purdeydog
Well-Known Member
Hi all
Been working on my 1st load development lately. I settled on a load of N140 at 43.4 with a group just under half inch, very happy with that. 8 development loads had been under and two loads just over an inch. Today I went to zero that load as it was not quite on bulls eye at 100y and then I was going to see what the drop was out further.
I shot one group at 2inch and a second at 2 1/2 inches. Not happy! I have some hand loads from Bisley, which have been shooting sub inch so I thought I would try them. Even from them I had a bad group just over two inches and a second at an inch, which is border line acceptable to me. All groups 5 shots, Packed up and went home before I kicked my teddy in the corner!
Only thing I can think I have done differently was to leave a thin coating of oil in the barrel when I last cleaned it, which I don't normally do. Today I put a bore snake thought it before shooting, which may not of got all the oil out as I did notice some of my cases where unusually black when ejected.
Could excess oil in the barrel affect group size? We are taking a lightly coated patch when I did it after cleaning.
Needless to say I wont be making that mistake again. I've given the rifle a cleaning tonight and checked screws etc, all good. This has now made me question my whole load dev process. Ill be out tomorrow to try and correct things, hurry up daylight!
Butchs bore shine. I've been using that to clean my new barrel during the break in process and load dev, says it removes everything from the barrel. No reason to think it hasn't, Ive followed the instructions to the letter.
Thanks J
Been working on my 1st load development lately. I settled on a load of N140 at 43.4 with a group just under half inch, very happy with that. 8 development loads had been under and two loads just over an inch. Today I went to zero that load as it was not quite on bulls eye at 100y and then I was going to see what the drop was out further.
I shot one group at 2inch and a second at 2 1/2 inches. Not happy! I have some hand loads from Bisley, which have been shooting sub inch so I thought I would try them. Even from them I had a bad group just over two inches and a second at an inch, which is border line acceptable to me. All groups 5 shots, Packed up and went home before I kicked my teddy in the corner!
Only thing I can think I have done differently was to leave a thin coating of oil in the barrel when I last cleaned it, which I don't normally do. Today I put a bore snake thought it before shooting, which may not of got all the oil out as I did notice some of my cases where unusually black when ejected.
Could excess oil in the barrel affect group size? We are taking a lightly coated patch when I did it after cleaning.
Needless to say I wont be making that mistake again. I've given the rifle a cleaning tonight and checked screws etc, all good. This has now made me question my whole load dev process. Ill be out tomorrow to try and correct things, hurry up daylight!
Butchs bore shine. I've been using that to clean my new barrel during the break in process and load dev, says it removes everything from the barrel. No reason to think it hasn't, Ive followed the instructions to the letter.
Thanks J