[The 78]

burnt throat but 26" barrel...experience at 300, 600, 1000..scope..bi-pod..varget/HDY and SIE for those in the know....

I got a 2" group at 100 yards which is disappointing to me.
However, at 200 yards I got 2 clover-leafs....which was really neat.

Would like to know if anyone has experienced this.....

[243winxb]

A 2" group @ 100 is not going to get smaller at 200, unless the wind gods love you. :D In general, after the bullet goes to "sleep" the MOA will be better past 100 yards. Its possible to shoot .4" @ 100 & .9" @ 300 measured group average, with the same loads.

[Jim Watson]

I do not credit the "sleepy bullet" concept.
There was a guy on the benchrest board who set up an Oehler Accoustic Target at 100 yards and paper targets at 300+. He said he never with any rifle of any caliber got groups smaller in MOA at 300 than 100. And that with THE SAME BULLETS. No chance for luck.

[Friendly, Don't Fire!]

I'm satisfied with almost single holes at 100 yards and groups no larger than a dime at 200 yards with my 22-250, 50g TNT Speer bullets (model 1030) traveling on average at 3920 FPS. I realize that load is a hot load, but I do not shoot the gun often, only when the shot will count. The furthest I have shot is a woodchuck at 500 yards. When I am about to shoot something inside of 100 yards, I use just factory Remington Express, but have to hold low and to the right, (1.5" x 1.5").

When I was working up the loads in the 80's, with the glass-bedded receiver, free-floating barrel and trigger job, those bullets pulled the tightest group, and out of several powders, 4064 (blue can) shot best. The higher I went with working up the load, the closer the bullets hit, I couldn't believe it.

[The 78]

ok good entries here

glad people responded

bullets seem to start to fly better after 200-300 yards

the "sleepy bullet" thing is new to me - and is a very interesting concept

let me qualify.... very well versed in varget/imr4895/h4895 and match kings/168HDY/178HDY/175match kings/palma shooting.....
NRA qulified small bore- marksman first class/sharpshooter
now onward to high power - can read wind in MOA's....shooting at 600 and 1000 yards with 308....and would love to go with 150's and 155's (to save my shoulder lol)

that being said...my experience only grows with input from other shooters' experiences....right?

do bullets fly better after 200-300 yards?

[HB]

Could be you are just paying more attention at that distance.

HB

[1911Tuner]

I've never known a rifle that would shoot tighter groups with distance, but I have seen several that the MOA rule didn't follow across the board. i.e 1"/100, 2"/200, 3"300 etc.

I've seen...for example...1"/100 1.75"/200 2.5"/300 etc. consistently in some rifles. It all seems to lend credence to the sleepy bullet theory, even if it doesn't "prove" it. On the "pro" side...the rifles in question did it consistently. On the "con" side...as distance increases, there are too many small variables in play to solidly prove or disprove it. A puff of wind or even a Bumblebee that stumbles into the bullet's path changes things.

On the other hand, I've also seen rifles that would shoot under MOA at 100 and 200...and fall apart at 300 yards with 2 or more MOA.

[mgmorden]

From a purely technical concept, it's not physically possible for the groups of identically fired bullets to consistently produce tighter groups further out (ie - maybe on a fluke due to wind variations and other random factors, but not as something that happens repeatably).

What is possible though, is a psychological difference in the shooter. If you get it into your mind that this is happening then it may be affecting your performance at 100 vs 200 (ie - you get the jitters closer in). Could also be that the visibly smaller target is forcing you to just cue into it more specifically (ie, aim small, miss small).

I'd wager at least $3.74 that the issue here is shooter-related, not rifle related :).

[Quacktastic]

I've never had a 2 inch group at 100 yds, so I cannot really understand where you're coming from... JK.

My guess is that you're aiming at the same size dot at both distances, and since a one inch dot at 200 yds is smaller,ou're probably better focused.

Try shooting at a smaller dot at 100 yds.

If that doesn't work, I guess just back up or something. Dang...

