Is there such a thing as a case that causes fliers?

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Last Post 27 January 2022

CBA President

John Alexander posted this 21 November 2021

I have heard and read over the years of shooters trying to eliminate fliers by discarding the cases that shot them. I'm not talking about cases that have gross variations in neck thickness from one side to the other, oversized primer pockets, or other such know defects, but a case that seems OK but is guilty of being present when a flier was shot.

Although I have heard of discarding such cases, I have never heard of anybody confirming that the case was guilty by seeing if it would shoot out of the group repeatedly.

Does anybody know of a shooter confirming that an otherwise normal looking case ruins groups and if so any theories what is wrong with such a case.

John

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Little Debbie posted this 21 November 2021

Nope, if I threw out every case that “caused” a flier I’m not sure how much brass I’d have left…………so other than split necks, incipient separations, the occasional odd body crack they all stay in the herd. As Ric says prep the case, and I assign 100 or more to a rifle and I’ll shoot them till it won’t hold a primer if nothing else occurs first. I rarely include neck turning anymore except for a couple rifles that have proven it helps. My shooting skill and bullet casting are the issues, not cartridge cases.

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GWarden posted this 21 November 2021

I will throw a fly in the ointment. I have brought this up in the past on this forum and on a few others and when I do it is pretty much silence or not much agreement. We spend so much time on the equipment issues, but to me one of the biggest is the "shooter". We are the one thing in the whole system that is not consistent each and every shot, I know some will disagree, so for me I am speaking. The list is long on things that we should look at as the shooter.

I remember in the past there was a fella that always was shooting fantastic results in the military matches. All kind of things were mentioned why he was always winning, and they pointed at his equipment. I replied one time that a lot had to do with a quality shooter. Saw a short reply on the post from him- "thank you".

It would make an interesting but long post on just the things we as shooters have to do with "accuracy" when shooting.

enough said, you all have a good day.

bob

Iowa

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Bud Hyett posted this 21 November 2021

In short , "No." This was an informal test, more of curiosity than proof.

Ed Doonan and I went through this many years ago, we had several discussions with a competitive shooter who did this and could not find his reasoning to be solid. He squashed each case that did not work. The problem was his case was gone and could no longer be tested once squashed.

Setting up a Remington 700 Sporter in .222 Remington Magnum that was a known shooter, we tagged cases and shot them in order calling each shot. Any shot out of the group was set aside and reloaded, then shot again. We indexed them by the headstamp, but the case could still rotate some on the bolt closing.

We shot one box of Sierra 53-grain Hollowpoint Match bullets and I forget the powder. First five-shot and then ten-shot groups with changing shooters as the day progressed, calling each shot. Changing shooters was to in part to eliminate shooter fatigue.

There were few flyers, this rifle shot well. This, we used the bullets on the edge of the group. There was no established relationship. The case that shot out one time shot in the next time. The case that shot in one time shot out later.

From this, I now prepare a lot of cases by first inspecting the primer hole, annealing, trimming to uniform length, outside neck turning to .015 wall thickness for both uniformity and to use a bushing neck sizing die. This is a winter project each year.

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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GWarden posted this 05 December 2021

So if one does all these things to try and eliminate flyers, what good do they do if the fella/gal doing the shooting is not a accomplished consistent rifleman? Been shooting with a group of what I would consider above average shooters, in fact one recently broke a 44 year record in a match this last summer. These three shooters all fired the same rifle, when you looked at the targets shot, it was obvious not just one shooter shot the targets. So what does that prove, take the person that shot the largest groups and get ride of them? Sorry, I'm getting a bit "snarky". What can we do in this group to help each other improve, isn't that the purpose of it all.

Back to my original thought on this subject, I feel most times the flyer is shooter induced. Anyway that applies most times to this shooter.

So, John A. contacted me about maybe starting some post on factors that the shooter can do to improve their shooting. Will give it go. Maybe a recent post on wind flags is one of those issues.

Bob

Iowa

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RicinYakima posted this 21 November 2021

That is much my experience. Benchrest prep the case and unless it is grossly out of spec, it is not the issue. Then it is good for the life of the case. Lapua cases are good from the beginning, in my experience.

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RicinYakima posted this 21 November 2021

Oh NO! The cat is out of the bag now! People are going to start practicing with their match loads and get to be better shooters.

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John Carlson posted this 22 November 2021

I have isolated cases that shot "out of the group", just blackened the head with a magic marker. Then processed and re-loaded with the rest of the group. Never found a repeat offender let alone a case that consistently produced fliers.

Rats! Now I'm going to have to test whether blackening the heads will produce smaller groups.

John Carlson. CBA Director of Military Competition.

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Paul Pollard posted this 19 December 2021

John A said, "Only shooting experiments can provide the answer and we don't like to take the time to do them to find out. Pity."

