Thread: 3 shot groups are useless!

Two 10 shot groups using thermal clipon on a tika 308.Ammo factory Hornady White tail 165gr sp.Took about 2hrs,barrel just had some light hopps patchs thru it.
1st group of ten.
Purple,3 shots.High n wild.10 minute cool down.
Orange,2 shots touching then flyer,10 min cool down.
Reds,2shots touching then flyers,10 min cool down.

After some adjustment with thermal,1clk right,1clk down.
Blue gave nice 3 shot group.
Then I had to really get my eyes right for target,blurry.Got make sure I'm on vertical.
Green 3 shots gave bull eyes a look,good.
Red i aimed tad lower,got 3 below bull.My eyes on thermal target getting blurry again.On the second set of 10 shots the tika seemed to get groups better.
Il take the green group hunting any day.
Thermal target shooting a lot harder than day target shooting any day.

Thats little piece of tin foil was getting blurry thru thermal tho.

1.2 inch for that top group is outstaying for a clip on and damned good for anything.

Thank you for posting, Trout. The first 10 is a nice round shape as you'd expect and probably more closely represents the true precision of the system vs the smaller groups just randomly sampling from within it, acknowledging that the aiming error in a system with a clip on thermal is probably substantially higher than a good daytime optic.

2nd 10rd obviously also represents the overall precision better than sub groups, with vertical distortion due to aiming shift mentioned

Barrel heat in a Tikka - is it a factor? Is the apparent "2 together then a flier" due to barrel heat, or simply random sampling from the distribution?

Well here is a 9-shot group from a factory tikka t3x 6.5CM with reasonably hot handloads. No barrel cooling between shots. Horizontal spread is likely to some degree shooter error as the shooter requires some coaching. Group is about 34mm, so just over MOA. Barrel heat doesn't appear to be a problem in a more precise tikka system. Maybe.
Shot distribution random through the group, no apparent pattern based on shot sequence.

Group includes a very clean bore shot.

Cheers Gimp,interesting exercise but good info provided.Between each 3 or 4 shot group id walk down to target board and take a photo.So id have to set myself up for firing the
next group.No staying in the one firing position an letting off10 rds.
The barrel was getting warm for the last 3 groups.I had to rest it
down to real cold.
Any how I better save some ammo for hunting.

No need to speculate as we can ask Greg the grounds on which the “genuine 0.1moa 5-shot rifles” claim is being made.

Some further interesting results. Shot today in nice conditions. A different rifle, newly assembled using a Zermatt arms Origin action, a Savage 223 barrel reamed to 22 Creedmoor by Greg at Custom guns and the result shoehorned into a Bregara stock - this is a work in progress!

I'd already tried the barrel in a Savage action enough to establish a safe max load and to get the feeling it was a pretty good shooter.

Load is 75 gn Hornady ELDMs in front of 2209 in reformed Norma y.5 CM cases.

The rifle was zeroed with some old rounds then after quite a lengthy period a 3 shot group was fired


Not too bad eh?

So left rifle to cool then fired a further 3 shot group on top of the old one. Came out like this



Process repeated with this final result


Not to shabby.

But what is the big picture here


So a overall group of the tiniest smidge over MOA. But whats mist important? To me its the variabce in POI of each 3 shot group, proving out Gimps assertion (in his other thread) that zeroing on the basis ov a 3 shot group is a faught exercise!

In response to the Tikka barrel heat comments, I'd say POI shift due to heating is much more an individual barrel thing rather than a Tikka (or Remmy or any other brand) thing.

Originally Posted by Tentman

In response to the Tikka barrel heat comments, I'd say POI shift due to heating is much more an individual barrel thing rather than a Tikka (or Remmy or any other brand) thing.

