same size groups at 250 as 100?!

[Zak Smith]

I'm in the camp that doesn't believe in bullets going to sleep or that "mechanical accuracy" can increase at further distances. I have never owned or fired a rifle an observed group sizes in MOA at a further distance that I could not more easily replicate at shorter distances (in identical conditions). On the theoretical side, I do not believe that a physical difference in position and velocity could be "factored out" by movement further downrange.

I think in extreme accuracy cases, there is a factor of how small one can aim. I have stacked bullets impacts on top of each other at 400+ yards, whereas at 100 yards that would be literally the same hole with no overlap. When shooting at 100 yards, that is rare. However, when I look at group sizes, they roughly scale with the results I get at 100 yards.

I am not ruling out that it is possible, but that I haven't seen evidence that required a "go to sleep" or "restoring force" theory to explain.

-z

ETA- the only case I have had where a bullet didn't seem to stabilize at long range, it also had erratic performance at 100 yards.

 

[Al Thompson]

I agree that parallax may be a big issue here..

 

[Runningman]

Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH9SCbCBHaY

 

[car15bill]

well, looks like im going to the range again this weekend to set the power back to 10x and see if that makes a difference...

 

[Runningman]

car15bill does your scope have an AO to adjust Parallax? If so I would be doing so.

 

[car15bill]

yeah, it does, i have it set for 100, but i did not at 250, and it was hard to see out of the scope, it was like the relief was super sensitive...

 

[3:00hold]

I hope your old physics or trig. teachers never read this.

Bullets don't steer themselves, so there's no way for a bullet that deviates from some perfect flight path at 100 yards to consistently get back on the path at longer ranges. I suppose some non repeatable event like wind could do that once in a while, but not repeatably.

Anyway, that's over thinking it. There's a reason they call it minute of angle. Yes, it's like a triangle. There are reasons it could be worse than the triangle, but never better. I guess it's possible for a given shooter to be more confident at longer ranges and seem to shoot better, but that's the Indian. The arrow will behave according to physics and the effect of external forces.

Sometimes I shoot 1" MOA groups and sometimes I shoot .5" MOA groups. If I was shooting ok at the 100 yard target and great at the 200 yard target, I could easily have 2 sets of 1" groups, but again, the Indian, not the arrow, and of course the group shot at 200 yards would have been smaller at 100.

 

[Offfhand]

Two quotes from earlier comments:

"One guy gave a very knowledgable explaination of the trumpet bell effect of how group sizes expand as range increases. And how there can be no exceptions except by accident."

"That statement does not seem agree with what Speer's professional lab technician has to say on the subject."

Very interesting! Does the Speer guy say groups can get smaller as range increases? Where did you get that info? I'd like to follow up as I'm still very curious about this subject.