I always see the phrase "inherently accurate" cartridge thrown about. Just today I read one of our more knowledgable posters comment that current load data might possibly not be updated on "in-accurate" or dying cartridge disigns.

I am of the belief that IF all other things are equal, it is the barrel and the bullet's construction themselves that make a accurate rifle and not the case design. I can see a too big of bullet and not enough powder scenario or a goofy wildcat design but in general I can't think of a single commercially produced or accepted wildcat cartrige that could be considered in-accurate by design.
I haven't seen them all though.

So what cartridges would be considered "inherently in-accurate" by design.
(not talking cartridges in in-accurate rifles)
This could be interesting.

Rae, I will offer you the 22 Hornet as one cartridge that was never touted as being supremely accurate. It was accurate enough to meet the requirements of its original design: dispatching vermin at reasonably short ranges in populated areas.

Mr. Lyle Kilbourn (sp?) re-designed the case to his "K" configuration, and accuracy increased significantly with no other modifications...

I think you have to give the original chamber design equal billing Moust rounds can be hand loaded to be accurate if the barrel is good and chamber chamber is a good design.

There are some that put run of the mill ammo into a poor chamber and they include
6.5X50 Arisaka. .22 WMR, .303 British, many handgun rounds, the .577 Snider, 38-55

Many of the early paper patched rounds cannot be fired with todays loading techniques due to chamber to bore mis-matches. One of these thast worked with was a .40-70 -2.6 Sharps Straight in a Remington Hepburn single shot. It needed a .410 bullet. The largest that would fit using 9.3X74R RWS brass was .402.

Very long shoulder designs can be "inherently" in-accurate but most shoot great

.22 Hornet
30-30
.300 H&H and .375 H&H

But as I said this is theory on long shoulders

These 4 I have listed above have proven to be great rounds

There are more "inherently in-accurate" rifles then cartridges.

Just a couple days ago I was browsing through the old Ackley handbook and he stated that the 8mm Mauser had a reputation for being inaccurate and that the cause was more due to sloppy chambers and the way older rifles were made than the cartridge itself. He went on to explain that it is actualy an excellent Big game round in a well made rifle. I believe the same applies to a lot of older cartridges. Likewise it isnt nearly as common to hear about rifle blow ups and such today because standards of manufacturing are much better in terms of tollerances and overall design.

A 30-30 doesnt exactly have a reputation for accuracy. But in a modern bolt action it is capable of printing much better groups than a sloppy 100 year old lever gun.

Perhaps the question could be rephrased to; "Which cartridges were fitted in inherently inaccurate chambers?" There is a modern single shot bolt 22 hornet varminter that is supposed to shoot bug-hole groups. My older hornet with it's oversize chamber takes particular hand loads to achieve accuracy but accurate it is. Very accurate. The 303 Brit is suggested as one with terrible chambers. Some have great chambers and shoot scary accurate, some need custom bullets to shoot accurately. To me it's the cartridge/chamber combo that is the issue. It's been argued that the 308 is inherently accurate while the 30-06 is not. I can't see the 8mm Mauser as being an inaccurate design in any way.

They say the barrel is the heart of the rifle. Some of the old ballard rifled barrels had the rifling cut with hand tools. A far cry from todays button rifled, air gaged barrel making processes..

9 times out of 10 inaccuracy isnt the cartridges fault.

The 22 hornet is sensitive to variations in powder loading. It is the 30/30 rifles that are
inaccurate in a bolt action they shoot very well.

I never had one but the old .225Win didn't last too long.

quote:

9 times out of 10 inaccuracy isnt the cartridges fault.

I think that is a more accurate evaluation pof the situation.

It wasn't that the 225 was inaccurate. It was designed to replace the Swift and it was close, but no cigar. It was chambered in the "new" (post 64) M70 which went over like a fart in church with gunwriters and most potential buyers, and Remington adopted the 22-250 in '65. The rest is history, along with the 225. A pretty good example of a poor marketing strategy.

For me the only cartridge that gave me trouble from day one till the day I gave it away, was the 243 WSSM. Don't get me wrong it was hunting accurate for sure, just not close to its real potential for whatever reason.