I think the bigger question is - to what degree does it actually exist? Or is it attributing natural variation between groups to an effect that isn't significant

Originally Posted by Tentman

Some further interesting results. Shot today in nice conditions. A different rifle, newly assembled using a Zermatt arms Origin action, a Savage 223 barrel reamed to 22 Creedmoor by Greg at Custom guns and the result shoehorned into a Bregara stock - this is a work in progress!

I'd already tried the barrel in a Savage action enough to establish a safe max load and to get the feeling it was a pretty good shooter.

Load is 75 gn Hornady ELDMs in front of 2209 in reformed Norma y.5 CM cases.

The rifle was zeroed with some old rounds then after quite a lengthy period a 3 shot group was fired
Attachment 253714

Not too bad eh?

So left rifle to cool then fired a further 3 shot group on top of the old one. Came out like this

Attachment 253715

Process repeated with this final result
Attachment 253716

Not to shabby.

But what is the big picture here
Attachment 253717

So a overall group of the tiniest smidge over MOA. But whats mist important? To me its the variabce in POI of each 3 shot group, proving out Gimps assertion (in his other thread) that zeroing on the basis ov a 3 shot group is a faught exercise!

So having that information. What do you change? If the aggregate centers of all groups is worked out, it looks as though a single click on an MRAD format scope would put you almost an equal distance the other side of center? And other than enlarging the group, the first 3 shots told you that.

Originally Posted by Tentman

Some further interesting results. Shot today in nice conditions. A different rifle, newly assembled using a Zermatt arms Origin action, a Savage 223 barrel reamed to 22 Creedmoor by Greg at Custom guns and the result shoehorned into a Bregara stock - this is a work in progress!

I'd already tried the barrel in a Savage action enough to establish a safe max load and to get the feeling it was a pretty good shooter.

Load is 75 gn Hornady ELDMs in front of 2209 in reformed Norma y.5 CM cases.

The rifle was zeroed with some old rounds then after quite a lengthy period a 3 shot group was fired
Attachment 253714

Not too bad eh?

So left rifle to cool then fired a further 3 shot group on top of the old one. Came out like this

Attachment 253715

Process repeated with this final result
Attachment 253716

Not to shabby.

But what is the big picture here
Attachment 253717

So a overall group of the tiniest smidge over MOA. But whats mist important? To me its the variabce in POI of each 3 shot group, proving out Gimps assertion (in his other thread) that zeroing on the basis ov a 3 shot group is a faught exercise!

I don’t want to derail this thread , but would like to throw something out there .
Once the Rifles capability has been tested by shooting multiple groups of at least 10 shots , then the shooter’s capabilities should be tested in my opinion.
On another thread here I did a test where I broke my position between each shot , test was performed prone with bipod and rear bag , but I stood up and picked up the Rifle and rear bag between each shot .
The resulting group was at least 1/3 bigger if not more than what I can achieve by just laying down and shooting with minimal movement between shots .
I believe it is essential to fine tune your Rifle/Ammo combo , but once that is done all attention should shift to fine tuning your own technique and ability to build a repeatable position/ platform time and time again.
The point of impact shifts shown above I believe are greatly influenced by shooter setup and can’t all be blamed on the Rifles capability.
You have to decide what it is your actually testing and plan and execute the test accordingly.

Yes position is very interesting. On one of F-Class John's recent videos he shot groups from the bench, conventional bench style. Then he said he was going to "get over the rifle like he was shooting prone" and wow he had a very noticeable point of impact change - made quite obvious by the tiny groups he was shooting. He didn't comment on it but I'd love to quiz him on it.

Originally Posted by Tentman

Yes position is very interesting. On one of F-Class John's recent videos he shot groups from the bench, conventional bench style. Then he said he was going to "get over the rifle like he was shooting prone" and wow he had a very noticeable point of impact change - made quite obvious by the tiny groups he was shooting. He didn't comment on it but I'd love to quiz him on it.

I notice reasonably often there is 3/4-1 moa difference between POI prone & on the bench, so I always sight in prone with the bipod as that is closest to how I shoot in the field