and 1954 I shot at 500 yards on the Century Range at Bisley a few times for an RAF team and flags were placed at every 100 yards down the range.
It was an education in itself to see the vagaries of wind at different distances.
I get weary of todays `Daniel Boones` who boast of head shooting a rabbit at 600 yards even on a windy day.
We never hear of the `cock-ups` and injured which hop off to suffer.

HWH.
 
i shoot a257roberts ai.stiler action/walther target hunter barrel.24".
The rifle shoots.25inch at 100yds and 1.25'@300 but when i push it
out to 400 the groupes open up to 4inchs.
I shoot 117gr sst @3050fts velocity spread of 7to12fts.
could it be possibe i need a bullet with higher bc to inprove group,
or is possibly shooter errror.
have got a leupold vxl 4x14x56 on rifle.would be grateful for any one"s thoughts.

I also shoot a Twenty-five Bobert and like it. I also shoot it's ballistic twin, the 25 Krag wildcat. I can't say why your groups open up, exactly, but I wonder what you shoot at that range other than paper. What is the twist of that Walther barrel??~Muir
 
the twist rate of the barrel is 1 in 10.
i do only shoot at paper.and and agree with stag that you dont hear about the cock up"s
at long ranges. And dont shoot at deer at this range .Was more of a case wanting to see
how far i could push this rifle while keeping it accurate.
 
Not really to do with the thread but Stag 1933 stirred a memory or two. I was at Bisley in 1957 with the RAF and was equally amazed at the vagaries of the wind on the Century range. On one occasion aiming at the next target to get a shot on mine!
As a result I now always use bubbles to test wind direction as they travel much further than talc etc:
I seldom shoot at anything over 250 yards and am amazed that anyone can be consistent at 400 plus. It's a hell of a long way!
 
High BC bullets............. Vince Bottomley's group, 2.67 inches @ 1000 yards. I would be happy to show results like yours for your values.
 
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the twist rate of the barrel is 1 in 10.
i do only shoot at paper.and and agree with stag that you dont hear about the cock up"s
at long ranges. And dont shoot at deer at this range .Was more of a case wanting to see
how far i could push this rifle while keeping it accurate.

That twist should be good. I'm not certain about the BC helping all that much. I had a good friend who used to shoot 500M Metallic Silhouette Comp with a 30-06 using 200 grain flat based cast bullets. His groups were 3.5 to 4.5" at that distance. Give it another try with a shorter bullet sometime and see what happens. Usually increasing BC (per weight) means increasing length, which augments stability problems if present.~Muir
 
i shoot a257roberts ai.stiler action/walther target hunter barrel.24".
The rifle shoots.25inch at 100yds and 1.25'@300 but when i push it
out to 400 the groupes open up to 4inchs.
I shoot 117gr sst @3050fts velocity spread of 7to12fts.
could it be possibe i need a bullet with higher bc to inprove group,
or is possibly shooter errror.
have got a leupold vxl 4x14x56 on rifle.would be grateful for any one"s thoughts.

I am not an expert at long range shooting but I have done a little myself on rabbits foxes and hares on farms near to me.

What you are experiencing sounds pretty normal to me. I have shot live varmints up to 700yds and for the very reasons you are mentioning here I now only venture over 300yds if there is very little wind. (Sub 3mph on my kestrel).

I use all the gadgets such as Kestrel wind meters, Nightforce exbal and Nikon rangefinders and I have spent over £1500 on reloading equipment to get ammo that is very consistent. (Sub 1/2" @ 100yds and sub 1" @ 200yds.)

But even with all my efforts and hard work the wind will beat me everytime if I cannot read it right.

If you look here http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/ you will see a wealth of information and guys that shoot up to 2000yds on live quarry regularly.

From what I have read you will need to use a heavier caliber rifle and heavier bullets to reach the loooong range targets with any sort of consistency. It appears that a heavy slower bullet is more accurate than a fast lighter one.

I am sure there will be guys on here with anecdotal accounts of 1000yd rabbit shots in gale force winds and I am certain that there are some lucky sods that have managed to do that, but I am not happy doing it on live quarry if I cannot do it all the time with calculable consistency.

Your experiences are quite normal from what I have seen,
 
I am not an expert at long range shooting but I have done a little myself on rabbits foxes and hares on farms near to me.

