Horizontal problems

M

mechmike

New member
I seem to get (mostly) horizontal flyers and even though I'm not the best at reading wind I don't think it's that. For example, at 200y this morning at a local score match it shot great and then seemingly for no reason it'll stick one almost 1.5" out to the left then it seems that after a few shots it makes it's way back. (It's done it to the right also) This time I was on the sighter. I'm sure you can tell I'm thinking it's the scope I'm asking for opinions on what else besides wind and a bad scope can do this?

6ppc, .269 neck, 28g H322, 68g barts ultra, Lapua brass, wilson seater, bored out redding S die, old steel T-25 weaver boosted (bought used), lapped rings and checked for being tight. The rifle is made with a solid aluminum barrel block and the barrel is held in a bored hole with loctite. Bedding "should" not be an issue.

Thanks all
Mike
 
Mike,

My guess is stock too loose in the front bag.
Make sure when the gun is torked the stock won't come too easy off the front bag.

George
 
i know your pretty confident it wasnt wind, but i know from experience that wind i didnt even see can blow a bullet that far out at 200. I had flags up and all and i didnt see the let up or slight angle change. 200 yards is a tough game. Was there any mirage? does this happen often or just today? Good luck friend i hope you find the problem. Lee
 
The gun weights 17.5 lbs, the forend is almost 5" wide and flat it doesn't seem to torque much.

This has been an ongoing problem and since I'm pretty green I've been sorting out other issues but this horizontal seems to keep plaguing me from time to time and I need to solve it.

Mike
 
Horizonal

It is my believe that improper tune can cause horizonal as well as verticle. I use to get a lot of flyers with 322 so I switched to 133, do not get as many unexplained flyers! Good Luck and good shooting
When I did use 322 I liked 27.4 but it depends on lot numbers.

Marty
 
adjust your tune

Mike,
It is very difficult to communicate advanced tuning theory to someone,but I will try.
As your round count builds you will begin to see tunes that appear to be competitive fall apart when a little wind blows . You will also find tunes that should be blown out two rings by the conditions, defy the wind.I am not a scientist and cannot explain any of this,however I am not blind and when a tune cuts conditions I am a captive audience.
I believe that in order of importance; bullets( lot's of different ogive bullets out there)( and their seating depth) are #1,powder ( type and it's volume){notice I didn't say weight} is #2, and barrels are#3.
There are lot's of mechanical things that can be wrong with your gun or scope,there are lots of gun handling issues that can be detrimental to your shooting.The internet is no place to sort out these issues.Only hands on help from a BR gunsmith and experienced BR shooter can sort out these things.
However,I find that most guys have perfectly good equipment( the best that money can buy),bench manners,etc,but their tuning abilities are minimal at best. They shoot one bug hole and figure "that's the load" without stretching the tune window to see how wide it is or how stable it is.Most newbies are obsessed with "verticle" and don't understand the horizontal condition cutting concept.
If the flags move a little and your bullet moves a mile,the gun is not in tune.
If the flags move a noticible amount and the bullet only moves a little,now ya got somethin'.
Hope this helps,
Joel
 
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Nader, thanks for that and you very well might be right on the tune issue but wouldn't you think that it would toss out shots more often if that were so?

Marty, I am trying to get some XBR and when some more gets into Canada. At the end of this month I hope to placing an order for 8lbs.

Most of you guys are lucky that you have other guys around your area that are right into this sport. I'm in an isolated coastal town that has four custom 6ppc rifles. I own 2 and the others are cut with my reamer. One guy often beats me with a low charge of 4198 and the other guy gets about the same scores as me with 133. Today I was first looser to a 6br tube gun that shoots really good.

About tune... when testing a bunch of charge weights again at 200y in windy conditions a few weeks ago I had 28g shoot a small horizontal line with less than one bullet of verticle and I had 28.2 shoot a 1.5" verticle line. The interesting thing was is the lack of wind drift on the 28.2 I've been shooting the 28g for a long time and trying to get the horizontal out of it with seating depth... and that takes me back to the tossing shots a long ways out now and then.

Am I wasting my time with 322? Also,Loading at a match isn't an option at this club level, the shoot moves along too quick.

