Originally Posted by
tazman
I haven't accomplished anything yet. I have had some days with very little if any, wind and have been trying to improve my groups.
Right now, I am having some issues that I can't figure out. My groups are larger than the ones I shot last fall and early this spring using the same ammunition.
I can see any movement in the scope and there isn't enough there to move the bullet out of the circle but it is still happening. I am getting 4-6 shots right on the dot in the center and the next may be cutting the outside of the ring.
All the shots feel the same to me.
I am capable of holding better than half MOA with my centerfire rifles. Why won't this match rifle do even 1 MOA consistently?
This rifle costs more than my centerfires and the ammunition cost just as much or more in some cases. It is the best setup I can afford and it just doesn't shoot consistently.
Maybe I am missing something. I assume that the same handling and shooting techniques that I use for my centerfire rifles will work for rimfire as well. Is this not true?
I participated in that competition again yesterday. I watched the big boys get set up for their unlimited shoot.
Lots of wind flags and speed indicators. They set them up on tripods in line with their targets and just under the line of flight of the bullets. Easy to see and very sensitive to any air movement. Usually 5-6 of them beginning about 25 feet in front of the bench with the last one maybe 10 yards from the target.
The range gets colorful when the unlimiteds are shooting. Lots of variations in style of the flags but they all give the same information.
The rests for the rifles are really something. All of them had a spring loaded connection to pull the rifle back to the same position on the rest after any recoil. All were fully adjustable for level and both vertical and horizontal alignment.
Most shooters used the thumb and finger squeeze to fire the rifle. Some were discussing their trigger weight before the shoot began where I could listen. Trigger weights were in the 8-16 ounce range with most going as low as they could set it without the rifle firing when the bolt closed.
I couldn't tell by watching from behind, if they had their shoulders in contact with the butt of the rifle or not. Bad angle for observing that.
Many of them didn't have their cheek in contact with the rifle when looking through the scope for aiming. They were able to look through the scope without a cheek weld either by cocking their head or using higher rings.
All of them had tuners of some sort on the barrel. No single brand dominated. Lots of different brands.
Nearly all shooters were using either Eley match(black box) or Lapua(either Center X or Midas+).
They would use levels when stapling their targets to the backstop so when they moved from one target dot to the next, it was all just a horizontal movement.
They shoot 4 target sheets of 25 rounds each for score, plus sighters(which don't count) and do an aggregate for the total. Call it at least two and a half boxes of ammunition minimum, for a shoot.
It takes them about 2 hours to do the entire shoot, give or take.
There were several different brands of rifles there. Some were custom built. I didn't get close enough to see the scopes.
I couldn't find a good position to observe from after they began shooting so I left.