are larger calibers more accurate ?

  • 1.6K Views
  • Last Post 15 June 2016
Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 20 February 2016

Are larger calibers more accurate ?

john ardito progressed to 32 caliber over his early 30 .  could he have kept going up?

harry pope shot 32-33 calibers even though you would think that offhand would favor 22-23-24-25 for the reduced recoil . oh, and heavier stiffer barrel .

and observe all the 375 deer rifles shooting so many 2 moa groups with little ...skulduggery...

could it be that our defects all have the same mass but become a smaller per centage as the bullet weight goes up ?

i keep ignoring the reports of easy accuracy with the big guys ... firstly because a 375 bullet costs 15 cents in lead per bullet .... but the thought of plonking away 200 rounds of those bowling balls on a sunny afternoon  makes my shoulder ache already ...

oh, yep i see that thousand yard shooters use a lot of small calibers ... but those match bullets are nearly perfect ...our castings are not ... at least as they leave the muzzle..., which is what counts .

all the above is with some trepidation personally ... as my current interests are the small bores ... but i do have a new 375 chambered douglas match barrel that keeps begging for a test run ....i am afraid it would ruin my reputation if i shot a group under 2 moa ....  i bet it would flatten a bean can tho ... oh the temptation ..... oh, yeah ... my most accurate cast rifle was a 32-40 hi wall .  hmmm .

ken

Attached Files

Order By: Standard | Newest | Votes
John Alexander posted this 20 February 2016

I have always thought that talk of inherently accuracy calibers because of a magical case shape or particular bore size  was just so much horse hockey as my Hoosier neighbors use to say.  I have never seen any kind of reasonable test to tempt me to change my mind. There is some evidence that the right case capacity for the bore may have an effect i.e. full cases are supposed to be better.  Joe and others think this may be overblown -- at least.

If rifles are of the same weight stock shape and quality the clear advantage goes to smaller calibers.  Warren Page reported in Field and Stream sometime in the dark ages on a test he did.  He shot  a bunch of similar rifles from probably 222 to boomers and bigger groups correlated with the bigger bores. Nothing magic the less recoil and twist the easier to shoot well.

On the other hand of two bullets a 22 scale model bullet of the 299 bullet will deflect more in the wind because the BC will be lower.

Bigger will cut a scoring ring that smaller won't and it is easier to shoot “one hole groups”  if the bullet holes are bigger. John

Attached Files

Ed Harris posted this 20 February 2016

My feeling is that once you go much above .30 cal.-8mm it is harder to cast void-free bullets and with additional bullet weight recoil and shooter fatigue start becoming a factor.

But I have seen large bores shoot very accurately when well managed. The .375 H&H with cast comes to mind.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

Attached Files

John Alexander posted this 20 February 2016

Ed has a good point.  I have always thought that my inability to ever find internal voids in a 22 cast bullet (in spite of a lot of looking) while others were reporting them (always in bigger calibers) wasn't an accident but that it made sense because it was more of a problem in bigger bullets. John

Attached Files

Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 20 February 2016

voids from molding ... a good point ... in our plastic injection molding .... the thinner the wall the fewer the voids . there could be similarities in bullet casting .

maybe an argument for hollow points ... and of course a final swaging operation ...

ken

Attached Files

RicinYakima posted this 20 February 2016

I don't want to start up “old wives tales” again, but when I was shooting the Trapdoor, ladle poured bullets had fewer base voids and shot better than bottom dump pot poured bullets. My feeling is that it is harder to get air out of the cavity with bottom pour and not have fins.

So I agree that I prefer to shoot about 200 grain bullets for a full match day, rather than heavier ones. Shooting eighty 500 grainers from the TD off a bench is tiring.

Ric

Attached Files

Bud Hyett posted this 20 February 2016

There are many factors in this question and full consideration of each factor and the interrelationship with the other factors means this question cannot be easily answered scientifically or statistically, but best answered by a person's experiential evidence.

The progression of calibers from .50 and 45 to smaller calibers came where the .32 and .33 calibers were a good fit. Better barrels. better sights, optic sights, better actions were being developed while the calibers were going smaller. These factors influenced the final outcome of better grouping. The trend toward smaller calibers continued; various .25 caliber cartridges and the .28-30 were being refined in this period in an attempt to have lessened recoil for offhand shooting.

There is an experiential consideration seldom discussed where a person gains in ability to shoot as they progress and eventually this increased ability to shoot influences grouping ability, but is not a factor in the consideration. Often, the shooter switches a component and gets a better group, not thinking that they might also be shooting better. The new component gets the credit when the shooter may be an unrecognized influence on this latest group.*

A second consideration is the copy-cat mode of many shooters. When one person scores well with a new caliber or component, many other shooters begin using this caliber or component. And the new component may be the correct approach. However, the change may only work within the one instance. Not to say the .32 or .33 are a bad choice, these calibers are where a number of people concentrated research and effort and they became the standard bore.

