Home ranges are bad.....
Unless you live out in the open prairie, home ranges are plagued with gremlins. Not only are they plagued with gremlins but you've got no one to help you establish a baseline for the day. It took me ten years of frustration to get a grip on this fact. Add to this problems with gun handling and delivery and you find that it's TRUE that "you'll learn more and advance further in just a few competition shoots than you will in years at home." Shooting on public ranges and with professional and competitive shooters completely changed the way I handle my home range. I now have known setups that I use for testing conditions, platforms of KNOWN accuracy which when fired free recoil from a marked setup WILL group tiny. And I have trust that if they DON'T group tiny then it's gremlins, probably in the air down range. Some days WON'T SHOOT.
And I keep a log, EVERY day, EVERY variable, EVERY round fired.......... it takes forever but it's worth it.
A story, possibly boring;
Mebbeso 15yrs ago I made the acquaintance of the late Del Bishop. Del was a good shooter. I remember the first time I shot with him. I asked how long we'd be at the range, he said "oh, 4-5hrs." So I showed up with a couple rifles, spare barrels and a wheelbarrowfull of reloading stuff and we went at it.
Two hours of shooting I'd put bunches of groups down range.......... Del had fired 2 groups!
I swapped out rifles and barrels, played with loads, tested all sorts of junk and Del fired a couple more groups.
And for long stretches he just SAT, din't do nuttin, just looked around. (He did ask me once "why are you shooting?" I looked at him in complete bafflement, "well that's why I'm here... right??")
Point is, at the end of the day Del had charted one aggregate. With notes and observations and breakdowns. He also fired two groups with a new bullet, wham-bam, back-to-back, TWO steenking groups!!! In like two minnits. I figgered old guy hadda' shoot with a crutch until that...... "I guess he CAN put 'em down when he wants to..."
But I'd have crammed another agg in easy.... and half the time, no,
3/4 of the time, Del was looking and writing and scheming (those who knew Del know what I mean and it's a good thing)
I also got Del to fire a group with my new 30cal, he did better than me, commented that "it drifted just like his 65."
And he insisted I fire a group with his latest-greatest PPC, his rifle was no better than mine. (I still shot a duck-shaped group
)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, IMO it ain't the powder............ and what I am trying to get across would take pages of typing. But take time, keep GOOD NOTES, be methodical and when you find gold spend all your resources trying to repeat it but remember WHAT YOU SEE AIN'T WHAT YOU GET on a home range unless it's indoors. All ranges are unpredictable but home ranges are often the worst. I've been driving home from work just GLOATING over the day, my guys at work have had to lissen to "DUDE! Now
this would be some good shootin' right here!!!" I've rushed out to the range many times to catch the perfect conditions...... and sometimes I've fired 5-15rds and given up!
I've burned buckets of primers just wearing barrels out on un-shootable days and have learned that some days just aren't worth it. And some situations are just horrible. My 350yd butt right now is growing in.... and it's getting worse. It's a liar...It shoots over a crick and through the trees and it's only honest about 20% of the time and basically ONLY when it's raining.
Anyways, enough rambling from this backyard hacker. Good luck in your quest but my advice is to bend that 'luck' with GOOD notes
and MORE of them. And remember that some days just DON'T SHOOT! (and night time
doesn't shoot, and over snow is a mess, and mirage and boil can be the MOST honest and the LEAST honest things, and "dead calm" aint... etc etc)
opinionsby
al