I can't shoot in my backyard anymore, so the testing takes more time. I've only been out two days and the data is a bit thin. So far, nothing stands out. Conditions cause problems, so my data will be aggregates. This limited data would suggest that high runout cases are better.

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John Alexander posted this 19 December 2021

Gearnasher,

I agree that the two experiments you suggest in your first paragraph, along with the one suggested in the last paragraph, would provide useful information. This is exactly the type of work we need in order to begin to bring CB shooting out of it dependence on faith, opinions, and old wives tales and work towards experiment based loading principles.

Have you done your suggested experiments? if so, please let us know how you did them and what the results were. If you haven't done them please try and find time to do them and let us know what you find. I particularly like your suggestion that there should be 50 cases in each condition. That should be enough unless the differences found are very small. By the way, I have an experiment started that is similar to one of the three you suggest. We can maybe compare notes when done.

I don't think quoting Bottiger's test results is a "logical fallacy" basic or otherwise. It is quoted because it is the only test we know of that has explored that issue with anything approaching logic. Anecdotes about doing this or that and thus halving or doubling group sizes are interesting, but usually based on one or two groups and come by word of mouth. There is never enough information to replicate them in order to confirm or refute the claims. We need more evidence than this to make progress. When we get your results on the three experiments you suggest we can examine them along with Bottiger's and see if there are exceptions and what those exceptions might be.

If we work together on this we will eventually find the important factors and eliminate the unimportant ones for smaller groups with cast bullets.

John

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MP1886 posted this 21 November 2021

I will throw a fly in the ointment. I have brought this up in the past on this forum and on a few others and when I do it is pretty much silence or not much agreement. We spend so much time on the equipment issues, but to me one of the biggest is the "shooter". We are the one thing in the whole system that is not consistent each and every shot, I know some will disagree, so for me I am speaking. The list is long on things that we should look at as the shooter.

I remember in the past there was a fella that always was shooting fantastic results in the military matches. All kind of things were mentioned why he was always winning, and they pointed at his equipment. I replied one time that a lot had to do with a quality shooter. Saw a short reply on the post from him- "thank you".

It would make an interesting but long post on just the things we as shooters have to do with "accuracy" when shooting.

enough said, you all have a good day.

bob

Iowa

I wondered how long it was going to take before someone mentioned the REAL problem. You're 100% correct Bob. Analogy: take someone back in the day that thought he was the fastest draw in a gunfight. Then he gets killed, when all along he thought he the best or at least very good.

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Paul Pollard posted this 22 November 2021

John,

Thanks for starting this thread. In discussions with Bob Birmley, he said that a case would shoot well for a time, then stop shooting. He would discard that case and start a new one. Some of this is mentioned in FS 250 and 251, "On the Road to Records." I tried his method several years ago and could find nothing that worked as he said, so I gave up on trying to find the perfect cases.

There was a recent question on Benchrest Central about Creighton Audette's being a benchrest shooter. Speedy Gonzales posted an article from a 1986 Precision Shooting magazine by Audette. He showed targets shot a long range which were with cases with less than .002" wall thickness variation which were much better than the cases which were .004" wall thickness variation. His contention was that uneven wall thickness mattered. He also suggested that the thin part of the case should be oriented at one of the bolt lugs.

That made me wonder if it mattered in 100 and 200 yard cast bullet shooting. I made a fixture to measure case wall thickness. My 300 Lapua 220 Russian cases have been used since 2008 and have about 70 shots on each one. I ran these over my wall thickness gage and separated them into lots of .001, .002, .003 and over .003 thickness.

One other thing that floats around is that fireforming loads for jacketed bullets are somehow more accurate. I guess it's only anecdotal evidence. I fireformed 15 new cases and checked the case thickness. Most were within .001 on wall thickness. The necks on these all measured .014". If they would fit with a bullet seated, I wouldn't even turn these necks.

On measuring the often-shot cases, it felt like the internal probe was running on a gravel road. I borrowed an ultrasonic cleaner to clean the cases outside and inside, to try eliminating the gravel. No luck. They still felt rough and the over .003 variation persisted in these cases. The new cases did not feel rough when measuring.

That's as far as I've gotten so far. I'm pretty sure that John will accuse me of jousting with windmills, but I've done it before. Some people also say that orienting a case does nothing, but Mike Mohler did, and a few of his records still stand.

It may take some time to run this test and I'll report back.

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Shopdog posted this 22 November 2021

To answer the thread title;

Yes.

But then when you read the text,there's no way to provide enough testing to give some folks the assurance they would need to form an answer so;

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John Alexander posted this 23 November 2021

MP1886: "John that has been done many many moons ago. It's just that none of you listen or read everything on the subject. Before you ask I'm not saying who or what reading material. If you are as old as you are and haven't heard or read it then too bad. BTW all those "tricks" you just mentioned aren't worth a hoot unless you have a match target cast rifle and can SHOOT!!! "

I am going to need your help in understanding your post. I am not trying to be dense but I can't see what the heck you are saying.

