Thread: 3 shot groups are useless!

Originally Posted by Tankd

You might want to check out what a "Cone of fire" is actually used for . The bastardised version used currently shows nothing but that those wish to appear knowledgeable.
I'm yet to see anything crediblle in this thread , surely " Someone will rid me of this troublesome priest".

I might at that, although it's not particularly interesting to me (cone of fire was a new term too me in a whole new idea...and it seemed to express what I had learned quite nicely), while the idea that I've been inefficient in my zeroing process is important. Even more interesting to me is how stubborn and lazy I have been in my unwillingness to learn something new because of the challenges it presented. I think we all want to appear knowledgeable...you not least.

Cone of fire is mainly used for shot gun group=spread.

Cone of fire is the dispersion when I'm fling'n shots at a fleeing animal. One over it, one under it, one in front of it, one behind it...

Originally Posted by Tentman

Gidday Guys - following on from recent discussions/threads - a little more fuel for the fire.

Here are some 3 shot groups from today with the Bergara B14 223 I'm currently playing with. Last time I tried a 10 shot group (in this thread https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....ng-out-104458/ ) it ran at 1.4MOA, not bad but I felt both the load and shooting could be improved. So I changed brass from Hornady to some Lapua that came once fired from the old bulk FMJ stuff that was about years ago. Still not "top notch" brass but better (maybe) than Hornardy! I also added a cheekpiece and bag rider to the rifle and shot from a bipod rather than front rest to see if I could improve the shooting.

Attachment 250120

I started with a 5 shot group with the same load as before, Hornardy 73s with 23.5 2206H at 58.7mm OAL. Bugger me it seemed to throw a cold bore shot, not something this rifle usually does, could also have been me getting into the new way the rifle feels with cheekpiece and bag rider.

Then we have a seating depth test, this isn't looking for the smallest group, rather I trying to identify a node for point of impact and velocity.

Disregarding the above does anyone see the problem here - the average of the 3 shot groups is 0.76 MOA, quite respectable UNTIl you compare it with the rifle's 10 shot group average - which is closer to 1.5 MOA!

And that's why I call bullshit when people say their rifle shoots "sub moa" (often claiming "its shooting 0.5") on the basis of one or two 3 shot groups.

I think if everyone just goes back to the first post in this thread, and actually takes an objective look at the groups on that target....they're actually all the same. If you superimposed all of them, they'd fall within the same group.

The sad thing about this is there will be some who read it and think it is true?. But it is just all "I say" , if you want to waste effort to prove it go for it. But why stop at 10?, why not 20/30/40/50 , by the time you have finnished the deer will be gone.

Originally Posted by gimp

In the Olympics Of Missing The Point, you boys would be gold and silver in the Long Jump Over Reading Comprehension

probably relevant to bring this back into discussion.

It's always hard challenging ideas people have been bought up with, religion, politics, shooting, you name it . . . . But smart people will change when they either see enough evidence, or make such a fuck up the "have to" change thier ways.

A young hunting mate from Chch rang me up . . . "Can I bring my Tikka 6.5 PRC down when I come next week (he's a top sales executive) cause I want to stretch it out a bit, handloaders only goes to 200"

"Sure you can, it'd be my pleasure, we can go back to 600 if you like" On a previous visit he'd had a blast shooting my 6.5-284 at that distance on gongs, hitting the 6" with every shot.

So off to the range we went with his Tikka 6.5 PRC and some boxes of ammo. We have to validate at 100M. He shot a very nice 3 shot group, easily sub MOA. I enquired if that was his zero as it looked a tad high to me but at his wee frown as he assured me it was, because it was "zeroed at 200 on the handloaders range". At that point if we'd stopped and gone back and fired another 2 or 3 "3 shot groups" on top of out first one he would have saved himself a lot of grief and money, even at $6 per round.

Why? We put up a 300mm gong and a 6/4/3" rack. We went back too 300 and he could hit the 300 just fine. I didn't have anything decent to spot with and it took 2 shots to get the 6", I couldn't see the splash.

