Thread: 1st shot flyers

Originally Posted by Gillie

Jeez, some funny ideas on this thread and its only been going for a couple of hours!
Kiwijames, first shots out of a well cleaned barrel will definitely not be faster than a dirty barrel (within reason). With good cleaning they can be a good 100fps slow coming out of a clean barrel over a fouled barrel. And how much faster would the projectile have to be going to hit 2" high at whatever distance (lets assume 200m until Hunter308 says otherwise)? Barrel harmonics due to the slower projectile could throw it that far out though. That would be my guess anyway.
Guys shooting F-Class talk about a well fouled barrel needing a clean once the accuracy drops off (See borracho's comment). Often the first indication of this is shots that start climbing up the target.
Brian, your advice is a little off as well. Being a hunting rifle how would he know it wasn't grouping well? My hunting rifles i clean/oil after every trip, every day if they have got wet (i am running all chrome moly barrels though).
Also rifles with pressure point bedding (i.e. a pressure point located some point down the barrel) can group very consistently. Often not for extended strings of shots due the the barrel heating up and even shooting off a bipod can screw them up but shot with some understanding they can be very good. Particularly so for a hunting rifle only ever firing 2-3 shot strings.
If you don't heat the barrel up then most of the "inconsistency" in pressure point bedding comes from the stock fit. If you have had the action and barrel out of the stock for whatever reason (cleaning/oiling) then trying to get the exact same pressure is damn near impossible without torqueing the action screws extremely precisely. This means that if the stock is a bit soft and you have given it a decent knock or if you have had the action out of the stock then you will need to resight the rifle in just to be sure. If you had given the stock a knock then the first shot fired might have bumped it back into place which would cause the rest of your shots to be good.

Whats the rifle and what distance were you sighting in hunter308?

The rifle is a marlin XS7 stainless 7mm08, first shot was always a flyer then the next few shots would be on the bullseye but more of a horizontal side by side group. Distance 100 meters. Since I posted this I had done a search over at marlin owners forums and found that others had been having similar issues and everything pointed back to pressure pads at the front of the stock causing some issues. I took the action out of the stock to have a look and found that the right hand pressure pad was a bit higher than the other when I measured with a digital caliper so have removed both pads to make the barrel fully free floating, also I found a lot of back and forward movement in the recoil lug area of the stock so have also bedded that area with some epoxy with liberal coatings of silicone spray on the action and recoil lug, also gave the left hand side of the barrel channel a bit of a sand to try and stop the barrel from touching that area, so far the action is back in the stock waiting for the epoxy to set and so far everything is looking to sit a lot better in the stock. Will have to go back down to Taupo to use the range to test it out in a few days got nowhere else close by to Te Awamutu to let off a few shots.

If you still have a clean bore flyer after your accurizing, which I suspect you will. You could try coating your projectiles. Some say leaving a film of oil in the barrel will also help, but how much and who wants to try and follow up a shot thru smoke if needed. Projectile coating is easier to get consistent. I still loose a bit of velocity on a cold clean barrel but my POI is always where I want it. It is less of a variable and predictable.

I always find this topic fascinating!!

If i'm going to go hunting and the only shot I'll get at an animal is say 300+ yds away then it's my first shot that is crucial obviously but if it's always going to be a "flyer" then thats a pain in the ass! Now I don't have a huge amount of experience with firearms. ballistics and these sorts of matters but I do research alot and talk to a few ol' timers. I used to be of the school of thought of only cleaning my barrel every 20+ shots. I was told that was a bad habbit and that I should do it after every hunt weather I put 1 pill or 10. I do this now and my POI doesn't change at all. Weather it's cleaning it every time? the type of pills? or that a leave abit of kroil oil in it for that first shot?

One of my mates is the most fastidious gun cleaner in the world! Now....he has a few rifles and his cleaning regime is different for each one - because he's found each rifle prefers different cleaning products weather it's carbon cleaner or copper remover. Some will say what a load off shit, but thats what he has found that works and all of his guns don't have a flyer at all and they are different makes. So I'm a believer that you can have a rifle that doesn't produce a flyer if you find the right cleaning solutions.