Thread: The Howikka Test Bed

@Stocky no skin off my nose mate. Was just trying to assist a fellow rifle enthusiast. Carry on.

Btw "Hornady said" will just hold you back from learning yourself. Keep an open mind to see the other possibilities.

Btw if there is a mechanical issue with the rifle, then all the components used so far are wasted as your 'test bed' is compromised.

Originally Posted by Tentman

I'd love to understand how a powder can make such a difference, for example is not something you see with factory ammo

https://storage.googleapis.com/wzuku...nse%20Maps.pdf


Different powder producing larger dispersion = greater magnitude and variability in the angular rate and cross velocity. Probably greater variation in the pressure-time function

Originally Posted by Roarless20

Btw if there is a mechanical issue with the rifle, then all the components used so far are wasted as your 'test bed' is compromised.

Not really I can provide that info here and show actual proof of it having serious effects. I'm happy to show anything concrete and be wrong.

Have you actually done any large sample size testing?

It's not I don't believe that you could be correct. It's more I want to prove it rather than just take the "general knowledge" and anecdotal assumptions out of it as much as possible.

I will mess with the bedding, suppressor, action screw torque, recrown, barrel length, etc at some stage and will tag you when i do especially if your right as im not disagreeing just saying that i dont think your conclusion can be validated yet. It would be nice if you are right and hopefully you are but I will be testing other barrels to add more data at some stage. I have hundreds of bits of brass, a wide range of powders, a decent supply of projectiles (albeit ones that may not agree with the barrel). If the rifle shot too good it would actually be much harder to separate shooter error from rifle capability.

One thing to consider @Roarless20 is this a 223, and it can be a highly variable sort of beast, once you start shooting decent sample sizes the "surprises" happen. There is none of the "I pulled one" bullshit that so many people indulge themselves with in the following targets, they are a product of careful shooting.

Both shot with the same rifle at 100M in pretty similar weather conditions, just a wee breeze from 6 o'clock. The scope was changed out between targets and obviously the zero also varies.



Pretty interesting how on the 28/2 (group 1) with Hor 73s it shot 1.04 MOA but on 10/3 the group with the load was 66mm and the worse group of the day.

If you have a look at the 28/2 target you can see the rifle shot 3 consecutive groups (shot count varied 9 to 11) of which the largest was 1.08 MOA. And then a splatter from some FMJ stuff (which incidentally does go OK in another rifle).

There seem to be a lot of shooters too scared to fully explore the variability of their shooting system, it's maybe less important for hunting, but it's also less than usefull not to know the limitations of your rifle, especially with the current "long range" fashion.

Looking at that -

1.04MOA = 30.4mm

Average of your 2 groups (66 & 30mm) = 48mm

Low end @ 30mm - 62.5% of average (37.5% down)
High end @ 66mm - 137.5% of average (37.5% up)

10 round groups should vary in extreme spread naturally by around 30-40%. This matches the data I have available from my groups - 5x 10rd groups with the 73gr ELDM from my rifle quickly analysed vary in extreme spread between about 25% below and 33% above the average.

You are seeing variation in the expected range - roughly - based on the data available.

Mean radius should be more stable than the group extreme spread.


The bad news is, even if you do everything perfectly and you have zero wind reading error - you've only got about a 34% probability of hitting a 0.5MOA target at 500m....

With some wind reading error it's more like 15%

So I did actually shoot some larger (more shots) groups last night as I need a load that's huntable (2moa on a larger sample) for next week.
Here's a 15 shot group with the 77TMKs its a bit over 1.5moa or a bit over 0.1mil mean radius. All the previous shots in the 5 shot group fall inside the group. And not that it matters but the furthest left 2 shots and the top shot (the first of the 5 and I called it but it's within the general area so have not excluded it where all in the last 3 shot group. The 10 shot was just submoa but it's not real. So that around a 1.5moa 20 shot group whilst unmounting the rifle 4 times and shooting in 2 sets of conditions. More than serviceable for hunting next week within the effective range of this load.



Also of note that most shots are in that cluster and there are alot of 3 and even 5 shot combinations that would give "shots touching" level precision.

Then I tried 10 of the ELD VT with a much larger load of Varget. Just to see what a slightly larger sample of the best load from testing would do. The worst 3 shots were the first 3 much different distribution pattern than the 77 tmk.

Around 2.5moa adequate to carry a few to test the projectile inside 100-200 yards should the opportunity arise.

Hey Gimp I wouldn't dream of trying to shooting a half MOA target at 500M with that 223, it's a light hunting rifle for 300M shots max, I'd want a far higher degree of rifle precision for a 500M jobbie.

Originally Posted by gimp

For precision testing - on YT or anywhere else - this guy has the best methodology and most interesting data of anyone I've seen yet, although his area of firearms isn't strictly the jam for most NZ hunters

https://youtu.be/GtZfBP9Z8sw?si=etqIL3T0NMwfFs67

Man that guy is good alright, that A-zed score is a very clever metric

People are catching on

https://youtu.be/amTbmuHdVbw?si=BI576fobQrV3fM08

Originally Posted by Roarless20

Btw if there is a mechanical issue with the rifle, then all the components used so far are wasted as your 'test bed' is compromised.

@Roarless20 time to eat crow? (For me I mean) Quite possibly will update furrher but here's a preview of a 20 round group shot tonight. Some excluded shots from letting a girl shoot a mag full from the 223 as it was her first time shooting and her partner only brought a 22. She did unfortunately shoot at my target twice before i realised (lucky i had dialed the rifle back to zero). Anyway I have 50 more of this load to take hunting. About 1.3moa for 20 not significantly better than the 15 shot group but the rifle has been completely stripped back and a bit of a quick fix involving some bits of broken hacksaw blade has been implemented. May like different ammo now who knows but the groups distribution is much cleaner.

Your mean radius is more or less the same as from your 10rd group of the same load. It suggests nothing has changed really. Maybe. Interesting

1.08× 4.16 = 4.49

So your predicted Ø95 is about 4.5 cm at that range

Your 10rd group was 4.6cm. Maybe you just picked up one from the end of the distribution in the 10rd group

I'm curious, what was the fix/issue ?

Originally Posted by gimp

Your mean radius is more or less the same as from your 10rd group of the same load. It suggests nothing has changed really. Maybe. Interesting

The 15 and 5 shots previous shots of this load were all in the same cone of fire and once combined had a mean radius of about 0.128mil. The 15 shot groups had a particularly tight cluster giving it very good mean radius.

The mean radius isn't accurate for this group as it needs accurate shot placements. Probably not terribly far off but maybe not as close as suggested. Awfully hard to place shots in the group analysis accurately when it's just a hole. Its possible to shoot a 0.5mil group with a 0.25mil mean radius (if you shot all of thing in a perfect circle). I've just evenly spread the shots in the hole. In practice as it was being shot it started as a much smaller cluster. I will load some more of the eld loads to confirm once I'm back. There was also a pretty good crosswind rolling through tonight, hard to quantify as the range is semi sheltered but at target the other targets stapled up where getting blown off. Even at 106yards a 1-2m/s wind difference would be up to 0.1mils.

It doesn't prove anything definitively and shows one of the downsides of larger sample sizes. I didn't have good data before but it's shot a box of Speer GD into about 1.8moa which was a 2.5moa 3 shot group when i used it as a rough sighter group the first time I mounted a scope on the rifle.

Again figured I would admit i found something that slightly concerned me in the rifle setup.