dan newberry
Member
I have long contemplated the old BR practice of counting every shot in a group regardless of called flyers or other data that would credibly explain the spoiled shot.
Some folks take pleasure in snidely ridiculing the practice of discounting called flyers from groups, chuckling amongst their holier than thou selves, believing they are certainly the gurus...
In truth, they are part right. But before analyzing the data we must ask ourselves an important question: What part or parts of the system are we testing?
If we are testing rifle, load, and rifleman, then by all means every shot should count. Called flyers are nothing more than rifleman error, and he's part of the system. Called flyers do count since that is something that could happen in the field just as easily as it happened on the bench. The entire shooting system must work in close cohesion to place bullet "A" on target "B" consistently. So in the case of testing the package deal, I agree with the count every shot crowd.
I depart from their quaint philosophy when it comes to testing a part of the sum, however.
Let's say you're testing the accuracy capability of a particular rifle. You're a decent shot on an average day. You put one, two, then three shots of Federal's Gold Medal Match into a 3/4" cluster at 100 yards. Then a sweat bee fancies your ear lobe just as the fourth shot breaks and prints 1 inch out of the group. The BR purist would say count this shot. He would call that rifle a 1.5 MOA rifle based on its performance. He would be wrong. Never blame the rifle for the shooter's errors. In this example, we're evaluating only the rifle, not the shooter's tolerance of sweat bees.
I was recently admonished by a BR type for mentioning the fact that one shot of an otherwise 5/8" eight shot group printed low and right because of an egregious amount of bullet runout--.007" in this case. I've long noted that this much runout does indeed affect bullet point of impact, even at 100 yards. I fired those 9 shots with full knowledge that one of the 9 had .007" runout. I wanted to see where it would print with relation to the rest of the group. In this scenario, it would be foolish to count that shot with the other eight. It exhibited an unacceptable variable that the others did not, and should therefore be discounted in the overall evaluation of the load.
When we are gathering load data, consistency is paramount. If we know that one cartridge has a defect of one sort or another, we may shoot that one to measure the effect of the anomaly, but counting that shot into the rest of the data dilutes the accuracy and value of our findings.
So, to answer the question "Do I count every shot?" I would say that it depends... It depends on what part or parts of the system you're evaluating, and also on the integrity and consistency of those parts.
My thoughts, my opinions...
Dan Newberry
Some folks take pleasure in snidely ridiculing the practice of discounting called flyers from groups, chuckling amongst their holier than thou selves, believing they are certainly the gurus...
In truth, they are part right. But before analyzing the data we must ask ourselves an important question: What part or parts of the system are we testing?
If we are testing rifle, load, and rifleman, then by all means every shot should count. Called flyers are nothing more than rifleman error, and he's part of the system. Called flyers do count since that is something that could happen in the field just as easily as it happened on the bench. The entire shooting system must work in close cohesion to place bullet "A" on target "B" consistently. So in the case of testing the package deal, I agree with the count every shot crowd.
I depart from their quaint philosophy when it comes to testing a part of the sum, however.
Let's say you're testing the accuracy capability of a particular rifle. You're a decent shot on an average day. You put one, two, then three shots of Federal's Gold Medal Match into a 3/4" cluster at 100 yards. Then a sweat bee fancies your ear lobe just as the fourth shot breaks and prints 1 inch out of the group. The BR purist would say count this shot. He would call that rifle a 1.5 MOA rifle based on its performance. He would be wrong. Never blame the rifle for the shooter's errors. In this example, we're evaluating only the rifle, not the shooter's tolerance of sweat bees.
I was recently admonished by a BR type for mentioning the fact that one shot of an otherwise 5/8" eight shot group printed low and right because of an egregious amount of bullet runout--.007" in this case. I've long noted that this much runout does indeed affect bullet point of impact, even at 100 yards. I fired those 9 shots with full knowledge that one of the 9 had .007" runout. I wanted to see where it would print with relation to the rest of the group. In this scenario, it would be foolish to count that shot with the other eight. It exhibited an unacceptable variable that the others did not, and should therefore be discounted in the overall evaluation of the load.
When we are gathering load data, consistency is paramount. If we know that one cartridge has a defect of one sort or another, we may shoot that one to measure the effect of the anomaly, but counting that shot into the rest of the data dilutes the accuracy and value of our findings.
So, to answer the question "Do I count every shot?" I would say that it depends... It depends on what part or parts of the system you're evaluating, and also on the integrity and consistency of those parts.
My thoughts, my opinions...
Dan Newberry
