I am getting ready for my first long-range shoot the end of this month. I have worked up a load in my 300 WSM that I like using Sierra Match Kings.

Again, I am new to the whole Long-range concept with most of my hunting limited to under 300 yards due to my confidence in my shooting ability.

For the first time I decided to weigh and measure my bullets prior to loading. I had 200 sierra Matchking 190 grain HP in .308.
->I weighed all of them and came up with a range of 199.98 to 190.05 grains.
->The counts created a normal shaped histogram with what I estimate to be 80% of the bullets falling in the 190.1 to 190.3 range.
->I then measured from the base to the ojive. The range was .772 to .778 inches.
->I grouped the bullets by weight, and again by "short" bullets (.772-.775) and "long" bullets (.776-778).

After doing this I have two questions:
1. Are these results good or bad? Basically out of 200 bullets, there was a max weight delta of .7 grains, and a length delta of .006 inches. Are these considered good tolerances?
2. Assuming (for chuckles) I can shoot 5 shot groups that are ragged holes at 100 yards (i.e. pull the shooter and the rifle out of the equation for a moment)if I had loaded these all together w/o separating by weight or length, would those kind of deltas significantly impacted the group sizes? Again, use the assumption of a delta of .7 grains in weight, and .006 difference in length from the Ojive to the base.

Trying to decide if it is a waste of time to weigh and measure bullets.

Rob,

Ya really wanna see the difference in Sierra's dies? Get an electronic digital micrometer that measures to .00005. You will find 4 distictly different size dies, at least that is the way it is with 168gr. Slug your bore and go with the smallest diameter that performs the best. Don't pitch the others! Sort, separate, and save for when your bore starts to wear. This is advise I recieved from 3 very wellknown benchrest/varmint shooters. One of these guys initials is SG. Another is GG, and the third is ES. Shouldn't be too hard to figure them out!


Andy

I think you meant 189.98 grains and not 199.98, right?

All of these things you ask depends on the long range game you plan to play.

IMO, all of the tedius sorting and weighing is not necessary if you are going to shoot steel. If you plan on doing the best you can and have a dedicated F-Class rifle weighing 22 pounds, custom made with a tight necked chamber and all the bells and whistles, you might want to go the extra mile.

My gunsmith loads his competition rounds "like a shotgun shell". No neck turning, no anything including primer pocket cleaning.

His bullets go into the same hole.

You might be right rcamuglia, but I'll bet he uses the best cases and bullets available that fit his rifle...ain't no way he just grabs a hand full of cases and bullets and shoot bugholes...sounds good tho' to some.

UNIFORMITY is the key to ANY excellence... doesn't matter if it is bowling, shooting stick or weapons.

The worse the chamber is the more work you need to do to the rest of the components.

Rob...you now understand that the amount of work put in on UNIFORMITY, the higher the level of accuracy you will get.

Start with Lapua or Norma brass and you just cut your workload in half...then pick "match" grade bullets and reduce your load even more...but you STILL have to separate the bullets into ogive length(forget OAL), bullet weight and diameter...then use ONE bunch at a time, make copious notes...once you find what the average dimensions are it will be easier.

I'm not bad mouthing Sierra or Hornady or ANY of the bullet makers when I say I've measured up to 5 different ogive lengths in one box of each of those bullet makers and up to 5 gr difference in weight...for hunting it makes NO difference what that range is...but for longrange/target/benchrest you might go to one of the known "match" bullet makers and save a lot of work.

I've taken a box of Hornady 130gr 7mm VM's and my 15" 708 XP100, went throught the weigh, measure, and sort procedure, used the most accurate load already developed for that pistol and bullet, started with the shortest ogive length and lightest weight, fired a 5-10 rnd group, go to the next group...etc...cleaned after 25 rounds and fouled with my "normal" varmint load and so on until I shot up all but the bullets that fell WAY outside the range.

All I could see was a slight change in impact point...the groups moved left about 1/4" and that could have been because the sun had move during the shooting...the groups themselves measure within the "normal" size range ~0.200-0.300" for that pistol at 125 yds.

The same load shoots the same groups in my 708 switch barrel Ruger, but at a much higher velocity.

The bottom line is "What accuracy do you want?"...competition or varmint or ??.

For some of my rifles I use "cheap" components, take the time to segregate and bench prep(in the winter when the snow is deep) on others I start with the best I can get, THEN go through the process...it basically depends on the caliber and use.

My smaller cased 17-6mm cals used on sage rats from 200-400 yds doesn't need the level of accuracy my medium to large cased 6mm, 6.5, 7mm, 30 cals needs from 400 to 6-700 for shooting the same size varmints.

