Group envy

L

lockedcj7

New member
I am not a competitor, sniper, mall ninja, or high-speed-low-drag operator yet I want a one-hole rifle. I was visiting with a friend a few days ago and he was showing me a 1", 10-shot group that he shot with GMM through his SPS tactical. That tears it. I need a rifle that will shoot one ragged hole. I'm thinking a 20" 5R with threaded barrel is what I want.

My two main deer rifles are a 700 Mtn in 7-08 and a 700 ADL in 30-06. They've both had work done and the best I can do with either is 1-2 MOA with my best hand loads.

My rational mind tells me that what I have is good enough. As proof, I've eaten a ton of venison and never missed because of the guns. I've bought several guns this year so I'll need to sell off a few, now I just need to decide if it's worth it.

Anyone else suffer from group envy? How did you deal with it?
 
"...I need a rifle that will..." What's your budget? One MOA accuracy isn't necessary for deer(most shooters dream about a commercial hunting rifle that will consistently shoot 1-2 MOA) but it's usually more about meticulous loading techniques, the quality of the barrel, some shooting skill and a bit of luck. Anyway, some rifles just aren't capable of it. Have a .243 I've gussied up with a trigger job and glass bedding(black phosphated it too) that won't shoot better than 2 or 3 inches. But it'll do it all day, every day.
"...I've eaten a ton of venison and never missed..." That says everything that needs saying.
You buddy got lucky with an entry level hunting rifle like an SPS. Shooting one such group doesn't count either.
However, "I want one." is the best reason to buy another rifle. Just don't expect a repeat of your buddy's luck.
"...a 700 Mtn..." Whippy barrel made to be light for carrying up and down hills.
The ADL might with the right ammo. Probably will with IMR4064 and match grade bullets(that are not suited for hunting deer). Might get close with IMR4064 and 165 grain hunting bullets.
 
I think we all like small groups.
It's not necessary for anything but long range varminting and paper competition, but it makes us feel good.

I have an 8MM Mauser that shoots under 1/2 MOA, and a 375H&H that keeps 4 rounds into 3/4 MOA. I also have a 270 that shoots between 5/8" and 1/2 with my favorite hunting loads.
None of these rifles have a purpose that requires that kind of accuracy, but I like it anyway. It's just fun to do.

I never try to talk someone out of playing the small-group game as long as they understand it's mostly a game.

I had to talk a bit of sense to a friend just last September who wanted to come out to hunt antelope with me. He was so frustrated that he could not get his 7-08 to shoot under 1-1/4". It was spoiling his fun.

I had to tell him that 1-1/4" was more than enough for hunting. As it was he killed his 2 antelope at 250 yards and at 130 yards.

A 1.25 MOA group is good enough with a 7-08 to kill deer and antelope out to about 700 yards.

700 yards is farther than he can make kills with any certainty. So if the gun shot 1/2 MOA instead of 1.25 MOA it would really not matter on an antelope to him.

I love the game too, and I like to help others get high degrees of accuracy from their rifles. But I think it is important to keep it fun, and when it becomes an "idol" to us it spoils the fun for hunting. Don't let that happen.

In some cases hunters find a 1/2 MOA load with a very poor game bullet and they have bad things happen when they shoot an animal with it. It's far better to have 1.5 MOA with good killing bullets than 1/4 MOA with poor ones.

It's about hunting, not shooting. If shooting is the game and groups are the score card, you are more honorable and more intelligent to shoot paper or gongs with target bullets and show your skills to other shooters that way.

But when hunting season comes, get out your game bullets and HUNT! That means being a skilled hunter who can shoot from ranges that are ethical for the game. Deer and elk are not enemies and deserve our respect.
A risk of wounding game to "try it" so we can brag later is not good for anyone, and is the kind of thing the "anti's" love to point out. It's also hard of the deer or elk heard because we kill game that we don't bring home.

But back to the topic.
You say you had "work done' on your 2 rifles.
What kind of work?
I can probably give you some tips on things to check. If the check list is gone over and the rifle has all the finer points of bedding, trigger adjustments, bore cleaning and lapping done, and the scope and mount are good it's probably nothing more then load development.
You can have a super accurate rifle and it still will shoot what it likes better than what it doesn't like. Even the best group shooters on earth have to go through the process of load development, so that's just what the game is about.

