Long range shooting and "accuracy" getting better with distance?

[masan]

Bryan Litz says otherwise and he has publicly offered to pay the plane-fare for anyone willing to travel to his shooting range and prove that to be true. So far, not one single person has taken him up on his offer. So here's here your chance to prove him wrong.

I am well aware of Bryan's testing in regards to non linear dispersion. I have signed copies of all of his books because I think that his work is incredibly valuable.

I do not own any rifles that exhibit non linear dispersion. I did not claim that and as such lack the neccessary tool to accept Bryans challenge.

What I will say is that I have personally experienced many 1000 yard benchrest competitors with rifles that shoot poorly (think .75 moa) at 100 yards, but consistently shoot the same rifle/load at 600 in the .4 range, and in the .5-.6 range at 1000. Seemed like an appropriate way of answering Euros question.

My own short range benchrest rifle (100,200,300) will shoot results that mimic the Benchrest Results that Bryan used from one of the Supershoots (at least if I am not having a shitty day). As that rifle is not used to compete at ranges past 300 I have not had reason to shoot it farther.

There is no question that this phenomenon is at least perceived to exist. I have been following his (Bryan) threads on sites like longrangehunting in regards to this matter because I am excited to see the eventual conclusion.

As of this point I still believe that the point at which a bullet achieves its greatest stability during its flight directly affects its ability to "buck the wind". There is always air moving between your muzzle and the target, and depending on that distance, the part of a bullets flight where it is least stable will have the greatest affect on its ultimate trajectory.

Does this ideally explain the idea of non linear trajectories? No, not really. At least not to me.

That said, something, somewhere, has caused some rifles to group better at long range than they do at short range. If it were just something I had heard then I would discount the phenomenon. That I have seen it in person, from skilled shooters, leads me to believe that something is causing it. The current thinking is that it is in regards to "the bullet going to sleep" and I answered Euro as such.

It may not be the bullet/rifle/load at all. It could ultimately be a mental issue, as was one of the more prevalent ideas offered up in this regard.

[markm]

The 175g BTHP seems to perform better than the 168g BTHP past 800 yards.

That's something different. The 175s have a different angle on the boat tail, and will go trans-sonic much better. I've shot 168s that scatter anywhere in a 10 yard radius at 1000 yards.... they just (in my gun) fan out like crazy after losing super sonic velocity.

[T2C]

I am well aware of Bryan's testing in regards to non linear dispersion. I have signed copies of all of his books because I think that his work is incredibly valuable.

That said, something, somewhere, has caused some rifles to group better at long range than they do at short range. If it were just something I had heard then I would discount the phenomenon. That I have seen it in person, from skilled shooters, leads me to believe that something is causing it. The current thinking is that it is in regards to "the bullet going to sleep" and I answered Euro as such.

It may not be the bullet/rifle/load at all. It could ultimately be a mental issue, as was one of the more prevalent ideas offered up in this regard.

That is a possibility in some cases, but I don't believe in all cases. I observed the phenomenon, then asked experienced shooters why the Federal 175g BTHP Match shot 1-1/4" at 100 yards, then shot sub 2" groups at 300 yards. I would have guessed my 300 yard groups would be closer to 4", but that was not the case. I was still learning and had no preconceived ideas about the phenomenon. I made the observation, then afterward was told the bullet had not traveled enough at 100 yards to "go to sleep".

You being a Bench Rest shooter has my attention. Most of what I have learned to date is from experienced F Class shooters and a few Bench Rest shooters. If there is another explanation, I would love to hear it.

[masan]

I feel like I am doing a poor job of explaining myself well. Something is getting lost between my brain and my keyboard.

Like I said before, I have been following Bryan Litz's work regarding non linear dispersion since 2014 when he first started bringing his findings and challenge to the attention of shooters.

Prior to that, I had "drank the coolaid" that non linear dispersion was the result of certain bullet profiles which performed better at either short or long range. I was going off of the evidence that I had at my disposal. Every short range benchrest shooter I knew was using hand swaged flat base bullets made by a handful of dedicated benchrest bullet makers. The long range benchrest shooters were using hand swaged boat tail bullets from dedicated long range benchrest bullet makers.

The big difference, flat base versus boat tail. The general thinking, which seemed to be apparent on the target, was that the flat base bullets shot inside the boat tails at short range (100,200,300) and that the boat tails smoked the flat bases beyond that. Nothing really surprising there.

