Thread: 1 shot groups (cold bore challenge)

In many recent threads that have been about the concept of making decisions using larger amounts of shot data rather than smaller, there have been many comments that are variations on the theme of "I don't care about getting a zero or understanding of the precision capability of my rifle system based on larger data sets, I just care where the first shot goes".

This implies that
1) the first shot may go somewhere that isn't predicted by a larger dataset (I.e. group or groups overlaid) and
2) the first shot does go in the same place every time, or more so than groups would indicate.

I felt like testing this with my rifle system. Does the first shot from a cold bore tell me anything different to say, just banging out a 10 rd group ?

I've been taking the same target to the range every time I go shooting, and fire the first round of the day at it. Same shooter same rifle system, different conditions. Obviously breaking position quite significantly between shots.

I'm up to 7 days of this. So far, all 7 shots have fallen within a 24mm dot at 100m (about 0.8moa), .24MRAD.

The point of impact for all these shots so far falls within the footprint of a 10rd group fired all at once.

This isn't terribly surprising or enlightening. I'll continue shooting the same target each range trip, although it is in danger of falling apart, but I don't think there is a lot to learn from it with this rifle system.

It would be extremely interesting to see others do the same.


A 10rd group fired all at once - zeroed with 1 click left afterward.


7 rounds fired over 7 different range trips, 1 shot at a time - with the zero established with the 10rd group above.