If you have not yet tried them, here are some loads I have used in the past that have been super good in different rifles.

30-06:
165 Gr Hornady flat base bullet (inner-lock)
Matched brass, same lot. Uniformed in length.
CCI BR Primer
52 Gr H414

30-06
180 gr Sierra Match King
60.3 gr RL22
Matched brass, same lot. Uniformed in length.
CCI BR primer

30-06
155 Gr Sierra Palma bullet 155 gr
59.6 H4831 SC (this one is right out of their book and it worked great)
or 57,3 gr RL19
Matched brass, same lot. Uniformed in length.
CCI BR Primer

In 7-08 try these
150 grain Sierra match King or 150 gr. Nosler Accu-Bond.
Remington Brass, uniformed and of the same lot.
37.8 Gr RL15
CCI BR primer
As a side note, Nosler recommends 45 gr of H-380, but I have not tested it myself.


7-08
140 gr Nosler Accu-Bond or 140 gr flat base Sierra.
Same brass as above.
Same primer.
39.4 Gr RL15
This is the load I use to test rifles I work on most of the time.


My friend Don is an avid 7-08 man, and he recommends a 175 Gr Sierra Match King with 37.6 or RL15 and the same weight of Nosler Partition for hunting. His groups are very tight with the matchkings and "only" about MOA with the Partitions, but the elk he's killed with the partitions didn't seem to care that the bullet may have "missed" by 3/8" or so.

Hopefully these will be helpful to you
 
Back in the '60s my dad bought a Smith & Wesson branded Husqvarna 1640 30 06. If you're not familiar with that model, it's a mauser type of the "improved" style (like Win m70). It was his only deer rifle ever. I killed my first deer with it and still use it now. It never grouped better than 1 1/2 +-, but it always (if the shooter did his part) put the first shot close to zero an accounted for many deer over the years.

About a year ago I replaced the trigger with a Huber and low and behold, groups improved somewhat.

Then more recently after assessing my stock of Winchester Fail Safe ammo (low), I worked up a load using Sierra's Pro Hunter bullets. I was astonished to turn in group after group that ranged between 4/10 ths and 7/10 ths. Crap! I could have done this years ago but just made do instead.

The lesson learned I already knew... some guns are just picky eaters. They want their own food.
 
Sometimes it's the "cheap" rifles that surprise us the most. I have a short barrelled Rem 700 ADL synthetic 270 with a 100 dollar Redhead 3x9x40 that will readily shoot sub-MOA with my handloads of 130gr SST's sitting on a healthy but not max charge of IMR4350... The little rifle that could.. It aint pretty, it aint sophisticated, but dang how it shoots! :)
 
A few years ago I wanted a highly accurate bolt gun in 260. Didn't need it. Just wanted it. But...at the time, Tikka (my rifle choice) offered the T3 Lite Stainless in a 20 inch barrel, but not in 260. A guy offered to build me one, though it wasn't cheap, and I went for it. My 260 has a 20 inch #4 contour Brux barrel and is extremely accurate. And it shoots 100 gr and 120 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips into the same small group. I really really am happy with the rifle. It shoots into what I'll call 'one ragged hole' if I'm on my game.

If the OP wants a one hole shooting rifle, he should get one. And I can recommend the guy that provided my Tikka, if he wants the name and number. Not cheap, but less than $2000.
 
What do you want? Do you want another hunting rifle which is pretty accurate (suitable for deer hunting) or do you want a rifle like a serious bench rest rifle that will put 6mm bullets through the same hole at 100 or 200 yards?

I have a .223 Remington and a .308 Winchester both bolt guns built off of Remington 700 actions and both shoot sub MOA without a problem and while not my choices for hunting would fit the ticket well. I simply never had the need for sub MOA in a hunting rifle.

