Sunday morning

I got a lot of shooting done yesterday. I'm writing an article for The Frugal Outdoorsman and part of that article is on load development. To write about load development, you have to load a bunch of ammo, and shoot it, and record the results. The process is interesting. I learned a couple of things yesterday. Work is work, no matter where it takes place. As much as I like shooting, recording that much information was work.

Gun writers are full of crap. I see a lot of articles telling us that a certain load, a certain gun, shot a bunch of ammo, and the group size is at or under an inch. I've been shooting for a lot of years, and I will hold my marksmanship against any amateur shooter. I'm a little bit better than average, and my group size shows it. Using hunting rifles, off sandbags, my group size runs about three inches while I am developing loads. Some better, some worse, but that is what ammo development is all about; finding what works. You'll never see a three inch group in a gun magazine. All magazine guns shoot into minute of angle. Bullshit.

Yesterday I had exactly one load shoot into MOA. The rest stayed out at the two inch mark. That ain't bad for an out-the-box, un-tweaked hunting rifle. It's about what you can expect. That one, really great load I tested, fired four shots into one ragged hole at 100yards, measuring under a half inch. The fifth shot opened it up to nine/tenths. Was that load a fluke? Did some weird probability curve shove all those bullets into that same hole? Or, is this a load that the rifle really likes? Only more testing will tell, but you can believe I have that load written down.

The really interesting thing was the composite target I made. A composite target is easy to make, simply staple two targets to the backing, one superimposed over the other. When you change targets to assess another load, staple the new target directly over the first. All of the shots will pass through both targets and at the end of the day you have a record of every shot fired. This particular rifle put all of the shots, with six different loads, three different bullets, two different powders, into a large, composite group that measures 4" X 4" for 30 shots fired.

The rifle tested is a hunting rifle. It isn't a bench gun. No tweaking, no trigger job. All I did was tighten all the screws and start banging away. It put every shot into a group smaller than the target zone on a deer, or coyote. That's what it is designed to do.

Finding a load that shoots into MOA with any rifle is work. Gun writing is work.

But, on average, it beats the hell out of whatever is in second place.