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
It wasn't that the 225 was inaccurate. It was designed to replace the Swift and it was close, but no cigar. It was chambered in the "new" (post 64) M70 which went over like a fart in church with gunwriters and most potential buyers, and Remington adopted the 22-250 in '65. The rest is history, along with the 225. A pretty good example of a poor marketing strategy.

+1, I've seen some extremely accurate 225's but it couldn't compete with the 22-250 which already had an excellent reputation and was available in what most thought a better looking inherently more accurate rifle. Most of those old Walker generation Remington 700VS's shot very well. At the time you were almost guaranteed to get a rifle that shot 1/2"-3/4" if you bought one. I had two of them, both in 22-250.

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The 303 Brit is suggested as one with terrible chambers. Some have great chambers and shoot scary accurate,

This has always had me curious.... enough so I just ordered a .303 reamer with specs that match current brass. I already had a nice .311 dia barrel and a SMLE action, so the project is a go when the reamer arrives!

6.5 in the carcano!

quote:

Originally posted by POP:
6.5 in the carcano!

The 6.5 Carcano is very interesting.

First the groove diameters are about .2675 to .269 - that is oversize for the .264 bullets available.

Second some of the carbines were made from rifles. The rifles originally had gain twists so the carbines in question had the too slow part of the twist left when the barrels were cut off.

The rifling is also deeper than normal. When a proper size bullet of .267 is used hand loaders experience a lot of blown primers while trying to find a suitable load.

quote:

Originally posted by theback40:

quote:

The 303 Brit is suggested as one with terrible chambers. Some have great chambers and shoot scary accurate,

This has always had me curious.... enough so I just ordered a .303 reamer with specs that match current brass. I already had a nice .311 dia barrel and a SMLE action, so the project is a go when the reamer arrives!

You will probably find the rifle boringly accurate with a real .311 bore and a tight chamber.
Lee-Enfield groove diameters often go as large as .317 yet the chambers do not allow a bullet lager than .315 to be chambered.

I can't think of a single cartridge that is inherently inaccurate but some like the 25 ACP have less-than-ideal quality control in the making of their bullets. Since the platform doesn't ask for accuracy, the bullet makers don't waste extra money for more than is asked for. So I'd put the 25 and 32 ACP cartridges on the list. Would have included the 380 Auto ten years ago but the pistols have stepped up and so have the ammo makers.

The further you get back the more cartridge inaccuracy becomes apparent.

However 99.999% of cartridges out there will shoot inside 99.9999% of shooters because the major source of inaccuracy is the shooter.

In my opinion, the next major source of inaccuracy is the bullet, then primer/case/propellant but I don’t know how to sort those.

This is assuming you are not shooting a lever action or some other springy as heck action.

Inherent cartridge inaccuracy is in the noise level, but there are shooters out there who hold and shoot in the side lobes.

I was pulling for two of them this weekend at a 600 yard match. The two shooters were shooting a 6mm PPC F Class rifle. The X ring is about 3 inches and they blew out spindles, showering me with plastic shrapnel, made holes in the spotter, and put so many bullets in the X ring that it was totally covered up with pasters. The two shooters are also superb shots and wind readers.

If they had competed with a 30-30 Winchester they still could have out shot 99.999% of the shooting community.

Concentrate on your shooting skills. You cannot compensate for poor shooting skills with “inherently accurate “ cartridges and esoteric reloading techniques.

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
It wasn't that the 225 was inaccurate. It was designed to replace the Swift and it was close, but no cigar. It was chambered in the "new" (post 64) M70 which went over like a fart in church with gunwriters and most potential buyers, and Remington adopted the 22-250 in '65. The rest is history, along with the 225. A pretty good example of a poor marketing strategy.

Mr. Craigster is spot on with his evaluation of the 225 Win. My father's and a family friends rifles shoots like crazy. If ever a cartridge was introduced at the wrong time it was the 225 Win.

I find that many of the Military cartridges suffer from poor accuracy because of Chamber, throat, leade, and barrel specs/designs.... Worn out guns.... Not to mention bad reputations founded upon the use of old, inconsistent ammo...