Back to 400, after a mis-dial it took 3-4 shots to get onto the 300mm but he was determined to get to 500 so back we marched, me with a sense of fore-boding.

And at 500 he couldn't hit the 300mm - several tries later and that was $200 of ammo gone. Now I know know he could shoot well enough to hit even the 6" if his rifle was up to it, and I'm sure the Tikka will shoot well enough to also get regular 6" hits at that range.

What went wrong? . . . He was blaming his second-hand scope but it looked decent enough to me (a Bushnell Engage). If he'd used a decent number of rounds to properly establish his zero at 100M he would have had two things, a rock solid zero, one that would allow him to fully exploit the accuracy of his rifle to 500-600M, and he'd have a very good handle on just how accurate his Tikka truly was.

Originally Posted by Tentman

It's always hard challenging ideas people have been bought up with, religion, politics, shooting, you name it . . . . But smart people will change when they either see enough evidence, or make such a fuck up the "have to" change thier ways.

A young hunting mate from Chch rang me up . . . "Can I bring my Tikka 6.5 PRC down when I come next week (he's a top sales executive) cause I want to stretch it out a bit, handloaders only goes to 200"

"Sure you can, it'd be my pleasure, we can go back to 600 if you like" On a previous visit he'd had a blast shooting my 6.5-284 at that distance on gongs, hitting the 6" with every shot.

So off to the range we went with his Tikka 6.5 PRC and some boxes of ammo. We have to validate at 100M. He shot a very nice 3 shot group, easily sub MOA. I enquired if that was his zero as it looked a tad high to me but at his wee frown as he assured me it was, because it was "zeroed at 200 on the handloaders range". At that point if we'd stopped and gone back and fired another 2 or 3 "3 shot groups" on top of out first one he would have saved himself a lot of grief and money, even at $6 per round.

Why? We put up a 300mm gong and a 6/4/3" rack. We went back too 300 and he could hit the 300 just fine. I didn't have anything decent to spot with and it took 2 shots to get the 6", I couldn't see the splash.

Back to 400, after a mis-dial it took 3-4 shots to get onto the 300mm but he was determined to get to 500 so back we marched, me with a sense of fore-boding.

And at 500 he couldn't hit the 300mm - several tries later and that was $200 of ammo gone. Now I know know he could shoot well enough to hit even the 6" if his rifle was up to it, and I'm sure the Tikka will shoot well enough to also get regular 6" hits at that range.

What went wrong? . . . He was blaming his second-hand scope but it looked decent enough to me (a Bushnell Engage). If he'd used a decent number of rounds to properly establish his zero at 100M he would have had two things, a rock solid zero, one that would allow him to fully exploit the accuracy of his rifle to 500-600M, and he'd have a very good handle on just how accurate his Tikka truly was.

I think that's a good example. In some ways it validates the naysayers, who in reality probably aren't trying to reliably hit a target at 500m anyway, so the initial 'good enough' 3-shot zero would have been perfectly adequate. It also highlights, that for the level of precision required to hit a target at that range; a 3- shot group/zero has many potential shortcomings.

For many years I primarily hunted tight bush country, so a one-shot zero check at about 30m was more than adequate (the "ice cream container" level of precision). These days, hunting much more open terrain, I get to stretch things out on a regular basis, so I will give myself every chance of knowing what my true level of precision is, which requires a lot more data.

Originally Posted by Tankd

The sad thing about this is there will be some who read it and think it is true?. But it is just all "I say" , if you want to waste effort to prove it go for it. But why stop at 10?, why not 20/30/40/50 , by the time you have finnished the deer will be gone.

That's a fairly accurate description of most things you read on internet forums though
Just choose who you listen to carefully, some just like the sound of there own voice.

Sent from my SM-S936B using Tapatalk

Most competition shooters love shooting 5-10-20 shot groups.
Most hunters love shooting 3-5 shot groups.
Case closed.

