To Jeff's delight, I'm sure (), I had the opportunity to take the Savage out to the range again.
After putting 70 rounds down the barrel, and adhering (somewhat, hehe) to the break-in procedures prescribed, I thought it was time to try and make a serious stab at seeing what groupings I could get; I had tried it previously, but didn't take it as seriously.
I used the bipods on the front of my rifle, and a piece of carpet rolled over a piece of wood on the butt of the stock. I hope a sandbag will prove to add to my accuracy. With my scope magnified at 9x, I have a hard time seeing the point of intersection between the two lines: I used a marker to draw the lines. This may have contributed to some of those far-off shots.
First grouping:
The farthest shot to the right was the first shot and was due to my right hand trying to hold the front of the stock (which I realized was not only pointless, but counter-intuitive), and the other far-right shot was the last shot, due to my incompetence (anticipated recoil).
Second grouping:
This time the two far right shots were the last two shots I took. I think I have to work on not anticipating recoil, as well as breath control.
Any comments/critiques would be very helpful, and keep in mind I am completely inexperienced with rifles (i.e., no advice is too novice for me).
When measuring groupings, do I measure the centers of the circles in relation to one another, or the farthest edges?
Scatch Maroo
Below are the first and second groups, respectively, covered with spare change.
When I measure mine I measure from the two widest shots to the center of the group and use the sum of those two measurements as my group size.
For anticipation of recoil how well do your earmuffs or plugs work? Some of it is often cringing because of noise...If they're good, then thats cool. For your breathing, just breathe normally, not really any deeper than you really would, and use the natural pause. If you can't finish squeezing the trigger with one pause, try to maintain the pressure you have on it and start the breathing cycle again. When you pull the trigger, apply gentle squeezing gradually, watching your reticle to be sure it is on target. Just keep squeezing and don't deliberately break the trigger. Let it break on its own. Dry fire practice helps a lot too.
Those are all things I do/read/people told me. Hopefully I am not entirely full of crap.
I'm hoping I'll have the funds for a scope for the .50 after Christmas... I have to be able to see what general direction I'm aiming at!
I'm not sure what the groups measure; if I include all five shots, pretty crappy, I'm sure. If I only measure the best three (i.e. cheat) I think it's a lot less...
The dime is .6 of a inch, which I believe is equatable to .6 MOA, and so the three shot groups are, at a maximal, .6 MOA... unless I am only supposed to measure the shots from their centers, then I measure a .45-.5 for the tightest group.
You measure groups center to center of the two shots that are furthest apart.
If your shots are stringing out horizontally, its "generally" an indication that you are not executing good trigger squeeze. Bad breathing will tend to string shots vertically. These are just guidelines.
Based off the size of the bullet holes, are we shooting .223?
Most of the guys I shot with went through the same training I did and we all still use the same method, eveyones heartrate slows down when you exhale and if you quickly take 5 deep breaths and slowly slowly exhale on the last breath that is when you should take the shot, there are a few guys I know that hold their breath but if you can not take the shot within the first 15 seconds stop and breath normally again, this is good if you are not hurried as if you were at a range, this is not the advice I would give to a swat team sniper as he may not get the chance to take 5 breaths short or deep but either way taking the shot on the exhale is going to be more accurate.
Do not Sight your scope in so that your crosshairs cover your target, I personally have my target set to the upper and to the left of my crosshairs, if you put your target where the two crosshairs meet then you will allways be able to see what you are going to hit.
You may want to try using just your thumb and fore finger to squeeze the trigger, by useing the tip of your thumb on the back side of the triggerhouseing and the tip of your forefinger on the trigger then you can not jerk the trigger, you will be putting the same amount of presure fore and aft.
By the way you did not say at what distance those groups were made at but they sure look good!!!
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), I had the opportunity to take the Savage out to the range again.