It absolutely makes sense to give a soldier a rifle that won't explode if he stuffs some snow or mud in the muzzle, and won't blow to pieces after hours and hours of firing and junk buildup in the chamber and action.....

I think couple prime examples are the 7.62x54R and 7.62x39 cartridges....

People ALWAYS talk about how inaccurate the 7.62x39 is... but they are generally shooting cheap inconsistent ammo in a clapped out, inaccurate rifle built to withstand Combat usage...

I think as others here have mentioned... Use a properly designed chamber on a high quality, tight barrel and properly loaded handloads - and it will do just fine...

Thanks

I thought the problem with the 225 Winchester was inconsistent zero's, not inaccuracy. You would zero your rifle one weekend, go back to the range the next weekend and it wouldn't shoot to the same place by several inches. Sights, scope mountings etc were repeatedly checked and found to be tight, but you just couldn't count on hitting anything due to the wandering zero.

I think there is definitely something in the term inherently accurate cartridge. Have a look through a reloading manual, especially those that have indications beside the different loads for each cartridge (Lyman and some others) that tell us that this particular combination showed up as giving the best accuracy.

Now if it just came down to bullet and barrel for best accuracy, then powder type and primer brand should have no effect on accuracy, which of course we all know is just not correct.

Some cartridges through a mix of case design, calibre, powder and primer seemingly perform extremely well in the accuracy department and are also not usually particularly finnicky with other bullets, powders and primers too.

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:
I think there is definitely something in the term inherently accurate cartridge. Have a look through a reloading manual, especially those that have indications beside the different loads for each cartridge (Lyman and some others) that tell us that this particular combination showed up as giving the best accuracy.

Now if it just came down to bullet and barrel for best accuracy, then powder type and primer brand should have no effect on accuracy, which of course we all know is just not correct.

Some cartridges through a mix of case design, calibre, powder and primer seemingly perform extremely well in the accuracy department and are also not usually particularly finnicky with other bullets, powders and primers too.

I've looked at all that too and I think there might be some "slight" truth to it. For example, I don't think many (key word:"many") would argue the fact that a .222 Rem. would generally be much more accurate than a 458 Lott for obvious reasons. But then again I said all other things being equal. So if both were fired from rifles weighing 100 pounds having identical scopes, super bull barrels and let's say using Sierra bullets would it still be true?????
My findings quite often don't jive with book accuracy loads either. Again, it depends on the barrel/bullet combo IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by CMcDermott:
I thought the problem with the 225 Winchester was inconsistent zero's, not inaccuracy. You would zero your rifle one weekend, go back to the range the next weekend and it wouldn't shoot to the same place by several inches. Sights, scope mountings etc were repeatedly checked and found to be tight, but you just couldn't count on hitting anything due to the wandering zero.

I would think the wandering zero would be related more to stock fit and bedding.

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Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by POP:
6.5 in the carcano!

The 6.5 Carcano is very interesting.

First the groove diameters are about .2675 to .269 - that is oversize for the .264 bullets available.

Second some of the carbines were made from rifles. The rifles originally had gain twists so the carbines in question had the too slow part of the twist left when the barrels were cut off.

The rifling is also deeper than normal. When a proper size bullet of .267 is used hand loaders experience a lot of blown primers while trying to find a suitable load.

the two Carcano carbines I used shot military and home grown loads better than 3" at 100 yds. with open sights ( short sight radius). One I rechambered to 6.5 x 55 single shot,because I wanted to, and it fired commercial and hand loads with not one blown primer.Each accounted for a number of mule deer.

