Range Report First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

[Phil3]

I fired my newly built AR15 at a 300 yard range today, and expected better. Perhaps I need a reality check...?? The rifle has a 1:9" twist Krieger barrel and I was using new Blackhills 69 grain Sieera MatchKing ammo as well as 55 grain remanufactured ammo. There was a headwind that was holding a full size American flag very nearly straight out.

Five shot groups were mostly 2.75, some as big as 4", and the smallest was 2.375". At a range with no wind, and 100 yards, using PMC Bronze ammo (inexpensive), I managed to eek out, by trying hard, a .625" group.

I had hope for less than 2" at 300 yards with the BlackHills ammo, but maybe my expectations are too high or the wind was more difficult for my novice skills than I thought. ???

Thanks.

- Phil

 

[MontanaMarine]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Sounds pretty good to me, for an AR15.

Mine are just rack-grade, and typically shoot 1.0 - 1.5 moa.

 

[Onemoretime]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

You've got a great shooting rifle. Keep working on it. You'll be hard pressed to find consistent 1/2 moa shooters out to 300 even with a bolt gun.

 

[bill_h]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

that sounds about right. It is a good shooting AR.normally
if you shoot a .625 group at 100yds, then go to 200 you will shoot around a 1.25, 300yds around 2.50 and so on.That is a rule of thumb I have found to be correct.

 

[ChadTRG42]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bill_h</div><div class="ubbcode-body">if you shoot a .625 group at 100yds, then go to 200 you will shoot around a 1.25, 300yds around 2.50 and so on.That is a rule of thumb I have found to be correct. </div></div>
So at 1000 yards that load will shoot a 6.25" group, right? I have found this often to not be the case. 100 yards is the worst distance to tell if a load will shoot well at distance.

Phil, you're groups are sub MOA, which is not bad at all for an AR-15.

 

[ker2222]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Onemoretime</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You've got a great shooting rifle. Keep working on it. You'll be hard pressed to find consistent 1/2 moa shooters out to 300 even with a bolt gun. </div></div>

+1

 

[Rapidrob]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Stiff flag? man that has to be 25 mph, and you still held it together for the groups you shot? Good job!

 

[Phil3]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

I tried shooting off some borrowed rests, since my original post and that did not work at all well. The mag hit the rear leg, so had to reverse the rest, meaning the adjustment for elevation was out in front. The bag did not fit the round forearm well, and the sloped stock did not work with the rear bag. My benchrest friend who was with me, and a good reader of targets, made an observation. That was, that a fair amount of the time, I would shoot two shots with the holes damn near on top of one another, and then one a ways out, and then another two (or three rarely) right on top of one another. He asked me to do an experiment.

With a cold barrel, shoot one round off target, wait some known period of time (I chose 30 seconds), and then put the next round on target, wait another 30 seconds, fire the second shot on target, and then wait 60 seconds before firing the third shot on target. I did, and #3 was a flyer. I was told it is because I let this round sit in the barrel longer and it got hotter, changing its performance. The longer it sits, the hotter it gets (albeit the barrel cooling at the same time). It did seem that whenever I had a feeding problem which threw off my timing, the next shot went off. And this happened a lot (working to fix that). I need to experiment more. I did notice that some benchrest guys will eject a round if it sits in a hot barrel too long. I ejected one of mine after sitting in the barrel a bit, and it is pretty warn, but not 100% convinced. It may be that just waiting longer to shoot takes me out of my concentration.

It appears I have mostly vertical stringing. Not sure what that could be from at 100 yards. When on a bipod, might be due to the rifle hopping a lot? It goes way off target after each shot.

- Phil

 

[Phil3]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Thanks guys for the support. I think I will keep trying to shoot off a bipod, but if anyone has tips or a source for shooting techniques that could help my accuracy, would appreciate it. I am getting reloading equipment now to develop best loads for it.

- Phil

 

[Sig685]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

I think your benchrest friend is playing with your mind. You admitted you are shooting inexpensive factory ammo in an AR-15 and he is showing you tricks that are used by benchrest shooters firing multi-thousand dollar rifles using lovingly handlloaded ammunition with custom bullets for very tiny groups.

Your vertical stringing (provided it's not your shooting,) is due to the ammo; there's a reason it's cheap.

I alsow wanted to ask you, does you AR have a free-float tube?

 

[Mudcat-NC]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Vertical stringing can also be caused by that wicked headwind you were shooting in.

John

 

[Phil3]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Sig685</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think your benchrest friend is playing with your mind. You admitted you are shooting inexpensive factory ammo in an AR-15 and he is showing you tricks that are used by benchrest shooters firing multi-thousand dollar rifles using lovingly handlloaded ammunition with custom bullets for very tiny groups.

Your vertical stringing (provided it's not your shooting,) is due to the ammo; there's a reason it's cheap.

I alsow wanted to ask you, does you AR have a free-float tube? </div></div>

The only "trick" shown me was leaving a round in the gun longer than other rounds. I tried this more than once, and it does shoot differently as was stated. Not so much, if I can string 5 together. Oddly, the cheap ammo has given me my best group. BlackHills has not matched it,, but conditions were different, so can not draw any conclusions.

I'll find out where the vertical stringing is coming from with better ammo (ordering reloading equipment on Black Friday sales).

Yes, the handguard is a JP Rifles free float tube.

- Phil

 

[Sig685]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

I did not mean it as a knock on you, it's just that we are talking about an AR-15 with store-bought ammo compared to a benchrest rifle. At 300 yards the difference induced by the temperature of the ammo is well within the accuracy potential of the rifle/ammo combo.

There are powders that are more sensitive to heat than others but at normal shooting intervals, even the sensitive ones should not experience much of a detectable difference.

