Why no progress in Accuracy

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billglaze posted this 18 May 2014

The header above is kind of a misleading statement, but I had to have a title.  To get into it:  I took note, interestedly, in Joe Brennan's work about group sizes over the last 20 or so years; he noted that we're not shooting any smaller groups now, than we were then.  (At least, that's at least one of the thrusts I got out of it.) So, recently I happened upon a copy of Maj. Geo. Nonte's book on Handloading.  It was interesting reading, kind of a later version of Phil Sharpe's book, (in fact, Maj. Nonte mentions Mr. Sharpe favorably) and I was caught by the publishing date. (Early 1970'S)  Reading Maj. Nonte's chapter about bullet casting, I was struck that we are today doing those same things, and talking about the same problems, etc. etc. An example: when I was first casting bullets, (1952, yep, just a little while ago) it was a given, according to Sharpe's book, that the bullet should be .003 over groove diameter.  The way he wrote about it, it was a figure graven in stone; not even open to question.  However, Maj. Nonte states that the bullet should be sized “no more than .0015” larger than groove diameter."  Which, at that earlier time frame, would signal a real sea-change.  Now, it's accepted as fact as, at least, a good starting point. The point I am getting to is simply this:  What has happened in those last 30 years or so, that means we should be shooting measurably better?  From Nonte's writing to now, I haven't noted any quantum leap forward in barrel technology, firearms, etc.  Many new, different powders, but that, it seems to me, is just a tiny step.  And, we're still shooting our same alloys, of course.  That's what we do:  make some kind of lead alloy into projectiles. I guess I'm trying to solve a mystery/problem that may not have a solution.  And, I have to admit I'm having a good time doing what I've always done; the frustration is simple:  I'm just not getting better at what I'm doing.  But, I'm going to keep doing it as long as I enjoy it.  Hope springs Eternal, it's said.

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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John Alexander posted this 18 May 2014

Several things could be proposed as possible reasons why there hasn't been noticeable improvement in cast bullet technology as measured by better shooting in the established CBA rifle classes.  Here are some possibilities that come to mind:

  1. We have hit a natural limit as to how accurately cast bullets can be shot.  "Everything's up to date in Kansas City.  We've gone about as fur as we can go."

  2. Many cast bullet shooters are satisfied with how well we can shoot cast bullets.  Practical accuracy is good enough. That's a perfectly valid position but not one that leads to improvement.

  3. Maybe too many cast bullet shooters think the road to improvement is to just do what we have been doing but do it more precisely. Just keep turning the crank ever more uniformly instead of looking for a longer crank handle.  

  4.  We don't do much real experimenting. What experimenting we do are things like trying to see if minute changes in powder charges will improve accuracy or which primer may give an edge. This is well plowed ground and while it may improve an individual load it won't lead to new knowledge about shooting better.

Just some random thoughts. John   

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Larry Gibson posted this 18 May 2014

John hit something in #4 that is correct. We accept what shoots accurately in one firearm or even most firearms to be a rule for all firearms. That brings us to the difference in sizing that Sharpe and Nonte specify.

Let's take a rifle for instance; neither Sharpe nor Nonte quantify their sizing recommendation with the wide variation in throat size, lengths and shapes. Thus they give a sizing that works well in all but probably only best in some. A throat consist mainly of 3 aspects; the diameter and angle of the entry from the chamber mouth into the next aspect - the freebore. The diameter and length of the freebore and is it parallel or tapered to the next aspect - the leade. The angle of the leade (front edge of the rifling) must be considered.

Thus when it is said a .003 or .015 sizing is best is that to some “average” throat dimension or one in specific. Accuracy improvement can not improve beyond a certain point, with cast bullets especially, unless all things are considered. A blanket sizing of .015 or .003 over groove diameter will only work up to a point.

Additionally the rules for many matches such as the military rifle matches work against any real improvement in accuracy past a certain point simply because those rules pertaining to the rifles and sights themselves are limiting.

Then also, unfortunately, there are many myths that are taken as face in casting, loading and shooting cast bullets. Adequate scientific testing is seldom done. What works with one rifle, bullet mould, alloy or load technique is most often assumed to work with all w/o realistic, scientific and complete testing.

Worst of all the laws of physics and ballistics are often ignored under the belief that anything can be done by only a few and only some have that knowledge and that ability.