My serious target one hole rifle is a 6mm PPC which requires fire forming my brass starting with 220 Russian (Lapua preferred) brass. Strictly a bench rest rifle which I custom built. You want a serious bench rest single hole rifle then I would look towards a Stolle type action from a rifle maker like Kelbly's Rifles, North Lawrence, Ohio. They also have a good range of reasonably priced bench rest rifles in assorted calibers other than the Stolle action and 6mm PPC chambering.

Ron
 
1/4" 5+ groups is no easy task. 3 shots, no problem with a good rifle but not indicate of much. One ragged hole could be .5 or 1" depending on caliber and number of shots. You not only need a rifle, but good ammo and the skill. I think most any rifle with the proper work can be 1/2 Moa. Need a natch grade barrel ($6-700), likely a bedding job ($125-250) and maybe a trigger job depending on the rifle. As long as it's a caliber known for food accuracy (223, 308, many others) 1/2 mow should be fairly easy w good ammo and a good shooter.

I'd look at some of the savages in 223 or 308.

Fwiw I have a stag 6 which out of the box is 1/2moa. Whole rifle can be had for 1k. Kind of hard to beat imo.
 
My 5r mil spec does some eye bugging groups completely stock. I wouldn't say 1 hole groups yet but the gun has potential
 
A few years ago, I aquired my first actual bench rest rifle, and began the journey toward those "one hole groups".

Along with the search for the perfect bullet, powder, seating depth, neck tension, blah blah blah--- I somewhere along the way realized that my own benchrest shooting technique was improving my groups as much as my load development.

I've got a hunch that a lot of guys are toting around rifles that are capable of that one ragged hole, but will never know it until they get serious about their bench rest equipment and technique. jd
 
I bought a $200 used marlin .17 hmr, put a 4-12x redfield revolution on it and at 100 yards I can put 5 rounds into a space entirely covered by a dime on a calm day with 17 grain v-max from hornady, using a bi-pod shooting prone if I do my part. Got lucky with this rifle, but I've been shooting accurately since I was a child.

If I ever had 4-5k to drop on a hammer of a rifle, I'd look at Accurate Ordnance. They routinely build rifles that produce groups in the 0.1"-0.19" range at 100 yards with high quality factory ammo and handloads with a competent shooter behind them. They make a rifle more accurate than most people are capable of squeezing out of them. They went out shooting with someone that had bought one but was only getting about 1 moa, handed the rifle over to one of their shooters, and they shot a group in the teens with the same factory hornady ammo. The best thing about a precision rifle is that you can't blame the rifle for missing, it's all about the shooter and the ammo.
 
Perhaps I should clarify...

I can't really use a 20-40 lb benchrest rifle, regardless of how small the groups are, I would just never use it. Nor do I want to spend 4K or more for a custom rifle. It's not the money exactly, it just seems like an extravagance that I don't need and I'd rather use the money on other things.

I could easily justify $1200 for a very good shooter. What I should do is spend some serious time shooing what I have.
 
I can't really use a 20-40 lb benchrest rifle, regardless of how small the groups are, I would just never use it. Nor do I want to spend 4K or more for a custom rifle.
Click to expand...

I felt and still feel the same way. I just happened to get lucky when the perfect rifle for me showed up in my world. It's a stubby little 20" barrel, Rem 40XBR, designed for the Light Varmint catagory. Weighs in at just around 10 lbs without a scope. Cartridge - 22 Rem BR. It's scoped with a fixed 24X Leupold BR , and the whole package is mid 70's vintage. It's like new, and at 700 bucks, I almost feel guilty --- but not quite. :p

If I hadn't have stumbled onto this little sweetheart, I was prepared to send off my old and considerably worn out 222 ADL for a quality varmint weight barrel and trued action.

I'm a tight-wad, and kinda whimpy about recoil, so I never wanted to make a "bragging group" rifle with a cartridge that burns 60 grains of powder or more to fling a moose killer of a bullet through a paper target. So for my money, the 22's or 6mm's are about all I care to mess with.

