If you came here looking how to go from 1/3MOA to 1/10MOA, look elsewhere. The intended audience is those trying to get a typical bolt action centerfire rifle to shoot up to its potential.
So, you've bought a fine deer or varmint rifle, a well-known and well-reputed brand. You got a brand-name scope and mounts, a box or two of quality, factory ammunition, and you head to the range. You're ready to get those 1 inch groups that the magazines always are writing about.
Well, after a little embarassing game of "Where'd it go?", you're on the target and you settle down for a five shot group. You can hardly wait to get downrange and take a look at it. You get there... there are holes all over the paper. One shot took out a corner staple. Two are close together, but nowhere near the center of the group. What went wrong? Take the rifle back to the shop?
Here's a bunch of things you can go through and see if any address the problem. Addressing some of them involves spending money. I can't change that. I can try to help you spend it only when necessary.
Let's face it, there's a lot of ego tied up in an expensive rifle purchase. We are moving up from .22's and 30-30's and borrowed rifles to the real thing. We don't want to admit the thing doesn't work up to expectations. This new purchase should greatly extend our ability to take deer-sized game at long range. It gives us entre' into the worlds of Elk and Bear hunting and sets us apart from the once-a-year crowd and their pump shotguns and Winchester '94's.
I've seen guys who thought they fired over a hundred rounds, but still have ammo left over in the original two boxes they got with the rifle. I've seen sub-groups picked out from patterns and the rest blamed on wind, flinching, anything. I've heard guys claiming consistant one inch groups and never, ever producing them at the range. And, I spend a lot of time at the range.
The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
How did we end up with such high epectations? Well, some of them are justified. A well tuned, high power rifle in the hands of a master is an awesome thing. If you can see it, you can kill it. An amazing thing but true. True once a few things are sorted out. Somebody has done it. Let's look at the seeming masters of instant accuracy- The Gun Writer.
Those gun magazine writers always seem to have one inch groups. How?
First of all, they put a good, well-trusted scope on top. They mount it carefully so that the bore center and scope center are closely aligned.
Then they try more ammo then they report. Even wonder why they report a different set of ammo brands and types each time?
If they fail to get decent five shot groups, they will drop to 3 shot groups. If this isn't working they'll keep shooting 3 shot groups until they get a few good ones by random chance. If the 3 shot groups come out over 1", they'll say it was a windy day and they didn't have time to try more than one or two kinds of ammo. They may even shoot offhand and say they didn't have time at all for a proper test.
Why do they go to all this trouble? Because they are completely dependent on their advertisers for not just advertising revenue, but free hunts, trips, and free sample gear to review.
Feel better now? A little, you say, but you still want those one inch groups? OK, read on.
The man machine interface is defined by the rest, the stock, the trigger, and the sights. Let's look at each of these.
Your bench rest must be stable. If you see any movement in the crosshairs at all, you won't get tight groups. If you see the sights bobbing and you fire as they cross the bullseye, or compensate for movement just as you shoot, you will double the size of your groups. Use sandbags, boxes, coats, no pillows or really soft stuff. If you can shoot off an expert's bench rest for a group, or better yet, have him shoot your rifle for a group, it will help isolate the man versus machine question. Dry fire a few times to see that you are staying on target and not pulling off by the force of your trigger finger.
A deer rifle must recoil freely. The sling studs should not snag on the rest or bags. Only the forearm rests on the bags or front rest. The barrel must rest on nothing and nothing on it.
The rifle should rest on the same places, in the same position each shot. This is a little hard to do with rifles that recoil clear off the rests on each shot. Take your time to get it right back where it was.
You need to hold the grip with the same amount of tension each time. Don't hold it with a death grip. If it is more than a .223, you need to shoulder it firmly but not at all hard. The forearm can be left to lie on the rest, or held with an open hand.
Of course, we are all too manly to flinch. We can prove it, too. Have a friend load the rifle 5 times while you look away, for 7 shots that you try to take. Those odd two times the crosshairs stay dead-on the bullseye when we hear the click... right?
A flinch is a learned, involuntary response to pain. Recoil happens so fast sometimes we don't ever realize we are in pain. A few shots later we realize some body part is numb. How did that happen?
I have a particular problem with cheek pieces. The only one that works for me is one I had custom made. The rest go in front of my cheek and are ready to knock me for a loop should I shoot like that.
If I should stretch my neck and put my cheek where it belongs, I take all the slack out of my body. There is nothing left to absorb recoil and the result is pain. Stretching to see through a scope creates the same problem.
A too-short stock can induce scope-eye, that bloody crescent-shaped Mark of the Magnum. Fingers can get banged by the trigger guard, thumbs by the stock or cheek. Lack of a soft rubber buttpad leads to shoulder bruising. Holding a high power rifle lightly is a sure cause of pain. It hits you instead of shoves you. Shoulder it firmly, but not very hard.
Get your position sorted out, and if necessary, your stock shape and length. Factory wood stocks are typically cut long. If you were not, have it cut to fit, and the pad refitted.