[shinyroks]

Is that 3.75 cash or money order?:rolleyes:

[Cosmoline]

My guess is that you're aiming at the same size dot at both distances, and since a one inch dot at 200 yds is smaller,ou're probably better focused.

I agree. At 100 it's possible to lose your bearings on the target because there's still a lot of target to sweep around with your sight. At 200 the target has "shrunk" down and you are subconsciously better able to pin down the center, even though you can't see that center anymore. It's weird, but does seem to happen. Sort of an "aim small, miss small" issue.

With my eyes these days it's more of an "aim blur, miss blur"

[1858]

I've never known a rifle that would shoot tighter groups with distance, but I have seen several that the MOA rule didn't follow across the board. i.e 1"/100, 2"/200, 3"300 etc.

I've seen...for example...1"/100 1.75"/200 2.5"/300 etc.

I think part of the discrepancy is due to the "misleading" notion of MOA as it pertains to accuracy, particularly since real targets don't get bigger the further away they are. Consider that the area contained within 1 MOA at 100 yards is 0.86 in^2. If you double the distance to 200 yards, the area contained within a 2 MOA circle is 3.44 in^2 which is four times the area of 1 MOA at 100 yards. So your effective target has increased in size by four times whereas the distance has increased by two times. Area is a square function but if you were to maintain a linear relationship between distance and target size, the MOA would look like this.

100 yards = 1 MOA
200 yards = 0.71 MOA
300 yards = 0.58 MOA
400 yards = 0.50 MOA
500 yards = 0.48 MOA
600 yards = 0.41 MOA
700 yards = 0.38 MOA
800 yards = 0.35 MOA
900 yards = 0.33 MOA
1000 yards = 0.32 MOA

1911Tuner gave examples of 1"/100, 1.75"/200 and 2.5"/300 which equate to 1, 0.84 and 0.80 MOA. This is reasonable for an accurate rifle and a skilled shooter. At 200 yards, the distance is doubled and the area has increased by 2.8 times. At 300 yards the distance is three times but the area has increased by 5.7 times so still not linear but better than MOA.

I find it odd that we don't think of a fixed target size but instead have this obsession with MOA. For example, an 8" circle would cover the vitals of many typical two and four-legged targets. So if the objective is to put a bullet into an 8" circle (constant area) from 100 to 1,000 yards, you'd need to be able to hold the following:

100 yards = 7.64 MOA
200 yards = 3.82 MOA
300 yards = 2.55 MOA
400 yards = 1.91 MOA
500 yards = 1.53 MOA
600 yards = 1.27 MOA
700 yards = 1.09 MOA
800 yards = 0.95 MOA
900 yards = 0.85 MOA
1000 yards = 0.76 MOA

[Ar180shooter]

I've never known a rifle that would shoot tighter groups with distance, but I have seen several that the MOA rule didn't follow across the board. i.e 1"/100, 2"/200, 3"300 etc.

I've seen...for example...1"/100 1.75"/200 2.5"/300 etc. consistently in some rifles. It all seems to lend credence to the sleepy bullet theory, even if it doesn't "prove" it. On the "pro" side...the rifles in question did it consistently. On the "con" side...as distance increases, there are too many small variables in play to solidly prove or disprove it. A puff of wind or even a Bumblebee that stumbles into the bullet's path changes things.

On the other hand, I've also seen rifles that would shoot under MOA at 100 and 200...and fall apart at 300 yards with 2 or more MOA.

It all goes to show that rifles can be as maddening and as fickle and as fascinating as women. :D

That's part of what keeps us going back, no?
I've seen that several times too, and have rifles that do that.

As for the groupings at 200 being less than that at 100, I don't buy it. Likely parallax issues with the scope or something similar.

[1858]

Its possible to shoot .4" @ 100 & .9" @ 300 measured group average, with the same loads.

So is a 0.38 MOA group shot at 100 yards better than a 0.29 MOA group shot at 300 yards? The 300 yard group is more than 5 times the area of the 100 yard group despite being shot at "only" three times the distance?

