Is it Easier to Shoot Sub MOA Further Out?

[Airik Farley]

I've noticed that it seems easier to shoot sub MOA the further out I move the target. Is that normal, why is that? I understand that 1MOA @ 100y is 1 inch and at 300y it's 3 inches, but I don't feel like that should make it 3x easier since it's 3x as far. My expectations were that the difficultly would scale linearly with distance.

I only have access to a range that goes out to 300 yards but I've noticed that I struggle to shoot sub MOA at 100 yards, I normally average about 1-1.25 MOA at 100 yards. However when I move out to 300 yards I consistently shoot well under 1 MOA. On average I tend to shoot around 0.3 - 0.5 MOA at 300. Tonight I somehow shot a 0.16 MOA 3 round group at 300y with gusting winds which absolutely blows my mind. I doubt I'll ever achieve that again.

I'm shooting with Horney ELD-M 6.5 Creedmoor FYI.

 

[OREGUN]

It should be “harder”, in that there are more variables involved (or more time for the various variables to act on your shot). You may be noticing a positive effect of having less magnification causing apparent movement of the reticle. Same reason some people seem to shoot better if they “zoom out” with their scope. Or, the shooting position might be up or down a little making the angle more comfortable or consistent which is allowing you to be more consistent shot to shot. If the gun is shooting that small at 300, it will shoot that small at 100 but you are doing something different.

 

[Macht]

One of the Litz books has a study on this. Going purely off memory here, I believe they used shoot-thru targets to print the same group at 100 and 300, while arranging it so either a 100 yard or 300 yard aim point could be used. If I recall correctly the result was basically "aim small, miss small" where the groups were tighter at both distances when using the 300 yard aim point.

 

[Gunfighter14e2]

I have seen that and most every time its either been a parallax issue, or its a bullet base transition to bearing body vs that rifles crown issue.
Should the transition not be perfect and the crown the same the gas gives the bullet a slight yaw, at the muzzle. Then it takes a few 100's of a second. for rotational spin to counter act that.
Different bullets or sometimes different lot numbers of same cures it or same bullets in another gun. The crown will tell you if its happening as you will see more gas markings on one side than another. However you will need high magnification to see the diff, as the naked eye will not detect it.

edit for fat fingering spelling

 

[Old Man with Gun]

No

 

[hlee]

Shoot a 5x5 at 100 and at 300, then report back…

 

[mark5pt56]

Shoot a 5x5 at 100 and at 300, then report back…

This, I've seen folks shoot a single 600 yard group tighter than a 100 yard one-funny what happened when they tried a second time.