Is my new Krieger Good or just average.

R

russell m

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I got a new Krieger for the Crawfish. This was my first Match. I didn't do as well as I usually do when I go out shooting every weekend. I know it was under Match conditions But something just seemed really off. I here a lot of talk about good barrels & average barrels.
Being a new shooter. It seems to me that it would take years of experience to know that I am doing my part shooting & the load is right but the barrel just is not a great barrel.
Does anyone have a easier way to know if you have a Great or Average barrel. russell m
 
The Krieger’s I've had were all good. Chance are its shooter/loader error. Mike Ratigan has a good book that I would recommend to you. He's a true BR Shooter and shares his tips, experience and tricks in the book.

Nothing short of trigger time will cure your ailment though.
 
Russel

Russel, the best I can tell you is you start to get a feel for this sort of thing, after you shoot in matches for a couple of years.
I went to the Crawfish with a new barrel as well. I broke it in the week before, and tuned it in with my tuner. I violated one of my own rules, don't go to a big match with a barrel that you are not 100 percent in love with.
You saw how I struggled all day Saturday. By the 3rd match on Saturday morning, I knew that barrel had problems. Sure, the conditions were tough, but when you do this long enough, you will get a feel for when a barrel is simply not up to the task.
I screwed one of my proven barrels on Saturday after the first days shooting, sighted it in, and the next day was a whole new game.
Everybody knows I shoot Krieger barrels, and I give them praise as to how well they shoot. But, along with that comes the fact that occasionally, I get one that is simply not up to our standards, and I just chalk it up to the luck of the draw.
Russel, you really need to get some more match time under your belt before you start making decisions about this sort of thing. Good lord, did you see the conditions we were shooting in both days. You will just have to trust me when I tell you that you that there are a lot of things that trigger time, in matches, on the clock, with the backer moving, teaches you that no amount of practice ever will.......jackie
 
I have only just got started and attended only a few matches myself so I can identify with your question. More so because I have just got two new Kreigers myself.

The original barrel has 1000 rounds on it and it seemed to have all of a sudden given up shooting. I later worked on the powder weight and found that the load I had been using for while had gone off tune and the different ambient conditions called for a different load. That barrel now appears to be shooting well again, not quite as sharp as the new one but that is to be expected I guess.

I have only shot one of the new barrels and with very little load work it was shooting reliably in the high 1's in good conditions, just like the first barrel did when it was new. At the match I used the barrel in it was again shooting in the mid to high 1's on the nice calm practice day. During the match I shot a number of groups in the very low to mid 2's at 100 and a nice mid 3 at 200 when I got onto a condition that didn't tax my wind reading to far !! The barrel seems to be going OK.

In a match there is a bunch of stuff that could be different to your practice and might result in larger groups than you had been shooting in practice. Wind reading at a different range would be the first and most obvious possibility but load tune is another thing that can be hard to assess properly in match conditions. You may have been slightly out of tune and blamed the barrel ?? You might also have just not been shooting as well as when you were relaxed and doing your own thing. First match nerves maybe ??

Did you shoot the new barrel in practice first in good conditions ? How does the new one shoot compared to the old one ??

Did you tune the load to the barrel or did you use the same load from the old barrel ?

I'd imagine even a pretty ho hum Kreiger would shoot 1/4 inch with the load tuned. How was your doing ??

Bryce
 
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Bryce. MY agg on the 100 for 2 gun was about .360. But as Jackie said we had some prety awful conditions. But the range I shoot at every weekend has the same conditions. I had shot much better in the previous week in worse conditions. I made a lot of mistakes during the match. One being I went to the line with 2 didderent loads. Hit my loading box with my bullets int on the side of the bench top & bullets went every where. I thought I got the 2 loads seperated ok. but I didnt. I had one group that was a 4 shot high 1 & the 5th shot went 1/2 inch off. I also stayed with the same load all day on sat. was happy with my results. 1st group sunday was good. the next group went real bad so I changed powder charge & started chasing from there. The second day ended up worse than my first day. I know I have a long way to go.
 
Russell,

What really struck me when I went to my first match is how different it is to shooting at your range in practice.

I mean the following in the nicest possible way ! I am no expert and just getting started myself but this may be worth thinking about ??

It isn't hard to make an agg big with just one or two errors, remember the group is only as good as the worst shot ! On day two of the most recent match here I was looking good for a sub 0.25 agg in the HV100, until one shot slipped out to a 0.508 in the 4th match made it damn near a 0.300 !! I had a bit of a brain fade on the flags and didn't relax and just trust myself.

LV100: 0.281, 0.364, 0.202, 0.210, 0.247 Agg = 0.2608

HV100: 0.201, 0.249, 0.244, 0.508, 0.295 Agg = 0.2994

As you can see my LV100 was notably better, even with a 0.364 in there, but in reality it was just one stray bullet that made the difference, the rest of the groups are very similar.

It is a cruel game where a small error can impact a lot on the outcome but one or two really good groups doesn't help the average a great deal !!

A quick look over my results for the entire weekend shows that I was two groups away from a pretty creditable result. The 0.509 at 100 was one and a 1.133 at 200 was the other, both the result of a little bit of indecision, moving away from the game plan and not trusting myself.

Take a look at the groups you are happy with and be honest with yourself in respect of the ones that weren't so good. Even an out of tune PPC is capable of groups better than the worst ones you probably shot. The barrel and load are probably not where the fault lies. Don't beat yourself up, look at where you went wrong and work on doing it better next time. Don't get to anxious to get the group over, work with the conditions and do your best to get all you can from them. If the conditions are rough load tune isn't a big deal unless you are pretty handy on the flags. I changed load a few times thinking I was seeing the load go out of tune, every time the group was bigger than the one that made me change and I went straight back to the load that I had been using !!

Remember the famous saying ...... "You don't need to shoot small, just don't shoot big" !!

Bryce
 
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