Improvement through load development

[Steelshooter842]

Say a rifle shoots 2.5 MOA groups at 100 yards using standard green box Remington ammo. Is it possible to get this rifle to shoot .5 MOA groups at a 100 yards by playing with powder, bullets seating depth etc.
2.5 MOA to 1.5 MOA yes, I can get that but in my experience if a rifle is accurate it shoots everything fairly well. Just looking for opinions.
Thanks

 

[Rio Precision Gunworks]

You're going to get a myriad of opinions, but yes, we have seen rifles shoot 2.5-3moa with some factory ammo and shoot .5moa with better ammo or custom ammo.

 

[spife7980]

Yeah, my sisters ruger american 6.5 creed. With the box ammo academy had on the shelf when it was bought it was a typical minute of deer rifle.
Did a light load dev on some virgin brass and they are all nice and tight now and shes taken it out to 800, its a pretty respectable shooting little factory rifle. Im interested to see how well I can make it do now that brass is formed over larger sample sizes.

 

[Steelshooter842]

You're going to get a myriad of opinions, but yes, we have seen rifles shoot 2.5-3moa with some factory ammo and shoot .5moa with better ammo or custom ammo.

Thats what I was wondering, thanks

 

[Fig]

There is no question that by playing with the bullet, powder/load, and the jump you can make a fair to middlin' rifle shoot much more precisely.

 

[Rio Precision Gunworks]

Thats what I was wondering, thanks

I typically just go into load development with an open mind, however, after using known quality bullets, brass, powder, etc, etc......if it doesn't starting showing improvement pretty fast, I'd trash barrel.

Unless its something off the wall, with modern quality components, you shouldn't have to chase your tail to get a rifle to shoot fairly well.

 

[alamo5000]

Say a rifle shoots 2.5 MOA groups at 100 yards using standard green box Remington ammo. Is it possible to get this rifle to shoot .5 MOA groups at a 100 yards by playing with powder, bullets seating depth etc.
2.5 MOA to 1.5 MOA yes, I can get that but in my experience if a rifle is accurate it shoots everything fairly well. Just looking for opinions.
Thanks

I've done it the other way around for sure. I have a rifle that I developed loads for that can shoot 10 shot groups between.5 and.75 MOA.

I took some people shooting though and they brought some of the cheapest ammo they could find. It was the thought that counts I guess.

It shot 2 to 3 inch groups all day long with that ammo.

Went home, cleaned everything and it went right back to where it was before with my ammo.

 

[912173]

Last winter I experimented with a late 80's mini-14 that I had kicking around to see how much of the notorious accuracy problem was bedding, overgassing, ammo, etc.

This is m193 ball at 100yds after bedding the shit out of everything I could, reducing gas as much as possible for function, and using a burris xtr2 2-10x I had laying around.

This is everything the same but I meticulously reloaded the same brass with varget and 52gr smk bullets. Me and the range officer had a good laugh at it because it's way too good for a mini. Even when I turned the gas off, it still needed very consistent ammo or it would string shots everywhere. Seems pointless to do to a mini, but it's the best example I've seen of why we do the things we do to rifles when chasing accuracy.

 

[Fig]

That is far and away the best group I've ever seen from one of those abortions.

 

[912173]

They are probably the most disappointing rifles ever made because they look cool and are fun but damn they suck. You'll notice it still does the same stringing only smaller