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

[Bimmer]

I'm not trying to bait you (Masan) or beat you up. I'm just presenting my read here...

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...

I can think of a dozen reason why this would happen. None of them involve the bullet "going to sleep."

I do believe that non linear dispersion is a real thing.

It could ultimately be a mental issue...

Bingo. It's "real" like transubstantiation. (Look it up.) People believe it. People have "experienced" it. But there's no empirical evidence for it.

[T2C]

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.

I don't know about flat based .223 bullets, but a local shooter has had a great deal of success with .30 caliber flat based bullets at 600 yards. He shoots sub MOA groups at 600 yards with 110g and 125g bullets with great regularity.

[taliv]

I believe in most cases it is "aim small miss small". People areoften shooting smaller targets or better targets at distance.
Or people have the diopter and parallax on their scope set wrong which I'd guess is probably 75% of shooters, even "good" ones. (Scopes are more sensitive to parallax at closer ranges)

[rjacobs]

One thing that i know is an issue, a mental issue, is at close ranges ~100 yards, and guys are shooting groups they have scopes dialed to max magnification and you can see an ant on the target. You throw in the natural movements of the gun due to breathing, heart beat, etc... that are amplified and peoples attempt to pull the trigger in the exact same 1mm x 1mm POA every time as the cross hairs move around the target leads to pulled shots, yanked triggers, etc... causing less than great accuracy.

Move out to 500 yards and you now cant see the ant on the target as your aim point so you relax quite a bit, focus more on the shooting fundamentals(away from breaking the shot on your 1mm x 1mm POA) and you magically shoot tighter...

I have to generally purposely not dial scopes to max at 100 yards in order to avoid this and have shot some of my better groups at 100 using low power(6x in my case on my long range precision guns 6-24). I focus more on fundamentals vs. anticipating the cross hairs and trying to break the shot just right.

[masan]

I'm not trying to bait you (Masan) or beat you up. I'm just presenting my read here...




I can think of a dozen reason why this would happen. None of them involve the bullet "going to sleep."

No worries.

I agree that there are many reasons for for what I am describing. In most cases, at least the ones I am referencing, the shooter is very skilled. It is definitely a possibility that they and I are all assuming that the shooter is treating the 100 yard target the same as the 600. May not be the case.

[masan]

deleted for double post

[masan]

One thing that i know is an issue, a mental issue, is at close ranges ~100 yards, and guys are shooting groups they have scopes dialed to max magnification and you can see an ant on the target. You throw in the natural movements of the gun due to breathing, heart beat, etc... that are amplified and peoples attempt to pull the trigger in the exact same 1mm x 1mm POA every time as the cross hairs move around the target leads to pulled shots, yanked triggers, etc... causing less than great accuracy.

Move out to 500 yards and you now cant see the ant on the target as your aim point so you relax quite a bit, focus more on the shooting fundamentals(away from breaking the shot on your 1mm x 1mm POA) and you magically shoot tighter...

I have to generally purposely not dial scopes to max at 100 yards in order to avoid this and have shot some of my better groups at 100 using low power(6x in my case on my long range precision guns 6-24). I focus more on fundamentals vs. anticipating the cross hairs and trying to break the shot just right.

For 99.9% of rifles/shooters, this is very true.

In the cases I am referring to, for Benchrest shooters, this actually is very unlikely. Outside of hunter class which is imited to 6x scopes, everyone uses 36 power or up, all shooting is free recoil. This means that the rifle is not touched, with the exception of the trigger, during the firing process, in an effort to remove all possible influence on the rifle.

I know that this is not a benchrest oriented sight, and outside of this thread I have respected that, but here I feel it is the best way to get my idea across. Hopefully that is not rubbing anyone the wrong way!

[rjacobs]

In the cases I am referring to, for Benchrest shooters, all shooting is free recoil. This means that the rifle is not touched, with the exception of the trigger, during the firing process, in an effort to remove all possible influence on the rifle.

Please dont take offense to this, but WTF...

How is that even "fun"?

I mean, to each their own and what not.

Sorry, thread drift...back on track to sleeping bullets and gyroscopic stability and yaw axis and shock waves...

[T2C]

I went to the range this morning and shot the bolt gun with the Nightforce scope. It was a humid, zero wind day. I took extra care to adjust the parallax properly and place my head in the same spot on the stock at 100, 200 and 300 yards. I fired Federal 175g Match using a bipod and bean bag. I clean the barrel every 200 rounds and the log book indicates 60 rounds were fired since the last cleaning.

There was zero wind and no direct sunlight to cast shadows on the targets. My 100 yard group was 1-3/8", the 200 yard group was 1-7/8" and the 300 yard group was 2-5/8". I could have been better with bipod preload, but I definitely could have been worse.

As I was packing up to leave, a Bench Rest shooter arrived and I asked him to fire 5 round groups at each distance using his bench rest equipment. He used some rig mounted to a board that he anchors to a concrete bench with sandbags. The rest had elevation wheels and levels on it and he spent a lot of time preparing to shoot each group. He had several wind flags set up and a laptop computer he referred to every few minutes. I looked over his shoulder several times to see if he was reading a novel on his laptop, because it took him what seemed like forever to fire 15 rounds. He fired a 1-1/8" group at 100 yards, a 1-3/8" group at 200 yards and a 1-13/16" group at 300 yards. I multiplied his 100 yard group by 3 and came up with 3.375". I asked him why his 300 yard group was smaller than 3.375" and he shrugged his shoulders. When he started reciting math formulas that could only be understood by a university Physics professor or a NASA employee, he lost me.

I am a flinching, trigger yanking iron sight shooter who has no explanation for the phenomenon. Any ideas?

[Failure2Stop]

From my experience, I think that smaller than predictive groups at distance have less to do with the projectile and more to do with the application of focused fundamentals by the shooter and correct parallax.