Loads shown in bold designate potentially most accurate load

"4and1

 

Sorry for the long delay in getting back with what I promised. Our disagreement boils down to: can a single three shot group be trusted to predict the long term performance of a load as Mr. Boyer does in his final fine “tuning” for the very best load for that rifle and barrel, as he advocates in his book?

 

I claim that three shot groups can’t be trusted for such decision making because they aren’t repeatable.  The next one is likely to be much different.  A string of 3-shot groups will vary so much from one group to the next that it will be obvious to any open-minded shooter that a single three shot group cannot predict the load’s match performance as Boyer’s tuning method depends on.  You said that I ”have no idea if this is true or not”.  I believe I do know that it is true..

 

You claim that Boyer’s tuning method is valid because you can “hang your hat” on his individual shots and single three shot groups because he shoots in the “jacketed bullet benchrest world” and not the “cast bullet world” where there are more complications.  I believe that groups in the jacketed bullet benchrest world vary about the same from group to group as groups in our humble cast bullet world.

 

The only way we can resolve this difference of opinion is to look at strings of three shot groups fired by the same load and under the same conditions with rifles similar to Boyer’s

 

As promised, I shot a series of ten three-shot groups, (10.5 pound 6PPC rifle using the same exact load for all ten groups, 68 grain Berger bullets, WSR primers, and 25 grains of H322, seated so the bullets were 0.010 into the lands when chambered). I made no effort to adjust for changing wind conditions just as Tony insists you should. 

 

The first two groups were carelessly shot before parallax in the scope was adjusted properly and should be disregarded as not quite the same set up as the following eight groups. The eight groups averaged 0.21 inch. The groups are very small, by cast bullet standards, but vary about like cast bullet groups – just as statistics says they would. 

 

As an experienced JB benchrest shooter I have no doubt that your string of groups you post will average much smaller.  We will see if all your groups are all about the same size and shape when you post them.

 

John"

 

 Sorry to say this John, but the only thing all that shows, is your load is not tuned for your gun. The whole reason for shooting the testing method is to weed out what works and what doesn't. That load will not win a match. Yes there are a couple groups that look good, but the rest are bad. Typical for an out of tune load. Had you run the entire test as described, you would see when the gun comes into tune, then back out again. And, I also said this will show you which load IS THE PATH TO FOLLOW.