What is the "that" in your first sentence that has been done many moons ago?

Is the "it" in your fourth sentence the same "it" that I apparently haven't heard about or read? Or a different It?

You have already said you are not going to tell us who the "you" is that you slander as someone who doesn't read or listen or what it is that that they don't read. So I won't ask.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who found your post incomprehensible and would appreciate the help.

Thanks.

John

I agree that those "tricks" aren't worth a hoot if you can't shoot. And they aren't worth a hoot if you can and most winners stopped doing them years ago

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MP1886 posted this 19 December 2021

This from a match shooter and rifle builder. I have to agree with him.

Benchrest has hundreds of nit things that'll drive even the most OCD person nuts. I've found a lot of those things contribute to top precision / accuracy. Some not so much. Most of which are covered in the previous 65 pages. I will say this however.....to shoot towards the top you have to have these four:

1) The ability to read wind and hold-off
2) The ability to tune your rifle and keep it in tune as conditions change
3) A good barrel
4) Great bullets that mesh well with that good barrel.

Fall short on any of those four and you'll be middle of the pack or lower. There's no action, reloading trick, bedding job, front rest / rear bag, scope, trigger, etc, etc, that'll make up the difference.

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Paul Pollard posted this 10 January 2022

Here's an update on the case wall thickness test. I could find no evidence of a correlation in variation of the wall and bigger groups. It was pretty much the opposite. On Day 3, I cleaned before each group and shot one fouler before the group. The fouler shot was shot on a separate target. I then had 5 fouler shots for a group. The results are in the table.

Table of Groups

I have concluded this test for now. It may take a better shooter and analyst than I am.

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45 2.1 posted this 22 November 2021

Does anybody know of a shooter confirming that an otherwise normal looking case ruins groups and if so any theories what is wrong with such a case.

John

All depends on how the question is viewed, but the basics are uniform case volume, loaded round case neck clearance/alignment and case fit in the chamber.

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John Alexander posted this 22 November 2021

Thanks to Bud and John -- and Paul after he shoots those sorted cases for experimenting to find things out. I hope we see more of CB shooters doing this sort of thing to find the truth about what counts and what doesn't.

It is also interesting to hear people's opinions or quoting some very good shooter's opinion but that doesn't improve what we know only states what we believe. Just because super shooter does X , believes in it, and wins doesn't mean that X had anything to do with it. None. May have, may not have. Just think of all the things we used to think necessary and now most winners don't do. Shooting in same order cast. Indexing cases and bullets. Nose pour molds, Annealing gas checks. Using one case. Sorting gas checks by weight, etc. Sorting bullets by weight will eventually join the list -- in about a hundred years.

John

If super shooters proves something is helpful and reports his tests -- that is a whole nuther thing.

John

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MP1886 posted this 23 November 2021

Thanks to Bud and John -- and Paul after he shoots those sorted cases for experimenting to find things out. I hope we see more of CB shooters doing this sort of thing to find the truth about what counts and what doesn't.

It is also interesting to hear people's opinions or quoting some very good shooter's opinion but that doesn't improve what we know only states what we believe. Just because super shooter does X , believes in it, and wins doesn't mean that X had anything to do with it. None. May have, may not have. Just think of all the things we used to think necessary and now most winners don't do. Shooting in same order cast. Indexing cases and bullets. Nose pour molds, Annealing gas checks. Using one case. Sorting gas checks by weight, etc. Sorting bullets by weight will eventually join the list -- in about a hundred years.

John

John that has been done many many moons ago. It's just that none of you listen or read everything on the subject. Before you ask I'm not saying who or what reading material. If you are as old as you are and haven't heard or read it then too bad. BTW all those "tricks" you just mentioned aren't worth a hoot unless you have a match target cast rifle and can SHOOT!!!

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Bud Hyett posted this 23 November 2021

Another thought after reading the many replies. We are dealing with an integrated system; ambient temperature, case, barrel, action, chamber, bullet, alloy, sizing, lubricant, etc.. Designing an experiment to isolate the attribute we want to test can be a challenge.

Realizing this, I spend hours in the winter preparing the season's case and then spend the rest of the time casting. Getting uniform bullets is equally important.

As Ric stated, practice is key.

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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MP1886 posted this 24 November 2021

Well John I would tell you that myself and one other member here have broken that .5 moa barrier, but then I'm also going to deny it because he or I are not going to put up with the BS from peers here, nor are we going to come to their range and shoot those groups because they will say they would have to see it to believe it. We also won't provide target pictures because those also are not believed and I'm not joing the CBA and shooting in matches to prove it. Basically internet gun forums are a very vicious place to be.

I like that one sentence you wrote: Other reasons include that results reported on the internet seldom include enough details for someone to replicate the work-- even roughly.................Does that include the RPM Threshold Theory?

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