I can whack clay pigeons with most of my "hunting" rifles out to ~500 yrds when I do my part...I benchrest prep ALL my ammo components...and the rifles are tuned, it isn't that hard...and learning to shoot small groups just takes practice, attention to details, good bag/breath/trigger procedures which comes with CORRECT PRACTICE...ATTENTION TO DETAIL WITH EACH SHOT.

"TUNING" includes the rifle, scope, rifle stock and support along with tuning the AMMO.

Your rifle is a "system" and as a system ALL the pieces and parts must work together...too many people spend all their time locked on and mucking about with only one or two of the components and then wonder why things only work once in a while.

Not a lot of people want to spend the time to get good...no matter WHAT the sport. I can teach ANYONE to bowl in the 250's, cut 5-15 strokes of their golf game, do those "unbelievable" pool shots or shoot competitively(well, Almost everyone) but very few want to pay the price...we all need our "crutches" to lean on and it's much more painful to fall from grace than to stay in the rut.

All that happy horse statistical HS sound good online but you better be able to extract good, usable information from all those deltas and histograms for it to translate into better scores.

Get a good chrono WITH a printer or computer port and get good software programs QL preferably or Load from a Disk, Stevers Pages lists some very good software and start down the long, hard, dusty road.

LUCK

Excellent info, and much appreciated!

I am just starting down this path. My goal is pretty simple. I want to be able to shoot MOA 80% of the time out to 800 to 1,000 yards from a bench, hopefully using a hunting rifle as I can't really afford a spendy rifle right now (Africa coming up next year). I feel that if I can do this, I will have high confidence using the same rifle to take shots in the field on animals at 300 to 400 yards. Today I feel confident in making an ethical kill shot to 250 in the field, with 300 being my outside limit. I'd like to be able to bump that out to 400 or so.

While on this journey, I want to learn as much as I can about the whole system, from shooter to bullet and everything in between so I appreciate the insights.

Rob,
Here's how I woud look at it:
190.05
-189.98
=.07
.07/190.05 = .037%

Until you are shooting 1/4 MOA bugholes, I'd say you have bigger fish to fry.

Your WSM, is it a factory, or a custom rifle?

I am shooting a factory Post 64 Winchester Model 70 in 300 WSM. and I just put a leupold 4.5-14x40 VXIII on it. I have been pretty happy with the rifle overall. I know it is not a long range gun per say, and while I'd like to get one, that is on the "to do" list given I just bought two Africa rifles and I am gearing up for a hunt in 2012. Budget won't allow that now. MOA may be as good as I can hope for with that set up. if so, that’s fine-I’ll aim for the bugholes when more budget becomes available. I have a Cooper in 204 Ruger that is a ragged hole tack driver. I just think the light bullets are not good enough for the distances I want to play with.

It has been glass bedded, but other than that, no alterations have been made to it.

Here is the data table from my shooting.

Some info on the chart. It is an excel pivot table:
-These are 95% 5 shot groups. And most of them are at 100 yards but all have been normalized to MOA
-the shot strings are grouped by powder type, bullet tiyp, bullet weight and then MOA (rounded UP to the tenth MOA)
-powder charges are listed across the top
-The numbers in the body of the chart are “counts” of 5 shot strings. (i.e. there are two 5 shot stings for the 180 grain Barnes TSX with a powder charge of 62.5 grains of RL 19 that had a group size of 1.5 MOA.
All strings equal to or less than one MOA I shaded green, greater than 1 but equal to or less than 1.5 are yellow, and over 1.5 are red.

As you can see, I’m not the best shot. I am working with the 190 grain Sierra Match King with 66 grains of I 4831 for now.

quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:
I think you meant 189.98 grains and not 199.98, right?

yes! typo on my part

Rounding up??..."normalizing"??...80%??...WHAT are you trying to do?? I don't see ANY patterns in you chart.

Use a dial caliper and MEASURE EACH GROUP to 3 decimal places. Start with ONE bullet, powder, primer, seating depth, fire a few 3-4 shot groups...5 shots just wears out the throat faster...number your brass and shoot them in that order, the same 3 and shoot at least two control groups...that will tell you if the brass is consistent or some are throwing shots...and if the load is worth continuing testing...THEN shoot 3 with .5 more and .5 less powder...that will tell you if the load needs to be increased or decreased by which way the group moves...larger or smaller.

From what I understand about your "system" of testing...there Ain't no system...you're bouncing around all over the place.

If you only want MOA then pick ANY of the loads you already shot that produce MOA or less consistently and go shooting...you're done!!!!

If you want bugholes then you have a lot of work to do...

LUCK

Rob,
Here's something I wrote for another site a few years back. It's designed as a guideline to help people decide where to put their time, money and effort next. IME there is no need to weigh and measure bullets at your stage of the game. Remember this is just a guideline.