What you are experiencing sounds pretty normal to me. I have shot live varmints up to 700yds and for the very reasons you are mentioning here I now only venture over 300yds if there is very little wind. (Sub 3mph on my kestrel).

I use all the gadgets such as Kestrel wind meters, Nightforce exbal and Nikon rangefinders and I have spent over £1500 on reloading equipment to get ammo that is very consistent. (Sub 1/2" @ 100yds and sub 1" @ 200yds.)

But even with all my efforts and hard work the wind will beat me everytime if I cannot read it right.

If you look here http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/ you will see a wealth of information and guys that shoot up to 2000yds on live quarry regularly.

From what I have read you will need to use a heavier caliber rifle and heavier bullets to reach the loooong range targets with any sort of consistency. It appears that a heavy slower bullet is more accurate than a fast lighter one.

I am sure there will be guys on here with anecdotal accounts of 1000yd rabbit shots in gale force winds and I am certain that there are some lucky sods that have managed to do that, but I am not happy doing it on live quarry if I cannot do it all the time with calculable consistency.

Your experiences are quite normal from what I have seen,

Good on you for reducing your varminting max to 300! why anyone should feel taking shots at animals longer than that is beyond my understanding. If you like stalking, get within 50-200 yards (or whatever the 'closest' you can get is). If you like accurate shooting, go to the range. Nuff said...

I've seen these long range video's and think they're sick. so many animals are just wounded and then require numerous follow up shots, but I guess it's known across the pond as 'anchoring'...blo*dy idiots...
 
Those are not `idiot questions` but facts of shooting life.
Between 1951 and 1954 I shot at 500 yards on the Century Range at Bisley a few times for an RAF team and flags were placed at every 100 yards down the range.
It was an education in itself to see the vagaries of wind at different distances.
I get weary of todays `Daniel Boones` who boast of head shooting a rabbit at 600 yards even on a windy day.
We never hear of the `cock-ups` and injured which hop off to suffer.

HWH.

Spent many confused minutes looking down that range at flags blowing in completely oposite directions! Only advice I can give is this... 4'' group at 400 yrds... 1MOA...take what you can get... sporting rifle, sporting ammo, sporting scope, sounds fine to me. JC
 
thanks very much to people who have taken time to replie.
will put some of this into practice.


thanks bob
 
1MOA at 400 is respectable but if you are trying for better it may be worth trying something with a boat tail (117gr is a flat base isn't it), I found this improved things over the 200yd mark in my .223.

Like brithunter I use SMK's for paper but have tried the Gamekings (boat tails) for vermin in my .223 and have found it nearly as accurate as the target stuff.

Heavier slower bullets buck the wind better so it isn't so much that they're inherently more accurate, they're just more slippery :)
 
ive just ordered 2boxs of bergar 115gr vlds.
be interestering to see if they are any better over longer ranges than the 117gr sst.

bob
 
Better BC will help reduce the effects of wind but I think the effect of having proper match bullets and consistent internal ballistics will help even more.

I do a fair amount of target shooting at Bisley at long range, the main thing seems to be ability to dope the wind and consistency in ammunition.

Firstly Chronograph a string of shots. Variations of even 100 fps mean very little in terms of POI at 100 yards but will really show up as stringing at long range. You will want the extreme spread as low as possible, ideally below 20 fps for 600yard stuff, and the Standard deviation about half of that for best results.

If your groups are not stringing vertically and you've confirmed that the velocity variations are within reason you can look at other factors.

I should have mentioned earlier that the shape of the group can reveal information about the ballistics of the rifle, shooter and ammunition combination. I've already talked about vertical stringing but a horizontal spread can indicate you have problems with wind-doping.

The other piece of the puzzle is using good match bullets. Any internal inconsistencies in the bullet's make-up, ie small variances in the bullet's dynamic centre of gravity in flight will magnify as distance increases.


An underappreciated issue is the sighting system. Just how good are you at holding the crosshairs in exactly the same place each time at a point 600 yards away? In my own case a low-mag, thick reticuled hunting scope is difficult to bring to bear consistently much above 300 yards.

Your problem is to some degree "just what happens to rifles at range" but this is because of the issue, amongst many others, above.

Sort your internal ballistics first, then the sighting system.
 
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