I've noticed that most folks talk about how their guns group at 100 yards. Its a good indicator but not an end all beat all.

I have a wildcat 22 that I don't get to shoot enough and have been firing the 75 grain A-maxes.

I have a heavy Krieger,squared up action, good bedding ,etc.

This load and bullet will yield say half inch at 100. Kinda bothered me when I first started shooting the gun because my friends would one hole @ 100.

However The group doesn't really expand much at 300 which at that point I consider it plenty accurate for my purposes.

I attribute this to bullet stabilization. Barrel is a 1in8. saying it takes 100 yards or more to stabilize.

I admit I need to do more load work, I was wondering if others have had similar results?

Mike

Hello Mike,

Many subscribe to a "corkscrew" bullet flight path theory when long bullets are fired in fast-twist barrels, that after a couple hundred yards the bullets "go to sleep" or settle down, and shoot better at longer ranges. We had a heated debate on this theory several months ago.

I think that theory is poppycock, but I am not right all the time. I hope to do my own experiment on this theory someday to find out to my own satisfaction if this is indeed the case. I do know that a well respected long range target shooter agrees with my position, and states so in an interview re-printed in the book "Precision Shooting at 1000 Yards". I can check out the book, get the page number, and the exact quote if anyone is interested.

Regards, Bill

I'll take the other viewpoint since Bill M and I had the same disagreement several months ago.

My fast twist 22-250 Ack Imp. does exhibit exactly the same thing that you indicate your rifle shows but some other people say that their fast twist 22's behave normally.
Not sure exactly what to call the situation, but my rifle will definitely shoot the same size groups at 100, 200, & 300 yards. Time after time after time it has done exactly that shooting both from a bench and prone from a berm. My fast twist 6.5mm barrel does not seem to exhibit that same thing, so I can't say if it is something specific to the 22 caliber bullets or not. It might have something to do with the rotational velocity because nobody I have talked to sees the same thing in the 222 or 223 calibers even with the fast twist barrels and heavy bullets. In fact, if it were some sort of rotational issue I would expect the light bullets at higher velocity to be the problem bullets.
Since it doesn't open the group to larger than 1" at 100 yards, I don't worry much any more except to be aware that load development at 100 yards is a waste of time for longer distance shooting. My normal distance is to do initial testing at 300 yards and fine tuning at 500 or 600 yards.

In order to even know that such a situation might be happening you would have to have a rifle capable of shooting 1/3 moa groups at 300 yards consistently. Anything bigger and the potential would be lost in the general group inaccuracies. Not sure how to explain it any better than that. Hmmm, maybe this is just confusing but I will try.
A rifle would potentially be shooting 1 moa groups at 100 yards, 1/2 moa at 200 yards, and 1/3 moa at 300 yards, but only if the rifle has the potential to shoot 1/3 moa groups.
If a rifle only has 1 moa potential, this is what you might see; 1.3 moa(1.3" groups) at 100 yards, 1.15 moa(2.3" groups) at 200 yards, 1 moa(3" groups) at 300 yards.
You can see where any particular bullet situation is lost in the overall picture of load variations, wind drift, shooter error, etc, unless the rifle in question shoots way better than most rifle/load/shooter combinations are capable of shooting consistently. The conditions must be perfect to even be able to attempt the 300 yard accuracy portion. Even a slight breeze throws off the results because of the wind.

The last time at was at the range, I shot mainly distances of 300 and 400 yards. The load I have is accurate, however , i would like to try some other bullets. I have some 80 grain berger vlds I'm itching to try. It will make for some good comparisons when done.

As always interested to hear others having some of the same results. This is where the fun stuff is!

good shooting
Mike

I have a Win. M70 FTWT with a 1 in 14 twist. With 50gr. V Max bullets and a near max load of IMR 4895 it costistently groups 1 inch at 100 yards AND 200 yards. I was not pleased during load development that this was the best load I could come up with at 100 yards but was pleased and still confused at the 200 yard groups.

I know this is not a slow twist .22 and I havn't shot it seriously at over 200 yards to see what will happen to the groups but....

I do not know if this applies to you gentleman or not. Two riflesmiths and a couple of benchrest shooters have told me to never ditch a load without trying it at 200 yds if you are using a scope without an Adjustable Objective (AO)to adjust parallex (sp?). They claim most scopes without AO are parallex free at 175-225 yds and it is easier to shoot at that distance.

Saludos..Frank

Good point, Gringo. Parallax error could indeed contribute to the group sizes at the various distances....

Great point Gringo, this was the exact same thing I was told to be the most likely cause for the tighter groups at longer range when I asked about it over at Benchrest Central. The scope I was using on the rifle at the time (and the one that is back on it) was a 4x12 VX I. The only AO scope I had to try was a Simmons 4x12x44, the groups were the same with both scopes.

Could be that a different AO scope or taking a little more time to fine tune the AO on this scope would have shown different results but I basicly give up on trying to solve the mystery when I remembered that I bought the rifle for yotes and groundhogs and had worked up a load that was plenty good enough for both

BTW, I just started working on a load with H-380 and Sierra MK's for the rifle that shoot between .5 and .7 at 100 yards but havn't tried them any further yet. Would be GREAT if they shot the same at 200

You will need to verify this with someone else. But if you will set the cross hair on the target, then move you head back and forth on the stock and the cross hair moves with moving the rifle the parallax is bad?? The point being your head will have to be same exact spot each shot to shoot a tiny group. I am not a benchrest shooter or a long range P. Dogger, so I do not have to have the level of accuracy those guys do.

In fact I more concerned with first shoot accuracy from a cold barrel. Once I have a load I am pleased with, I will shoot a 5 shoot group over peroid of two to three weeks, each shot from a cold barrel on different days. If it comes in under 1-1/2", I am good to go. The hard part in not messying with it afterwards.

My rifles and reloading equipment come out of storage Thanksgiving weekend. The first thing I am going to do is open a can of 4831 and enjoy the aroma.

Saludos...Frank