It only takes two shots to induce a flinch. Your sub-brain is not stupid. It sees pain coming. Fix your stock, your position, or give up on that piece for the day until you can get it sorted out. There are soft butt pads, stock shortening, stock lengthening, and wearable recoil pads. Figure out what works for you.
Technically, a creepy trigger does not detract from your rifle's accuracy potential. It does detract from your accuracy potential, though. If you have to pull, pull, pull, and the rifle goes off somewhere along the way, while all that time passes you are much more likely to breathe, pull the rifle off target, get crapped on by passing birds, whatever. Get it to a gunsmith and get it cleaned up.
A stiff trigger does detract from the rifle's full accuracy potential. If it is over 5 or 6 pounds of pull, it is physically difficult to keep from stringing the group towards the trigger hand side. Again, get it to a gunsmith for a trigger job.
You'll have to take a few classes and get some solid practice to get 1 inch groups at 100 yards with open sights. It can be done, but it is not trivial. We'll leave that topic for another day, and assume you are using a scope.
A good scope does not increase the accuracy of a rifle. It only allows us to better exploit what accuracy is there. A bad scope does increase the inaccuracy of a rifle.
If you payed less than $200 for your scope, it is time for you to read the Cheap Scope Page. Brace yourself.
If you have spun the scope knob multiple times, you need adustable mounts. Read The Scope Mount Page.
If you have a clamp-on, no-gunsmith type mount, return it immediately and try to get your money back. For the cost of the cursed thing you could have had a real mount installed by a gunsmith. Read the Scope Mount Page. A set of Weaver brand mounts cost only $9, the rings cost as much as you want to pay for them, say $15, and the gunsmithing only $30-$75 depending on your receiver type. So, that useless $50 no-gunsmith mount costs the same as getting it done right, plus gives you the privilege of wasting all that ammunition!
Once the human to machine interfaces are sorted out, we are prepared to test the true accuracy of the rifle. We can think of the inherit accuracy of a rifle system as being of function of the barrel, the bedding, and the bullets.
The crown absolutely must be in good shape. Read more about the crown here.
The throat must not be burnt out or clogged with fouling, or damaged by overzealous cleaning. Read more about the throat here.
The rifling must be strong and crisp. If it is not shiny, it will be a pain to clean, but may still produce decent accuracy.
Headspace is a safety issue, not an accuracy issue. Older rifles suffering from excessive headspace often have other problems, though. If you take an old-timer or well-used rifle in for service, have the headspace checked at the same time. The cost is usually $10-20 but if you are having other work done, it is often thrown in.
The barreled action must settle into the stock the same way after every shot. If there is the slightest bit of shifting during recoil, it will affect the point of impact on the next shot. This is especially true if the barrel contacts the forearm of the stock anywhere.
The usual cure is not expensive, maybe $20. It involves a Glass Bedding Job and free-floating the barrel. Free-floating just means removing enough wood for a sheet of paper to slip through between it and the barrel. If done properly it looks like the barrel is still resting in the wood. Of course, if the fit is this close, the slightest shift will bring the barrel to bear against the wood again. So, you have to secure, or bed the action in a bed of fiberglass reinforced epoxy resin. Read on how to choose and use an epoxy bedding compound.
Using factory ammo? Winchester and Remington are great American brand names, and besides, you're paying fifty cents to a buck a shot, right?
Winchester's standard brand of hunting ammo is the Super-X. Their economy line of paramilitary/practice ammo is USA. Remington's standard hunting ammo is their Green Box Core-Lokt. Their economy brand is UMC. I've shot a good deal of both in several calibers.
I can guarantee two things about either. It will always, always go bang. That's some comfort. And second, in my rifles anyway, it will always spray a 4 to 6 inch pattern at 100 yards. Some of the worst spraying I've ever seen was Remington Core-Lokt's from a Remington 700 and Winchester Super-X from a Winchester Model 70. Funny, huh? You'd think they would try to make this stuff work together. You may have better luck with it.
Why is some factory ammo so bad? Well, lots of reasons. Primarily it is the bullets. Super X Power Points and Core-Lokt's are designed primarily for terminal effect, that is, to mushroom upon expansion. There is some attention to giving it a ballistically efficient shape and size, but beyond that, it is cost, cost, cost controls.
A bullet can be adequately accurate using standard copper sheet (actually guilding metal) and punch presses. To get the kind of thickness consistancy and concentricity required for consistant high accuracy, a much higher grade of copper must be used. Olin Corporation (parent of Winchester ammunition company) developed a grade of copper sheet called J4 for Sierra, that is also used by other top bullet makers, including Nosler and Berger. It is extremely uniform in thickness and is the basis of the most accurate bullets.
If you pay for the $30 box of premium ammo, and stay away from the Partition or A-Frame stuff, suddenly things get a lot better. Hornady V-Max and Nosler Ballistic Tips in particular shoot well. There's nothing wrong with the super-tough premium bullets, but they are made strong for close-in encounters with large angry animals, not for accuracy. It sure hurts to pay a buck fifty per shot, though, doesn't it?