So where did I and a lot of others get experiences of non linear dispersion? Mostly when the long range shooters would work up a load at 100 before taking it out to range for tuning. As in getting it on paper. They would shoot at 100, get a sub moa group and proceed to run the gun out to 600 for tuning. Once in a while, someone would report that at 600 the load (unchanged from 100) was so close to tuned already that they were only waiting for match day to fine tune it to conditions.

This is where I personally have witnessed non linear dispersion. Please bear in mind, mos shooters in BR load at matches. Most use a handful of powder measures, 3-4 different brands, all set up the same way. So if someone today started shooting a 30BR and wanted to know what powder charge was best, every 30BR shooter would be able to give an answer that would get the new shooter damn close to tuned, usually withing one to one half number (the measures are numbered for reference, not grains).

So if Joe Shmoe builds a new Dasher for 1000 yard, works up a load based off of what all the other Dasher shooters are using, tests at 100, gets a sub moa group, runs out to 600 and shoots a smaller sub moa group, then you have the most common (in my experience) instance of non linear dispersion. This is where I have understood the idea of "the bullet going to sleep" to be from. It does not matter that the load is not perfectly tuned for match day, nor that it is a load from others that performs at range. Ultimately, what matters is that at 100 yards, said load shot a sub moa group that was larger than the sub moa group shot at 600 with the same load.

After reading Bryan Litz's work regarding non linear dispersion, I began to wonder whether or not it was the bullet causing this. There is no doubt that non linear dispersion happens. There is, however, doubt in my mind that it is the bullet.

It could be the shooter having a mental conditioning to try harder at range versus merely getting on paper at 100. It could be the parallax adjustment on the shooters glass. I just don't know.

While I am no longer completely sold on the idea of "bullets going to sleep" I do believe that non linear dispersion is a real thing.

My first post in this thread was an attempt to provide a simple answer to the OP in regards to what he had heard. I think it is fantastic that we have gotten deeper into this, as it is always an issue that floats around in the back of my mind.

[rjacobs]

I honestly thought the old guys were just crazy old guys.

Never trust a 90 year old man on a skeet range with a 28gauge...

[T2C]

Thank you masan. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot. I shot iron sight rifles for over 35 years and started shooting scoped rifles about 10 years ago when the eyesight really started going south. Bench rest shooters are a good resource for anyone who is trying to gather data on selection of reloading components, reloading and ballistics to get that extra edge when shooting both iron sight and scoped rifles competitively. I used some of what I learned about reloading from Bench Rest shooters when loading match ammunition for shooting High Power.

I think shooting scoped rifles reveals that the tiny details matter when selecting bullet weight, profile, etc. There is no substitute for experience and it sounds like you are hands on.

[rjacobs]

This thread made me think of something and I am wondering if Molon might chime in at some point(probably not).

His testing is generally done at 100 yards. I believe his 223/556 control round is generally the 52g SMK, which I believe is a flat base bullet vs. all the other SMK bullets which are boat tail. I wonder if it being flat based gives it the accuracy edge at 100 yards where it might become gyroscopic-ally stable before a boat tail bullet would? The flat based bullets should have a different center of gravity than a boat tail and thus fly a little differently or lose their wobble faster, but not hold that same stability to distance.

[Horned Toad]

IIRC “going to sleep” is when the bullet transitions from spinning on its geometric center while in the barrel to spinning on its center of gravity in flight. I would think that as the quality of bullets has consistently gotten better over the years, this would appear less. I would also think, the heavier the bullet, the longer this would take. I would bet that only your precision shooter would be the ones that might see this.

[masan]

Thank you masan. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot.

No worries! I just wanted to make sure that I was giving the most accurate summation of my own experience.

[Molon]

This thread made me think of something and I am wondering if Molon might chime in at some point(probably not).

His testing is generally done at 100 yards. I believe his 223/556 control round is generally the 52g SMK, which I believe is a flat base bullet vs. all the other SMK bullets which are boat tail.

The Sierra 52 grain MatchKing does have a boat-tail. The Sierra 55 grain BlitzKing that I often use for a control load also has a boat-tail.

. . . it might become gyroscopic-ally stable before a boat tail bullet would?

A bullet that is fired from a barrel that has a twist rate that gives the bullet a gyroscopic stability factor greater than 1.0 is gyroscopically stabilized the instant that it leaves the barrel.

Long/heavy boat-tail bullets can shoot just fine at a distance of 100 yards.
















































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