[jmr40]

Why this happens is open to debate, but it does happen. Too many experienced shooters have had it happen to discount the idea.

Never seen a rifle actually shoot smaller groups at longer range consistenty. In rare cases I've shot the odd tiny group at long range, but it is not uncommon at all for some rifles to shoot around 1.5" at 100 yards, 1.75" at 200 yards and 2.5" at 300 and so on.

As near as I can tell it is a quirk with individual rifles, not just luck as some have suggested, or shooting with more care at longer ranges. Some have claimed parallax as the reason, but long range shooters using iron sights have reported the same results in rare cases.

I've owned and shot hundreds of different rifles in my life. Almost all have given predictible group sizes at long range when compared to the 100 yard groups. But I've owned 2-3 that would consistently shoot to smaller MOA at longer ranges. That tells me it really is in the rifle, not the shooter.

[IndianaBoy]

I'm NOT an expert, but the sleepy bullet thing to me might make sense from a yawing standpoint, but not from a deviation in the flight path with respect to the bore.

If a bullet 'swings wide' and is part of a 2 MOA group at 100 yards. There is no force save for a miraculous wind gust to push them back in line with your bore/sights/scope and result in a group of less MOA at 200 yards.


I'd wager you are taking your time or focusing more at the longer targets. If you are using the same target, it isn't uncommon for people to lose their crosshairs/sights in the center of a large bullseye at closer range.

[RedHeadHunter]

Just in case any of you are interested, here is a link to a very interesting article on bullet stability and the effects of the forces that affect the flight of a projectile.

http://www.nennstiel-ruprecht.de/bullfly/

Very interesting charts on Yaw, Magnus effect, Coriolis effect and more.

I doubt this is what is happening to the OP, but I do have a rifle that shoots worse @ 200 yds than 100 or 300 yds :confused:. I have since changed the load and haven't shot it enough to know if it still has the 200 yard glitch.

[The 78]

as we know, there is a spin drift - is this in some parallel to the stability triangle...ok...very open for debate !!!

the round i was firing (pardon the lower case ghetto grammer =) was a 178 HDY in a 26" remington barrel (~~ 1000 shots fired through it). Varget "C" load. Leupold scope....700 action.

After a 600yd trial with 155's, I realised that the 178 is a secant design and the barrel (throat burnt out) is not accepting to the secant any longer as we would have to load on the lands. The 155 performed with admiration yielding no less than a "9" on an NRA target.

I have also used a 150 HDT FMJ.....at 1000 yds in a remington barrel and have satisfactory results with a 20" barrel (another story).

Thoughts?????

[chrome_austex]

Could scope parallax cause that?

[1858]

The 78,
You might want to read Chapter 10 in Bryan Litz's book "Applied Ballistics for Long Range Shooting". He discusses the gyroscopic stability of bullets in flight. He makes the point that as the bullet heads downrange, its forward velocity decreases at a much faster rate than its rotational (angular) velocity which means that the gyroscopic stability of the bullet increases with distance. However, he also makes the point that all bullets leave the barrel with some pitching and yawing motion, but if they are sufficiently stable at the muzzle (Sg > 1.0) then the pitch and yaw dampen rapidly and don't affect the bullet's flight performance. Essentially, bullets "go to sleep" before they reach 100 yards assuming that they have sufficient stability to begin with. So the discrepancy seen with smaller MOA groups at 100 yards compared to 200 yards, 300 yards etc. can't be explained with the "sleeping bullet" theory.

[BullfrogKen]

The 78 -

What was the size of the target you were aiming in on at 100 yards?

With a scoped rifle I'll usually put up a 1" round black paster on a blank white piece of paper. If the size of the target, and specifically your aiming point, is too large you can see groups open up at 100 yards, then seem to mysteriously shrink at 200.

[243winxb]

Before a bullet goes to "sleep", the wind has a bigger effect on the unstable bullet. The same wind will have less effect on a stable bullet. A bullet pushed off course at 10 yds will be outside the group futher, compared to a bullet pushed off course at 75 yds. :)