What is the Accuracy progression?
You are never more accurate then your weakest link. Here's my basic vision of the basic evolution shooters/reloader go through as they go from beginner to world class expert. This is not fixed in stone, and you will see cross over between levels. I welcome comments where others think this outline can be improved.

Level Zero:
Out of the box factory gun, standard factory ammo, cheap Chinese scope with parallax.

Level one:
Rifle: Out of the box gun, trigger adjusted, barrel free floated, recoil pad added. These are all simple low cost adjustments within the capabilities of the typical fixer-upper.

Scope: $150-$250. Parallax free at typical hunting ranges. Leupold rifleman to Leupold VX II

Ammo: Premium ammo, or Beginning reloader. Equipment consists of the typical kit, such as an RCBS rockchucker kit with standard dies. He's reloading factory fired cases, every box of cases if from a different lot, if not different brands. All cases are full length resized. The loader experiments with different components, power, bullets, and primers for accuracy. An advanced level one loader may try to only buy loaded ammo of the same manufacture.

Level Two:

Rifle: As level one, plus a bedded action. and/or upgraded stock, drop in trigger. These are still relatively simple adjustments that take a little more skill or money.

Scope: Parallax adjustment $250+ Leupold VXII to VXIII

The level two loader attempts to squeeze everything they can out of stock equipment. This level is highlighted by advanced case prep, and advanced usage of standard equipment. The level two loader will buy bulk brass, all of the same lot number, weight sort, and debur the flash holes. They will use advanced sizing techniques, such as the partial full length size, and begin adjusting COAL. The loader may use standard neck sizing dies. New equipment should include a chronograph. At this level you ammo may surpass the quality of the average hunting rifle.

Level Three:
this level is about getting everything to line up perfectly with the bore.

Rifle: Rifle is rebarreled with a custom barrel, action is printed (action squared, bolt face squared, lugs lapped)

Scope: $400.00+ Leupold VXIII+

Ammo: In order to get everything to line up perfectly, we begin using benchrest/competition die set, and advanced case prep. This usually includes benchrest/competition dies sets, Bushing style neck sizing dies and neck turning. This level is also highlighted by concentricity and runout gauges.

Level 4:

Rifle: Purpose built target rifle. Single shot action, such as a Remington 40xbr, Nesika, or other $1000+ action. Top of the line custom barrel, Lilja, Kriger, Lawton, Chanlin ect. These rifles may include a tight throat, and tight neck. They may be out of SAMMI spec and unable to fire over the counter ammunition. The loader may actually do all the above described case prep to create a dummy round, with the anticipated preferred bullet and COAL to provide to the gunsmith before he even begins work on the rifle. Cartridge will be selected for accuracy, usually shot and fat, 220 Waldog, 6mm PPC, 6.5x284, .308, .338 Lapua.

Scope: $1000.00+ Leupold target, or Leupold Mark 4.

Ammo: You may also see arbor presses, and these shooters may use custom bullets from small houses.

Level 5:
Begin swaging your own custom bullets:
http://www.corbins.com/

That a cool assessment table. I'd put myself at the 2nd level right now, bleeding over into the third.

I am first a hunter, so long range shooting interests me mainly in as much as it will enable me to be a better hunter. That is why 80% success at 700 to 1000 yards is more than sufficient for me as a goal right now. Perhaps as I move on to level 3 then I'll tighten that down.

The rounding up is so that I can more easily see the data-a formula in excel. My data is a bit more granular than that, but when you are trying to see a trend in 600 strings of data, it can be hard to see (at least for me) so I round. That said, I have been using a ruler to get group size and measuring to the 1/8th of an inch. Again, more than sufficient for me at my stage. That said, I really like the idea of using a caliper! I am going to do that from now on. It will be faster and more accurate.

Three to Four shot groups huh? I guess I could move to that… I figured doing 5 shot groups set the bar a little higher.

Believe it or not, I do have a system, it's just hard to see in a single post. That table is an aggregation of data I have for three bullet types. I have decided to focus on the 190 grain Sierra Match king's. my system is:
-select a bullet and powder
-load up 10 shells at recommended OAL (as measured to the ojive) at a set powder weight. Repeat this in one grain increments across the recommended min and max ranges for the bullet
-shoot and record data
-decide on a powder weight
-load up sets of 10 shells in differing seating lengths
-shoot and decide on an OAL

That’s about it. not too sophisticated, but much simpler than perhaps the table represents. That is all the data I have for my 300 WSM so it looks a bit scattered (I am just starting to shoot it).

I have not messed with brass, or primers yet. I just started dealing with bullet weight. Perhaps I should go get some Norma brass.

I do find it disturbing that my groups are all over the place in size. I am guessing it is a shooter issue-maybe brass would help a little..

Here is the same table with the calculated MOA rahter than the rounded one.

IMHO you should focus more on getting the best long range scope that you can afford