Of all the non-premium brands I've tried, only Federal Premium and Hornady Custom have ever grouped under one inch, and give handloads a run for the money. Curiously a box costs a buck or two more than the equivalent Remchester stuff. Worth every penny, IMHO. If you want to just see what she'll do, Federal Gold Medal Match (the Match part is real important) ammo is the accuracy standard of the industry. However, the bullets have terrible terminal characteristics, which is another way of saying, there's no guarantee they'll expand in a deer. They were made for punching paper.
Sometimes, luck is on your side and a cheaper brand will group well. Quick, run to the ATM, get back to that store, and buy all they have of that exact batch off the shelf. The next batch may not work so well.
Trying different kinds of ammo until you find a grouper sounds like a great idea, until you are faced with the cost. 5 boxes of ammo, 20 measly shots each, can run near $100 in a major caliber. Chances are only one or two of them will group well. Suddenly shooting the old .22 rimfire looks attractive again. Trading ammo with a friend with the same caliber rifle is helpful. Chances are he has 3 boxes of stuff that didn't group well, too.
Your accuracy potential is ultimately limited by your action type. Modern Remington, Winchester, Browning and Savage bolt actions all have sufficient potential to get you under an inch.
Military bolt actions are generally saddled with slow lock times compared to the commercial actions, roughly double the time. Like the creepy trigger, this just gives more time for something to go wrong. The receivers also have non-ideal shapes for consistant bedding. A good Glass Bedding job can work wonders here. The triggers are creepy and should be either cleaned-up or replaced.
Standard military rifle barrels have very long throats to keep pressures moderate. The longer the throat the more difficult it is to find an accurate load. It is a matter of concentricity. If the bullet has plenty of time and travel to get cocked before engaging the rifling, it will obturate (seal) crooked and then wobble througout its flight.
Break-open and falling block actions are highly variable in accuracy peformance and very susceptible to bedding problems. Resting the foreend on anything causes verticle stringing, and the slightest bit of looseness in the buttstock as well. These single shots are also sensitve to lock-tension. When the book says full-length size the cases, they don't just mean it because of lack of extraction leverage. Forcing the action closed on a tight cartridge changes the position and tension of the barrel. Steel might seem quite immovable to you, but it is very springy and is subject to different vibration frequencies depending on how it is tensioned. The barrel muzzle (end) vibrates when fired, and if it is in a different position on each shot's bullet exit, greater dispersion (inaccuracy) will result.
Lever actions suffer from the same two-piece stock bedding problems as the single shots mentioned above. In addition they have an attached magazine tube to influence the barrel, and springy rear-locking bolts with a single assymetric lock point. All this adds up to very low chances of finding a very accurate load. Read the Oregon Trail Bullets Page to find out what accuracy is possible. You'll see there are very narrow windows of performance where fine accuracy is attained.
Buy a pack of a grid-type sighting-in targets, and bring some binoculars. Start with the target a 50 instead of 100 yards. Fire groups of three of each load. As long as you stay on paper, DO NOT move the scope yet. All that will do is add to the size of that group and the next. You'll save a lot of ammo this way, versus moving the crosshairs after each shot or each group. Trust me on this. Or, find out the hard way.
Once you've tried each load at 50, determine which one(s) you like. Adjust the scope for it to be centered (the other ammo's groups may be centered elsewhere; this is normal). Once you can shoot a 3 shot group dead-center (or very close) at 50, go for the record with 5 at 100.
Do not shoot any groups at 100 with ammo you haven't tried and centered 3 in a row at 50. It may sound like wasting a lot of ammo, but doing this will save a lot of ammo versus playing Where'd it go? and Chase the Reticle at 100.
If you are not shooting a commercial bolt action, you have to resolve yourself to either spending a lot of time and money improving the rifle and/or ammo, or accept the fact that one inch accuracy is more than necessary to get the job done.
Once the rifle is sorted out with good bedding, a clean-breaking trigger, firm mounts, quality scope, and a crisp crown, small groups are a matter of finding agreeable ammunition and practicing. If you learn to reload, you will greatly expand the number of loads you can try for a given outlay of money. For example, you could buy 10 premium .30-06 or 7mmRemMag boxes of ammo for about $250. That allows you to try 100 shots of 10 different bullet configurations.
Or, you could buy 3 different pounds powder, 3 kinds of primers and 10 boxes of premium bullets for the same price. This allows you to try 10 different bullets in 90 different combinations. Varying the amount of powder and bullet seating depth gives you about a gazillion possible combinations to try. You get between 500 and 1000 shots out of the $250 instead of the 100. This assumes you invest about $400 in reloading equipment (or $100 if you get the cheap Lee equipment).
You won't save any money reloading. You will shot a LOT more for your outlay. You will also find a lot of accurate loads. The cost payoff is when you settle on a particular bullet. You'll get 50 or 100 more shots for $22 a box instead of 20. Another payoff is if you shoot two rifles of the same bore size, say .308Win and .300WinMag. Any bullets that don't group well in one can be tried in the other.
If you just don't shoot that much, buying premium ammo one box at a time until you find a good load might be the ticket.
Ken.
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