Accurate Shooting

C

chipchip

New member
For you Bench Rest shooters:

How many rounds do you put through your rifle before you clean it. Or another way of putting it, how many round will you rifle shoot before it begins to lose accuracy.

How many fowling shots does it take for your rifle to settle in.

How long do you wait between shots for a 5 shot string.

I'm new at this and would appreciate all the info I can get.
 
I don't shoot competitive bench rest, but I do shot off a bench with hunting rifles. I will answer your questions with regards to my rifles.


how many round will you rifle shoot before it begins to lose accuracy.
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One of mine loses accuracy at about 30 to 40 rds, one about a hundred, and another...well I haven't shot it enough times between cleanings to find out.

How many fowling shots does it take for your rifle to settle in
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One takes 2 shots, another takes 3 or 4, another is always pretty close after 1.

How long do you wait between shots for a 5 shot string
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Most of mine need ten minutes between, but they are sporter weight barrels. My varmint weight barrel will shoot good groups with less than 5 minutes between.

You will have to shoot your rifle to see how many shots will do what to your group sizes. Experimenting with different timing, loads, bullets, positions, targets, rests, etc. is all part of the fun. Don't stress too much about these things, they come naturally after a few hundred rounds down the barrel.
 
I start to lose accuracy in my BR rifle...about the 18th round. You should shoot your string fairly rapidly, before the receiver starts to heat up. I prefer 1 fouling shot.
 
I've shot high power match rifles, not benchrest, but they're just as accurate.

How many rounds do you put through your rifle before you clean it. Or another way of putting it, how many round will you rifle shoot before it begins to lose accuracy.

Anywhere from 20 to 80. Some top ranked folks have shot match rifles for a couple hundred rounds and not seen any accuracy problems. Arsenals testing match ammo put a couple hundred rounds through a test barrel in one test; great accuracy.

How many fowling shots does it take for your rifle to settle in?

Zero. Stiff or whippy barrel; makes no difference.

How long do you wait between shots for a 5 shot string.

15 to 30 seconds. Even for a 30-shot string; no accuracy problems.
 
If your barrel doesn't touch nothing with it gets hot AND you face the receiver to make it square with the receiver threads, it shouldn't walk when it gets hot.

You can easily get through a 80-100 shot match without cleaning.

Don't clean if you don't plan on practicing before a match.

How long before accuracy of a barrel before it goes south depends on too many things, each gun is different.

Each barrel is different. On my Super Match M1A I used Barnett barrels, one barrel I only got about 4000 rounds, another 5000 plus. They were the same barrels and loads.

That's why its critical to keep good Data or Score books so you can keep track.
 
15 to 30 seconds. Even for a 30-shot string; no accuracy problems.
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I have a sporter weight barrel and will shoot a 3-5 group in that amount of time also, I have shot many groups under 1" at 100yards doing that.
Barrel doesn't even heat up that much, well not that I'd really know but it just feels warm in my hand and it still groups fine.

If I had to wait 5 minutes between shots I'd give up, the weather here would've changed from sunny to snowing in that amount of time (a slight bit of exaggeration).
 
I see only a slight drop off in accuracy with most of our rifles by the end of the range day, but only slightly. That's about 80-100 rounds, and not competition and it's not enough to make a difference.

Despite common wisdom to the contrary, I remove copper along with the carbon after every range trip (Wipe-Out). Usually only a half-dozen or so foulers- the .308 take a bit more, to get "right".

Every barrel is different. There is no shortcut to experimentation with this, look at it as part of load development. This includes determining when to clean both the carbon and the copper- they need to be looked at independently rather than just "cleaning". Might be that you end up doing both at the same time, but many rifles with high-end barrels will go many hundreds of rounds before they need copper removed. Their throats and rifling are so slick, they just don't cause much jacket material to slough off.
 
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