Conditions will have a much greater effect on the group than putative cartridge temperature and I understood your initial post to say that you had a stiff headwind the first time and better results in a subsequent trip. As stated earlier, a headwind (or tailwind) will definitely influence the vertical in a group.

Finally, if you are just getting into handloading, let me set your expectation; do not expect to get superlative ammo the first time out, it will take you a while to even get to the level of the inexpensive ammo that you currently use, let alone the good stuff. If you have never handloaded before, it would be good if you could find a factory load or loads that your gun likes and then you could try to duplicate it.

Good luck.

 

[culdee]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

I recently tried some Brown Bear and mil-surp ammo in my Stag model 6 varmint rifle. Off a rest I got better accuracy with the cheap stuff than with remington factory loads. I think this was due to the heavier bullets liking the twist. The 55 grain remington bullets shot all over the place. So I'd stick with one brand for a while and see what groups that will give.

 

[Phil3]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Sig685</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I did not mean it as a knock on you, it's just that we are talking about an AR-15 with store-bought ammo compared to a benchrest rifle. At 300 yards the difference induced by the temperature of the ammo is well within the accuracy potential of the rifle/ammo combo.

There are powders that are more sensitive to heat than others but at normal shooting intervals, even the sensitive ones should not experience much of a detectable difference.

Conditions will have a much greater effect on the group than putative cartridge temperature and I understood your initial post to say that you had a stiff headwind the first time and better results in a subsequent trip. As stated earlier, a headwind (or tailwind) will definitely influence the vertical in a group.

Finally, if you are just getting into handloading, let me set your expectation; do not expect to get superlative ammo the first time out, it will take you a while to even get to the level of the inexpensive ammo that you currently use, let alone the good stuff. If you have never handloaded before, it would be good if you could find a factory load or loads that your gun likes and then you could try to duplicate it.

Good luck.</div></div>

Understood, and no offense taken.

The last time out was just at 100 yards and not much wind at all, but struggled that day. Was not my home range, but not sure how that could affect anything.

I am buying reloading equipment now, and have only reloaded two rounds total in a classroom setting. How would I go about reverse engineering a factory rounds that works well? I would know the make of the case, the weight of the bullet, and even the weight of the charge, and bullet jump, but what about the bullet and powder?

- Phil

 

[Sig685]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Phil3</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Understood, and no offense taken.

The last time out was just at 100 yards and not much wind at all, but struggled that day. Was not my home range, but not sure how that could affect anything.

I am buying reloading equipment now, and have only reloaded two rounds total in a classroom setting. How would I go about reverse engineering a factory rounds that works well? I would know the make of the case, the weight of the bullet, and even the weight of the charge, and bullet jump, but what about the bullet and powder?

- Phil </div></div>

We humans are creatures of habit and we feel more comfortable in our surroundings. Why are home teams considered at an advantage? Because everything is familiar to them, even subconsciously.

You will most probably not be able to positively identify the powder in a factory case, and many times that powder is not available in canisters for handloaders. So don't worry about that. What is more important are the bullet type and weight and the muzzle velocity. (Crap, another tool to buy; the chronograph.)

All .223 factory ammo will be loaded to magazine length of less; so that is easy to measure the COAL and duplicate with the bullet.

So, what you need to do is find out exactly which bullet is used in the factory ammo that shoots well in your rifle and at what velocity it is coming out of your tube. There is a finite number of .224 bullets made and whatever is loaded in that factory round should be available has component or something very similar to it. Your task will be to prepare the cases properly, and find a suitable powder and load that will bring that bullet to the same velocity as the one shot from your rifle's prefered factory ammo. When you get close to it, you can then fine tune it.

 

[nickw]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Phil-
I run a JP rifle and load for it. 1:8, 18" bbl. I drop 26.2gr of H335 in mixed head stamp cases, with a 55gr Nosler Ballistic Tip @ 1.240 oal. Win or CCI primers. (Work up to this load if you decide to try it). I've run this load in multiple rifles (both match and mil-spec) and it has shot extremely well in every rifle. Have shot multiple 1.5" groups at 300 with this load in my JP. I've run this load out to 500 in a pretty stiff full value wind. Group strung horizontal in a 5" spread.

Like you, I tried BH 69gr match and I was not impressed. That said, factory 77gr. BH's and 75gr TAP also shoot lights out.

Hope this helps.
Best,
Nick

 

[Phil3]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Thanks Nick,

I have just purchased a ton of reloading equipment during the post Thanksgiving sales and will be up and running reasonably soon. I will give your load a try, working up to it. It is interesting the BH 69 did not do so well. I had high expectations.

- Phil

 

[The_Punisher]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

This is a new rifle? You may need to get a couple hundred rounds down it before it settles down. You probably need to shoot it a couple hundred rounds before your settle in. What is your cleaning regiment? You may want to adjust that, to let the barrel foul more, esp if your cleaning it evey 20 rounds or so.

 

[AKAce]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

Bed the stock to stop the Vert Stringing ....

I know, it's a damn AR

 

[GCMxVeGeTa]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

I've found that the lighter bullets, like 50-60 grain shoot the best groups at 100 yards, but 68-69 do the best groups at 200, and 75 from there on out. The 75's are Amax's and shoot better groups at 300 than 200...

I dunno, maybe there's some math behind the madness.

Could be that the heavier ones aren't stabilized until further out...

 

[Criver600]

Re: First Time At 300 Yards. Questions

How good are you with a proven rifle and ammunition? AR-15's demand their own style of shooting. If your shooting off bags and they don't slide easily you have "gun handling" problems. I have several, my 16 inch with the collapsable stock will shoot 1/2 inch at 100 yards with a 4 power scope with Federal 69 grain gm match.