The "cartridge" was not inherently inaccurate. roger

Having owned a post 64 M 70 in 225, I can say it took some work. The QC on the stock was terrible. You could throw a cat into the right side of the barrel channel, the left side was tight against the wood. The action was so badly inletted that, with the action screws out, you could move it side to side and front to back, Finally the grain in the stock ran in a curve from left to right, from the PG to the fore end tip. Could have just canned it, but it had great feather crotch in the butt on both sides. So what to do ? Stripped the plastic finish off the stock and put it in the frame steamer I used for wood boats (frames are what many call ribs). Got the fore end "floppy" and put it in a home made jig to make the fore end straight. Once dried a 1/2" hole was linebored from the tip to the recoil jug. (Later hidden by an Ebony fore end tip) and 1 1/2" threaded rod slobbered up with WEST epoxy was driven in. Then the action and barrel were glass bedded using the Whelen method. The barrel was slugged, revealing no tight or loose spots. The trigger was worked down to 2.5 pounds, a 10 Unertl Vulture was mounted and the checkering recut. Winchester red stain and Linspeed finished the job.
Test loads were taken from the Sierra book and the rifle was very accurate .... 10 in a dime was a bad group. Yes ! a lot of work to produce a rifle in an orphan cartridge that was balistically inferior to the 22-250. But it was probably the best looking push feed Model 70 ever. It also helped pass a long nasty upstate NY winter. Eventually it and some money got me a very rare R.F. Sedgley short action Springfield in 22 Hornet. While not as accurate or long ranged, the Hornet, with today's super bullets and new powders is a sub MOA rifle.

Not sure I'd take a project like that on again but it proved the 225 was an accurate cartridge.

Sure you did Larry, sure you did.

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Originally posted by bartsche:

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Originally posted by POP:
6.5 in the carcano!

The 6.5 Carcano is very interesting.

First the groove diameters are about .2675 to .269 - that is oversize for the .264 bullets available.

Second some of the carbines were made from rifles. The rifles originally had gain twists so the carbines in question had the too slow part of the twist left when the barrels were cut off.

The rifling is also deeper than normal. When a proper size bullet of .267 is used hand loaders experience a lot of blown primers while trying to find a suitable load.

the two Carcano carbines I used shot military and home grown loads better than 3" at 100 yds. with open sights ( short sight radius). One I rechambered to 6.5 x 55 single shot,because I wanted to, and it fired commercial and hand loads with not one blown primer.Each accounted for a number of mule deer.

The "cartridge" was not inherently inaccurate. roger

Bartsche,
Did you ever use .267 or .268 bullets in the 6.5X55 version? I would not expect primers to blow with the standard .264 bullet.
I have tried the Hornady .268 bullet with 4064 in one of my rifles and the primers were real close to blowing with the starting loads.
You probably know the Carcano sights. I cannot use them well enough to comment on accuracy with a carbine. Damn I hate old eyes.
My Carcano collection is all bubba rifles so I need to mount a scope on the most accurate one of them and find out how it shoots for real.
Of course that will make it a single shot but who cares?

Oops sorry, I forgot to post some pics of the Hornet. An example of amazing gunsmithing from the 1930s. Only 3 Sedgley short action Springfields are known to exist. 2 Hornets, one 257 Bob. The work involved in shortening the action, bolt, bolt guts, bottom metal and then building a non staggered magazine within a magazine for a rimmed cartridge. The bolt face also required major mods including an added lower extractor to pick up the rimmed cartridge. These were NOT modified 22 rimfire rifles, they started out as full sized 30-06s. Sorry the bottom of the trigger guard is blurred. That solid gold circle is an exact copy of a 22 Hornet case head. The "inventors" of the Hornet are commemorated on the floorplate with a gold inlay. Scope is a Lyman Alaskan with a Litschert's 6x converter in a G&H mount.


C

I thought that rifle belonged to 45-70 shooter. Or was it interthem, old man 1942, or maybe boss lady?

Shotgun carts by design
Inaccuracy is usually a combination of a few factors but mostly triggers with lose nut attached to it.

quote:

Originally posted by POP:
6.5 in the carcano!

I know of one former President who would disagree with you

Competition benchrest rifle shooters fuss about those designs considered "most" accurate, favoring the 22 PPC, 6mm PPC, 22 BR, 6 mm BR, etc. Long-range competition rifle shooters like the 6.5 x 284, 308, 30-338, 300 WM, 338 Lapua, etc. - believeing they are the inherently most accurate designs.

Given that everything else is equal (e.g., barrel quality), it just seems easier to get some designs to shoot tighter groups, and the other designs fall (by default) into the "inherently inaccurate" group - or maybe better stated as "less inherently accurate" category. The latter are less commonly used in competition, although they make suitable hunting cartridges.

I've fussed with many different calibers, and I believe there is something to this - but, the shooter is most important part of the equation. AIU