Originally Posted by Tentman

It's always hard challenging ideas people have been bought up with, religion, politics, shooting, you name it . . . . But smart people will change when they either see enough evidence, or make such a fuck up the "have to" change thier ways.

A young hunting mate from Chch rang me up . . . "Can I bring my Tikka 6.5 PRC down when I come next week (he's a top sales executive) cause I want to stretch it out a bit, handloaders only goes to 200"

"Sure you can, it'd be my pleasure, we can go back to 600 if you like" On a previous visit he'd had a blast shooting my 6.5-284 at that distance on gongs, hitting the 6" with every shot.

So off to the range we went with his Tikka 6.5 PRC and some boxes of ammo. We have to validate at 100M. He shot a very nice 3 shot group, easily sub MOA. I enquired if that was his zero as it looked a tad high to me but at his wee frown as he assured me it was, because it was "zeroed at 200 on the handloaders range". At that point if we'd stopped and gone back and fired another 2 or 3 "3 shot groups" on top of out first one he would have saved himself a lot of grief and money, even at $6 per round.

Why? We put up a 300mm gong and a 6/4/3" rack. We went back too 300 and he could hit the 300 just fine. I didn't have anything decent to spot with and it took 2 shots to get the 6", I couldn't see the splash.

Back to 400, after a mis-dial it took 3-4 shots to get onto the 300mm but he was determined to get to 500 so back we marched, me with a sense of fore-boding.

And at 500 he couldn't hit the 300mm - several tries later and that was $200 of ammo gone. Now I know know he could shoot well enough to hit even the 6" if his rifle was up to it, and I'm sure the Tikka will shoot well enough to also get regular 6" hits at that range.

What went wrong? . . . He was blaming his second-hand scope but it looked decent enough to me (a Bushnell Engage). If he'd used a decent number of rounds to properly establish his zero at 100M he would have had two things, a rock solid zero, one that would allow him to fully exploit the accuracy of his rifle to 500-600M, and he'd have a very good handle on just how accurate his Tikka truly was.

Another similar example. Mates new 7PRC and first shots on target once we found speed we wanted at safe pressure.
Shot off good front rest and heavy rear bag on a bench. Bore sighted and then one shot near the edge of the target sheet. Guessed a rough adjustment based on grids and then he proceeded to shoot the three touching in the bull. Wow, happy farken days as far as he was concerned, half MOA all day long and a very capable rifle out past 500 no worries.
Hang on there chap, poke a few more into that target……..

Originally Posted by McNotty

Another similar example. Mates new 7PRC and first shots on target once we found speed we wanted at safe pressure.
Shot off good front rest and heavy rear bag on a bench. Bore sighted and then one shot near the edge of the target sheet. Guessed a rough adjustment based on grids and then he proceeded to shoot the three touching in the bull. Wow, happy farken days as far as he was concerned, half MOA all day long and a very capable rifle out past 500 no worries.
Hang on there chap, poke a few more into that target……..
Attachment 287930

This was the mare for me...especially with a magnum...all shot out and still digging.

Originally Posted by McNotty

Another similar example. Mates new 7PRC and first shots on target once we found speed we wanted at safe pressure.
Shot off good front rest and heavy rear bag on a bench. Bore sighted and then one shot near the edge of the target sheet. Guessed a rough adjustment based on grids and then he proceeded to shoot the three touching in the bull. Wow, happy farken days as far as he was concerned, half MOA all day long and a very capable rifle out past 500 no worries.
Hang on there chap, poke a few more into that target……..
Attachment 287930

Perfect example of why you should never shoot more that 3 shots. Just look what happens...

Originally Posted by Tahr

Perfect example of why you should never shoot more that 3 shots. Just look what happens...

Yea! What’s a few a blown off jaws and gut shots every now and again. Bloody stinky pests anyway.

Must’ve gone all soft and ethical as I got older.