I'm shooting pretty consistently in the .3's with the set up I've got. No real benchrester would brag about that, but it makes me pretty happy. I haven't shot an honest five shot group less than .3" yet, but I will, and I pretty much know what I've gotta do to get it. jd
 
As a hunter I want a rifle that will place 3 shots into 1" at 100 yards. If it does a little better then that is just for bragging; and I don't give a darn how it shoots for 5 or more shots. That is completely irrelevant to my needs. If the rifle is capable of keeping 3 shots inside 1" at 100 yards; any game animal I miss inside of 600 yards can't be blamed on poor rifle accuracy. Shooting from field positions encountered when hunting a rifle that will put 5 shots inside 1/2" won't shoot a bit more accurately than one that will put 3 shots inside 1". We don't usually carry shooting benches into the woods and fields.

The 1-2" groups you claim are still adequate for all but the longest range situations. But there is no reason why the 2 rifles you have shouldn't be able to keep 3 shots inside 1". You may need to have some tweaking done to the rifles or your loads. The optics may be limiting you, or you may just need more shooting skill.

You can buy or put together a rifle that will do what you want. But most of those become to heavy and unwieldy to be useful as a hunting rifle.
 
Assuming the marksmanship fundamentals are there, the "One Hole Group" isn't so much about the rifle as it is the ammo.

Its how you put your case together. First it's case prep, followed by getting the case seated straight in the neck of the case.

Much has been written about the subject so I wont fill the screen with repetition.

Best two sources on the Subject (can be found on the internet):

SECRETS OF THE HUSTON WAREHOUSE

https://precisionrifle.files.wordpr...-shooting-magazine-special-edition-1-1993.pdf

Dr. Mann: BULLETS FLIGHT FROM POWDER TO TARGET (book form)

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Bullet_s_Flight_from_Powder_to_Targe.html?id=QdQqAAAAYAAJ

Like I said. Its ammo prep more then the rifle.

An example, I bought my wife a Ruger Precision Rifle, in 6.5 CM. I was so impressed with the Creedmoor bullet I bought a Ruger American Predator in 6.5 for a light weight antelope gun.

Got the rifle, played with a bit. Loaded Horn. Cases, with 41.7 gr of Win 760. Win LRP, and 142 gr Nosler Accrabond bullets. Seemed to work.

I paid less the $400 for the rifle another $225 for a vortex crossfire scope.

I took this picture of a target, granted only 3 rounds at 100 yard but only shot it to confirm my zero before setting off antelope hunting.

Not one hole (that doesn't exist) but a half inch from a cheap rifle/scope combo.

DSCN0268.JPG


As I hinted above the "one hole group" doesn't exist as shown by the two sources mentioned above.

Re: Dr Mann, he developed the "Mann Device" This is an accuracy device the Army uses to test ammo. The Mann Device is basically a short heavy super accurate barrel and an action. Its laid in V blocks and pointed toward the target. The device is fired remotely and after recoil, falls back into the bottom of the V for the next shot. Its not sighted in to hit a given point, but only used to shoot groups.

The Army uses a variety of barrels but used the M1903A3 action. To my knowledge the 'O3A3 action was used for the 308, '06, 45 ACP, 30 Cal Carbine and 22 Hornet (there may be others).

The 5.56 used the Remington Action and different barrels, Mine (I obtained from the CMP) uses a Kart Barrel.

5.56 Mann

1%20_2_.jpg


Mann in 45 ACP

45%20cal%20mann%20device.jpg


Using the Mann

case_71_Mann_barrel_shooting8x10JPE.jpg


I put a modified stock on my Mann, to assist me in using it for testing my 223 Ammo.

Mann%20in%20stock.JPG


Some people get exotic in modifying and using their Mann (This one using the M1903A3 Action.

Stolen%20Mann.jpg


I, like others don't believe the "one hole" exist, but its a heck of a lot of fun to try and find it, and it will also take a lot of work.
 
Still thinking about that "A 1" 10 shot group" part.

On the one hand, a ten shot group is statistically about 30% tougher than a 5 shot group, which is why shooters and advertisers have mostly quit doing it.

On the other hand, if that is his single best target, it does not really prove much.

On the gripping hand, if you want to strive for small groups, that is a reasonable hobby.
 
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