I had a hard time deciding which forum to post this in, and have decided to try Handloading and Reloading.
The background is I shot in a club highpower rifle match yesterday. The range has 200 and 300 yd. firing lines, so the 20 round slow fire prone stage is shot on reduced targets. Something happened during the slow fire prone stage that has me puzzled.
The load is Hornady 75 gr. HPBT over a thrown charge of Rl15, IMI brass, and Rem. 7 1/2 BR primers. Loaded single stage and seated on a Forster BR Seater. Rifle is a National Match grade AR15 that started as an Eagle Arms Golden Eagle but has went through some changes over the years. It now wears a BCM upper, is free floated and has a relatively new (400 rounds) RRA 1:8 barrel.
I love that load, and have used it consistently at 300 yds. for a couple of decades. It is extremely accurate and I've never had an issue. All of my sighters and rapid fire string (98-4x) were as expected. But during the slow fire stage, my 4th shot was a 6 at 10 o'clock, out side of the black. The fifth shot was a 7 at 9. I didn't call either to be that bad but did notice the wind had picked up slightly and was in my face. I took one click right
and kept on, and ended with a 188 8x with nothing else worse than a 9.
Anyway, after the match the guy that was pulling targets for me told me that both of the bad shots had tumbled and the 6 hole was so big he had hard time getting the spotter to stay in. I've never had anything like that happened before. The fact that the 2 shots were back to back suggests some sort of external cause. Bad bullets? What's the odds that 2 would end up side by side in ammo box? A low charge that didn't stabilize the bullet? Elevation was good, considering, and I check the level in the case before I seat anything. Life was good both before and after those 2 shots.
Any ideas or similar experiences?
The background is I shot in a club highpower rifle match yesterday. The range has 200 and 300 yd. firing lines, so the 20 round slow fire prone stage is shot on reduced targets. Something happened during the slow fire prone stage that has me puzzled.
The load is Hornady 75 gr. HPBT over a thrown charge of Rl15, IMI brass, and Rem. 7 1/2 BR primers. Loaded single stage and seated on a Forster BR Seater. Rifle is a National Match grade AR15 that started as an Eagle Arms Golden Eagle but has went through some changes over the years. It now wears a BCM upper, is free floated and has a relatively new (400 rounds) RRA 1:8 barrel.
I love that load, and have used it consistently at 300 yds. for a couple of decades. It is extremely accurate and I've never had an issue. All of my sighters and rapid fire string (98-4x) were as expected. But during the slow fire stage, my 4th shot was a 6 at 10 o'clock, out side of the black. The fifth shot was a 7 at 9. I didn't call either to be that bad but did notice the wind had picked up slightly and was in my face. I took one click right
and kept on, and ended with a 188 8x with nothing else worse than a 9.Anyway, after the match the guy that was pulling targets for me told me that both of the bad shots had tumbled and the 6 hole was so big he had hard time getting the spotter to stay in. I've never had anything like that happened before. The fact that the 2 shots were back to back suggests some sort of external cause. Bad bullets? What's the odds that 2 would end up side by side in ammo box? A low charge that didn't stabilize the bullet? Elevation was good, considering, and I check the level in the case before I seat anything. Life was good both before and after those 2 shots.
Any ideas or similar experiences?
Last edited:
