The ShootingUK video has a lot of flaws in how he executed and how he analyzed the results from what he claims is an OCW test. Really terrible example video.
He’s not far enough away, for starters. So many guys bend this to be shot at 100yrds, but it really needs to be done at 300 or farther. The intent in the Newberry’s method is to give the bullet enough room to start dropping significantly enough such we can tell what the bullet is really doing, not just what the scope and shooter are doing. Doing this workup at 100yrds is largely a fool’s errand - especially if you’re shooting 1-1.5” groups.
He’s throwing out flyers as “pulled shots,” but his group sizes may not really reflect those flyers as anomalous shooter errors. His group sizes are as big as his dispersions, which undermines the integrity of the methodology.
Then he focuses upon POI close to the bull vs. relative horizontal shifting. Locality to the bull is absolutely irrelevant, and the method is not designed to be analyzed based on horizontal dispersion between groups. It’s the vertical dispersion between one group to the next which matters. His two groups impacting left of center have the same vertical position as the ones centered over the bull, and given 4 clicks of the dial, the result is exactly opposite. He has 3 groups to the left, 2 at 1” left, one at half inch, and then an inch wide group which spans from a bit left of center to a bit right of center, and 2 groups at center. 4 clicks on the scope, and the results would be completely opposite, so those results are a null set - false conclusion by equipment bias, and nothing to do with the load itself. He thinks the rifle is zeroed with another load, liked seeing the groups on center, and ignored the fact there’s no science to anything he did. He’s defining “stability” as close to center on the target. That is NOT Newberry’s method.
He ignores the shape of his groups, and claims he has “stable” loads for a group which has only about 1/4” of vertical and a full inch of horizontal (in a test where he’s focusing upon horizontal), and then says another load is “stable” when it has 1/4” of horizontal, and 3/4” vertical. By Newberry’s direction, those group shapes matter, significantly.
The only thing he got right is that OCW doesn’t concern itself with group size.
Like Chris Long’s OBT, Satterlee’s Velocity curve, or Audette’s Ladder methods, Newberry’s OCW is really an opportunity to determine barrel harmonics. Some followers might believe it has to do with the shock wave being at the chamber instead of the muzzle (which isn’t really supported by wave harmonic theory), Positive Compensation theory would suggest it’s when the barrel constriction/dilation wave is closed at the muzzle. Other philosophizers might suggest the node is found when the muzzle is whipped to either end of its span, meaning it has a zero velocity, whereas the antinode is the position where the muzzle whip has the greatest velocity, effectively in the center of its motion (making it most sensitive to bullet velocity and dwell time). For me personally, despite degrees in engineering and physics, I don’t really care. Knowing my milliseconds of barrel time isn’t pertinent. I just want to know when I throw a charge, it’ll produce a consistent release of the bullet at a consistent velocity, so I know I will get a consistent POI at range.
To that end, these 4 methods work. But what the video described wasn’t an apt description of the method, nor a permutation of said which has merit.