Originally Posted by
mcorso
Right, But I have a encore magnum, and he has a encore pro hunter, arnt they pretty much the same gun? so we should be able to shoot the same thing, Mine is shooting great on that set up, hitting bulls at 100 yards, At 50 yards he was barely hitting the back stop it was 4ftx4ft. and bullets were all over the place, and sideways through the board, and we had rifle seated on sandbags, I told him to give it a good cleaning, and try it again, then we can try new ammo.
I was going to suggest the assumption of tumbling was mistaken, but what you describe -- sideways profile and 4X4ft pattern -- is perfectly consistent with what you expect when tumbing (tumbling bullets DON'T shoot 3-4" groups at 100 yds).
This is HIGHLY unusual. I have never seen anything that dramatic with typical ML bullets. The only explanation (other than a terribly misbalanced batch of bullets and I've never heard of that) is that for some reason the sabots are not engaging the rifling and giving proper spin.
The 200SW is one of the longer-for-caliber bullets, but certainly not on the fringe of risking tumble under any normal conditions.
Does it load really loose? If so try a tighter sabot or step up to a .44 or .45 bullet in a tighter sabot.
Something is VERY wrong here.