Originally Posted by
olsaltydog
Think the last three posts touched on one of the most important aspects of shooting. Rifles are pretty stable in what they will do and why/how they do it when all variables are kept steady. The variable most unreliable is the shooter and many times are too quick to change other variables. I have either witnessed shooters swapping out to different ammo after just one box or making adjustments to zero as they shoot more and more. For whatever reason there is more need today for shooters to be taught or shown why it is important to sit down one range session at a time and learn their rifle and be as thorough as possible when testing to understand what they are actually doing.
Personal rule for myself is to take the one gun I am wanting to practice and learn about to the range with one type of ammo. I will sit and shoot that one setup for a while learning and understanding what is happening before I make any changes. If no changes are needed and things seem to be pretty steady and consistent then I may take out another couple boxes of another ammo brand to test and see how they perform. Shooters need to have a benchmark to compare sits against and need to learn to adjust the least amount of variables as possible. Consistency will be key
Agreed. I may bring a few rifles so I can let each cool during load testing between groups. I know reloading my own ammo has taught me a whole lot about how a specific rifle acts to the point I somewhat know what to expect with component changes. I can't tell you how many guys have come up to me at the range to ask what my rifle is and how much work have I done to it. And truly it really isn't the rifle it has pretty much been accurate it has may more to the amount of time I have spent getting to know it. Their are a few rifles like my Marlin lever action 30-30 that I just can't figure out how to get it to shoot better then 2MOA and not from lack of trying. Many of my friends shoot their rifles the week before they go hunting and wonder why they can't hit crap. One of the problems that I ran into was going from FL to KY to hunt. I lost around 120 fps on cold bore just going from temps in the 70's to the 20's and 30's. I spent a few weeks up there on the farm last year and took the time to develop a load up there and now I just keep some ammo up there at my cousin's place and build 50 rounds from that data when I get some down time on his gear.