LMG

Concealment is not cover.........

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RicinYakima posted this 19 May 2014

I would like to comment on two of the above thoughts:

1: We are approaching the limit of cast lead based bullets for the physical strength of the material. If you would just let us make bullets on our lathes from turned copper alloys, we could do better.   2: The principle of the Military Rifle Matches to see how well we can make the original rifles shoot. Yes, it is cheap (more than 4 million US Model 03 and 03A3 were made) and with original barrels (more than 12 million barrels were made, and there are many new ones still around). That is the fun of it all! Any one can take a military rifle to a match and shoot. Groups are getting smaller and scores higher, not because we are using new match barrels, but we are learning what it takes to make the original rifles shoot.   The cutting edge of cast bullet shooting is in Military Rifle, not standard benchrest.   FWIW, Ric

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LWesthoff posted this 19 May 2014

Gotta agree 100% with Ric. Have to confess, tho, that I don't think I'd be interested in making copper alloy bullets on a lathe, even if I HAD a lathe.

Wes

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badgeredd posted this 19 May 2014

billglaze wrote:Many new, different powders, but that, it seems to me, is just a tiny step.  And, we're still shooting our same alloys, of course.  That's what we do:  make some kind of lead alloy into projectiles...................Hope springs Eternal, it's said. I mentioned something a while back that I and others in a small group of cast bullet shooters have been experimenting with for 3 or 4 years in regards to our bullet alloy. I didn't get many responses to my post so I dropped the idea as far as posting is concerned.

It is my belief that our bullet alloy is a limiting factor in the quest for extremely good accuracy. Our typical scrap lead alloys are rather weak when it comes to their ability to withstand the pressures of the internal ballistics which in turn affects the external ballistics we can achieve. Townsend Whelen as a Lieutenant wrote about using high copper content casting alloys in the early 1900s and remarked that the 30-06 benefited from such alloys, but also commented on the difficulty of maintaining a homogeneous alloy during casting due to the tendency of the copper to separate from the other metals in the alloy.

We have been working with a babbit in our alloys that has improved out accuracy. We"ve used types #2, 3 and 11 babbits to see if we can improve the tensile strength of our alloys. In my experiments, I've seen an improvement in my accuracy using the babbit to incorporate a small percentage of copper into my bullet alloy. I haven't used all certified metals to make a bullet alloy which I believe would be an improvement in my results.

I have tried to the best of my ability to achieve a “balanced” alloy by calculating the Sn, Sb, and Cu content to get the Cu+Sb to equal the Sn as nearly as I can. I've seen my groups shrink by 15 to 25% by using said alloys as compared to the more traditional scrap alloys. To myself, it is apparent that all other things being equal, our alloy IS the weak link in the quest for excellent accuracy at higher pressures and velocity.

Edd

P.S. I have been working with a relatively low copper content of 0.1 to 0.25% Cu content.

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RicinYakima posted this 19 May 2014

Edd,

I think you are looking in the right place: better alloy to drive bullets faster and reduce wind drift. Harder bullets should also let you reduce diameter and increase sectional density. (32 schutezen of 20/1, 30 rifle of Lyman #2, 7MM in linotype are the norms now.)

Fifteen years or so ago I was given a lot of high-speed babbit metal. To make it usable, it ended up being 5% of the alloy because of the Cu problems of fill out. It makes a very good pistol alloy of about 18 BHn for 45 and 38 WC's. I have more if you would like to try some out.

Ric

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onondaga posted this 19 May 2014

Statistical analysis routinely used on this forum does not recognize excellent results of the few talented loaders and shooters that are super performers as statistically significant. That is why “No Progress” is falsely accepted as a verified normal.

Fortunately, the driving minds behind statistics are not the super performers in the sport. The super performers couldn't care less about statistics, they just load and shoot. The copiers use statistics to rationalize their own failure and make false analogies excluding super performance as statistically insignificant.

Taking a  group of super performers and analyzing their success is mathematically a failure also. They aren't normal and applying statistical analysis results toward the norm shooters from the super performers is ineffective because the norm shooters lack ability to win and statistics just aren't going to help the norm group at all.

I actually dislike statistics being reported on this forum altogether and ignore posts with statistics. I don't believe it is productive in any way whatsoever to improve accuracy.

Bench and position style tutorials would be a lot more productive. The top shooters are past internal and external ballistics, who has the better bullet, and earn ranking with style.

