It's one thing to fire groups, and firing for group size is fine, but many rifles will put the first bullet our of a cold, clean barrel into one spot and the remaining bullets in another spot. I know both of my Savage hunting rifles will do that. It's a confidence builder to know where that first bullet is going, and I found out.
They both shot 1" high at 100 yards, both the .30-06 and the .243, just a tad right of center. Here's the .30-06. Just for the record, both of those targets are 2" dots, 100 yards from the muzzle.
That's a 168 grain bullet traveling something over 2800 fps. According to my ballistic program I'll stay withing 3" of the aiming point out to 300 yards, and I'll not pull the trigger on any game animal past 300 yards.
And here's the .243.
On both rifles, the next three shots went into the lower left of the target dot. The .30-06 turned in the best three shot group it's ever shot, at 0.539". These rifles are being cleaned as I type paragraphs and they'll be put away and ready for the hunting season.
2 comments:
Excellent points! Cold shots are almost always going to be 'flyers' compared to follow on shots. As the barrel fouls, that changes everything.
The problem with that is that the barrel is only clean the first shot. I have rifles that will shoot great groups cleaned between shots or after a fouling shot. Thing is: they don't always group in the same place.
I foul the bore of my hunting rifles,zero, and shoot all season in that condition unless forced to clean by circumstance. That way I have consistency through the season. If I take a shot at a coyote on opening morning, I don't have to clean for the deer I see 2 hours later.
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