Mike
 
Mike,
the H322 is an old school powder.It was "en vogue" back when everyone was shooting low ogive bullets. The general set up with those bullets was light neck tension,square mark on bullet and 28.7 gr. which would give apx 3250fps. The Barts ultras( double radius) seem to perform best with heavy neck tension ,seating depth at "just touch" and a boat load(29.2-29.7+) of N133.
If I had a lot of ultras,I would try and get some N133.If I had a lot of H322 I would try and get some low ogive bullets(Fowlers,etc)to shoot with it.
Working with what you have I would use moderate neck tension, take 28.7 of H322 and shoot groups from jam to just touch moving back .005 at a time looking for best performance.Then take your best looking seating depth and vary the powder maybe half a grain +/-.
Low velocity loads like your 28gr will tend to drill dots in good conditions but have trouble in the wind,especially at 200yds.
Joel
 
Mike ...

mechmike said:
I seem to get (mostly) horizontal flyers and even though I'm not the best at reading wind I don't think it's that. For example, at 200y this morning at a local score match it shot great and then seemingly for no reason it'll stick one almost 1.5" out to the left then it seems that after a few shots it makes it's way back. (It's done it to the right also) This time I was on the sighter. I'm sure you can tell I'm thinking it's the scope I'm asking for opinions on what else besides wind and a bad scope can do this? Mike
Click to expand...

Look closely at the shooter and when he decides to pull the trigger. ;)
 
abintx said:
Look closely at the shooter and when he decides to pull the trigger. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're hinting about shooting at the wrong time wind wise or if you're hinting that I'm pulling the shot over.... all I can say is the trigger is 2oz, the gun is 17.5 lbs and the only part of me touching it is my finger print.

Mike
 
Mike ...

mechmike said:
I'm not sure if you're hinting about shooting at the wrong time wind wise or if you're hinting that I'm pulling the shot over.... all I can say is the trigger is 2oz, the gun is 17.5 lbs and the only part of me touching it is my finger print. Mike
Click to expand...

Pulling the trigger at the wrong time, wind wise. It's a timing problem. How do you shoot when there's no wind? Horizontal problems then? Is there a high correlation between horizontal problems and high cross or quartering winds? :)
 
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Joel, I'll do some load testing in the upper levels until I get some different powder. I've only got a couple of lbs of this new H322 left and about 1000 barts ultra. I'm going to swap scopes with an equally old Lyman All American Perma-Center 20x that I have here. Maybe it'll through them an inch vertical with the same load after the swap ;)

abintx, Yes there is normally some wind and that could very well be the issue but my reason for this post was for me to try and learn what else besides wind and scope can do this.

Mike
 
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Horizonal Tune

As Ab just pointed out, we just had a discussion on a tune that made a Rifle VERY subseptable to horizonal stringing.

I have found many times that during a Match, I would turn the tuner, or adjust the load, to where the verticle would dissappear,only to make the Rifle so darned sensitive to any little variance in the push so as to make it just a difficult to agg as the verticle.

Go back and read that thread.........jackie
 
Mike,

You didn't say if you were actually using wind flags?

Good Luck

Kurt
 
Heres a recent example of Vertical/ Horizontal tune for those who care to believe;):D
6BR 8" twist using 8208XBR with 80 Bergs arbitrarily jammed .015"
Fired an Audette at 200yds. Found three nodes. Picked the center charge of the highest node and fired five at 100yds. Gave me a perfectly straight vertical group roughly .4 high.

Reloaded five of that same charge and five .005" more jam and another five .010" more jam. Fired round robin at 200yds this is the result.

Group 1
1.132 vert x .560 horizontal

Group 2
.552 vert x .301 horizontal 4shots = .217 with a stinkin high flyer slightly left

Group 3
.437 vert x 1.042 horizontal


Ya can't convince me thats a round robin weather report:D

Shot XBR in a 6ppc and the above 6BR in a score match Saturday. As a preloader I can say I'm still not a fan of XBR. As a preloader I admit I haven't had the time to do enough testing at home to really nail it down.
Judging by my rotten scores I'd say my ppc was running too hot and the BR needs a touch more.:eek::eek:
If I could figure out why my new 30BR won't shoot I could leave the little guys at home:eek:
 
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jackie schmidt said:
As Ab just pointed out, we just had a discussion on a tune that made a Rifle VERY subseptable to horizonal stringing.

I have found many times that during a Match, I would turn the tuner, or adjust the load, to where the verticle would dissappear,only to make the Rifle so darned sensitive to any little variance in the push so as to make it just a difficult to agg as the verticle.

Go back and read that thread.........jackie
Click to expand...

I'll go and read it. Wouldn't out of tune make a line or at least a long glob? This is one every now and then very random ... maybe every ... 5 to 25 shots

-yes flags
 
This is giving some good info in a friends 6XC I am shooting that seems to have some horizontal stringing with his first loads. Thanks gents
Justin
 
This isn't horizontal stringing... for example at a 100y match yesterday it was shooting 10's and one out of them was a 7. And no it's not the same case that's making the flyer and it wasn't wind.

I read the suggested post and did some testing with higher loads, 28.9 and 28.7 weren't so good but 28.5 shot great and that's what I used yesterday.

I took the scope apart last week and I posted about what I found on the Canadian BR board but I don't think anyone that read it has ever had a scope apart that far. When I get some more time I'll probably post it here in a fresh topic.

Mike
 
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