Gary

http://s30.photobucket.com/user/rhymeswithwhat/media/creedmore_zpsdd697f07.jpg.html>

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RicinYakima posted this 19 May 2014

Gary,

Are you saying shooting is an art form and not a science?

Ric

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onondaga posted this 19 May 2014

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/view_user.php?id=50>RicinYakima

 Absolutely, with the caveat I expressed about super performers being past internal, external ballistics and being settled on their bullet.  All I see left is the artistry and I regard every shot called a flier as not a flier, they are a result.

Gary

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RicinYakima posted this 19 May 2014

Well, Gary, we agree. If statisticians want to track something, it should be smallest 200 yard ten shot group for the last ten years. Ric

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Brodie posted this 19 May 2014

Count me in as agreeing with Gary as well. There are applied areas of science in shooting, Metalurgy, Physics, Math, Chemistry, Engineering,  but putting them all together to hit a target is a whole other thing. I also find long winded discussions about statistics boring and generally without substance.  For the most part we rarely produce enough data for the statistics to be relevant .  I for one am not going to waste components by shooting a thousand ten shot groups to test one load.  If that is your personal joy have at it and more power to you.  But when it is all said and done you have only shown what works for your particular rifle, load, stock, sight, trigger squeeze and personal method of shooting .  It helps me very little . Brodie.

B.E.Brickey

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R. Dupraz posted this 19 May 2014

Gary , RicinYakama, Old Coot :   Best posts I've see in a long time.        Can't add a thing except for these:         Gary:       “Bench and position style tutorials would be a lot more productive”         Old Coot:      “  But when it is all said and done you have only shown what works for your particular rifle, load, stock, sight, trigger squeeze and personal method of shooting .  It helps me very little" .     And it cuts both ways, what may not work for you might for me. I  have seen this more than once both in the BPCR and with the game we play. So the only all encompassing statement that can be made is that you need a case, a primer, some powder and a bullet.  Oh, yes, and something to shoot all that in or out of.                

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muley posted this 20 May 2014

Ya'all, each time we fire a shot from a particular rifle or pistol, wouldn't that be

considered a progression in accuracy?

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 20 May 2014

i wonder if the breech-seater/single shot guys have improved accuracy over the past 20 years. must be boring shooting all those 0.6 moa groups.

i keep trying to join but can't figure out their web site. i think you have to be a member to join ... ??


hey gary ... i got up to get a drink of water, checked in on cba chatter; now laughing so hard i can't get back to sleep ... thanks ...

ken

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joeb33050 posted this 20 May 2014

14 years

RicinYakima posted this 20 May 2014

Joe,

Very interesting! It appears that we have reached the level of capabilities of the cast lead bullet. Now we are only competing on individual skills in holding the rifle, firing the rifle and reading the wind. Thank you Joe!

Ric

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John Alexander posted this 20 May 2014

   I like, several other poster, can agree wholeheartedly with MOST of what has been said.

  I agree with Gary that what happens at the target obviously has a heck of a lot to do with what is going on at the shooting line and in the shooters physical ability, and especially what is going on in the shooter's head.  So it makes sense to devote a major effort to improving the performance of the nut behind the buttplate.   I also agree with Ric that accuracy for the military classes is still improving.  This is also true for the other newer classes (Unrestricted Pistol and Hunting Rifle).  Almost all the new records are being set in these three classes. Shooting old military rifles is a great game and the most dynamic area of CBA competition.  I urge anybody with an old military rifle to give it a try.   We eventually will see if and when improvement in the three newer classes levels off (or at least slows to a crawl) but in the military classes and hunting rifle classes the level of scores and groups will almost certainly never equal the best accuracy that is possible with cast bullets because, for good reason, in both classes we have written the rules to outlaw several of the practices that allow a higher level of accuracy.  If we didn't limit the equipment this way and everybody was shooting unrestricted rifles it would be boring and our competitive program would die an early death.  But how well the best shooters are doing in the classes that don't limit equipment is where we can see if we are improving the ultimate cast bullet accuracy.   I also agree that there is a degree of art to cast bullet shooting.  However, I would argue that there is also, a good portion of the scientific approach applied, or there should be if we seriously expect to improve cast bullet accuracy.   In the first CBA national match where groups were reported (1978) the benchrest class was won with a grand aggregate of 1.216”.  They were using custom rifles with Shilen barrels capable of quarter inch groups with jacketed bullets. Now, using similar rifles, it takes a grand aggregate of about half that size to win.  That improvement didn't happen because of the efforts of mystics or by shooters so talented that they could ignore and reject the laws of physics and mathematics as some kind of elite fooling around.  It happened because folks like Franklin Mann, John Ardito, Ken Mollohan, Larry Jennings, David Lee, Ed Doonan and several others approached cast bullet shooting as something that could be improved by disciplined experimentation and testing.  They probably wouldn't have call themselves scientists but they used the scientific method and yes they had a grasp of practical statistics which is needed to perform valid experiments.   The shooters mentioned above are all dead and we now have very few using their methods to improve cast bullet technology.  Our very best shooters have been able to consistently shoot ten shot groups at 200 yards of about 1.5 inches in decent conditions for at least the last 15 years.  But they are not getting any better and it doesn't take any kind of complicated statistical analysis to see it.   Maybe we don't care but that is another discussion not the one that billglaze started this thread with.   John

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joeb33050 posted this 20 May 2014

RicinYakima wrote: Joe,

Very interesting! It appears that we have reached the level of capabilities of the cast lead bullet. Now we are only competing on individual skills in holding the rifle, firing the rifle and reading the wind. Thank you Joe!

Ric Ric;

I don't believe that we can't get more accuracy from cast bullets.

I do believe that meticulous attention to detail ain't going to get us there. We've had years f that.

I don't believe that bench rest shooting skill is the answer-because many of us can shoot <.5” 5 shot 100 yard groups on demand with jacketed-it ain't the shooter's skill.

I don't believe in “super performers” in either shooting or reloading or both. If they exist, they're not shooting in competition. There aren't any mystery men out there who can shoot and know the secrets of reloading for < .5” groups. f there are, please raise your hands! See! 

I do believe that the trick/path/secret may revolve around the bullet, a swaged hard bullet, maybe a zinc bullet, maybe a mostly-antimony bullet; I don't know.

I do believe that there are very few CB shooters who are interested in the search.

 

 

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RicinYakima posted this 20 May 2014

Joe, Please re-read my statement: “cast lead bullet". I think the next major step, a 25% reduction in 200 yard 10 shot group size, will be with bullets with less, maybe much less, lead than 50%.     We will need a material that is better than our present lead alloys to make bullets with better center of form, center of mass and shaped the same as it comes out the barrel as it starts in the chamber. We do not have nearly enough strength in the crystalline structure of our bullets to prevent deformation.    

The problem is that home cast-able metals, other than lead, are light, lighter or lightest. Seriously, a tin and antimony alloy with enough depleted uranium to add mass, like the Air Force A-10's use, may have to be the next step.    

The guy that was the head of Frankfort Arsenal's match ammunition program from about 1925 through 1955 wrote in The American Rifleman that 80% of accuracy/precision was the bullet. Everything else a handloader does is a minor factor and consistence is the best you can hope for.       We are at the point money, scientific methodology, money, time, money, facilities, money and more money are needed. I need a Pew, Ford Foundation or MacArthur grant for a couple of million to start work, it can't be too long in coming cause I'm old now!    

Ric

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LWesthoff posted this 20 May 2014

I'm kind of inclined to agree with joeb (don't do that very often). There's a strong possibility that we're about as far as we can go with lead-tin-antimony cast bullets. However, I am NOT interested in going to swaged bullets or mostly antimony bullets, and we tried zinc bullets in handguns quite a few years ago - and that fad didn't last very long at all.

I'm well aware that the jacketed bullet/rail gun guys have been responsible for a lot of improvements in firearm accuracy through the years. However, my own personal search is to become the best cast bullet shooter I can possibly be, and I hope I'm not there yet. I shoot cast a) because I can afford it, and b) because I kind of enjoy making my own bullets. I shoot Issue Military, and Production Rifle, because there's no “equipment race” involved; mostly, the winner has learned to shoot better than the rest of us.

I certainly have no objection to anybody pursuing the swaged or lathe turned or whatever bullet for greater accuracy, but if they do, they won't be competing in the CAST BULOLET ASSOCIATION matches with me. I'll still be trying to learn how to shoot cast bullets the best I possibly can, and as I said before, I hope I'm not there yet!

Wes

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