*I know since retirement, lessened stress in daily life has helped my shooting ability. When I am having a bad day testing loads, I put my BSA Martini International with good .22 LR target ammo on the bench and see how I am shooting with it. If it is not grouping well, the nut behind the butt-plate needs adjustment.   

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

Attached Files

norm posted this 21 February 2016

John, The Warren Page article you refer to might be his article in the 1968 Gun Digest. He summarizes results from Remington's custom shop 40-X test firings. Calibers from 222 to 300 Winchester Magnum. All groups at 100 yards on an indoor range.

Attached Files

RicinYakima posted this 21 February 2016

Norm, you have a great memory.

Attached Files

John Alexander posted this 21 February 2016

Norm, Thanks. That's it.  I had forgotten that it was in the Gun Digest. I just gave all my Gun Digests away.

John

Attached Files

norm posted this 21 February 2016

Just reread the article. Page does not state how many rifles. Just writes several hundred. 3 groups from each individual rifle and at 100 yards on an indoor range.Calibers and average group sizes.222 Remington-.363,222 Rem mag-.387,223 Rem-.400,22-250-.434,6x47-.411,244 Rem-.470,6mm Rem-.454,6.5 Rem-.540,7mmRem mag.640,7.62NATO-.572,30-06-.768,30-338-.780,300 Win mag-1.00. the 244&6mm numbers are puzzling?

Attached Files

John Alexander posted this 21 February 2016

Norm, Thanks for putting up the numbers.

I think with only three groups from each rifle, slight inconsistencies as you step up aren't too surprising.  Also maybe one rifle was just a bit better than average.  If the results had been perfect step, step, step as the caliber was increased we should be a little skeptical. Nature isn't neat and tidy.

John

Attached Files

45 2.1 posted this 21 February 2016

My take from what I've experienced, over 50 years and hundreds of rifles from the first center fire to the latest whizzbang factory number, is that most well put together rifles have about the same accuracy potential. That potential depends on the shooter and when or what he chooses to shoot. That bullet and loading is fraught with many old wives tales also.

Attached Files

Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 21 February 2016

thanks guys for the comments . maybe those 375 mag. rifles i was reading about were fit a little better in the first place . a poor bedding job would probably crack the stock ... etc . i bet those pre-64 375 mag winchester super grades were bolted together nicely .

and i forgot my 44 mag rem 788... normally a very accurate deer rifle action . mine had a pencil barrel that looked like a 410 shotgun tube . the best i got was about 2.3 moa with mj . and cast about 3 moa . yep i traded it off .

my question might have better been .... are large calibers easier to get 2.5 moa with cast .... not so much are they easier to shoot .

thanks .

ken

Attached Files

rmrix posted this 21 February 2016

norm wrote: Just reread the article. Page does not state how many rifles. Just writes several hundred. 3 groups from each individual rifle and at 100 yards on an indoor range.Calibers and average group sizes.222 Remington-.363,222 Rem mag-.387,223 Rem-.400,22-250-.434,6x47-.411,244 Rem-.470,6mm Rem-.454,6.5 Rem-.540,7mmRem mag.640,7.62NATO-.572,30-06-.768,30-338-.780,300 Win mag-1.00. the 244&6mm numbers are puzzling?I think that is quit interesting.

I would guess that doing this same test using cast bullets, then including additional large calibers like 338, 358, 375, 408, 458... all shot to much greater distance would aid in showing the larger bores have some advantage. 

The larger calibers sure show advantage in the 800 - 1000y matches and I am not sure how a small diameter cast bullet would handle the same challenge. If they had the same Bc there should be no difference but in actual practice it does not work out that way.

Attached Files

45 2.1 posted this 21 February 2016

Ken Campbell Iowa wrote: my question might have better been .... are large calibers easier to get 2.5 moa with cast .... not so much are they easier to shoot .

thanks .

ken Ken-    Any caliber can do poorly when you feed them something they don't like. I spent 1.5 years finding out H. M. Pope was wrong in his statement that the 45-70 wouldn't shoot. He was right until I found what it took to make it shoot. That knowledge transferred to other rifles, then others still. It is not necessarily the rifle, but it is the shooter and what he feeds that rifle that makes all the difference.

Attached Files

milboltnut posted this 30 May 2016

Have to say heavy bullets are more accurate... Of course the quality of the gun means a lot. Also It depends on what your expectations are, as far as accuracy. Compare a flintlock verses a modern rifle and decide.

Attached Files

JeffinNZ posted this 03 June 2016

Maybe it's a factor of SD (sectional density). I you look at the bullets that are winning they are long for their weight. Small calibre moulds tend not be big on SD.

Cheers from New Zealand

Attached Files

Eutectic posted this 15 June 2016

If I was not careful there was porosity at the sprue hole because the alloy shrinks as it hardens. This is why you cannot do a hardness test on the base. This can be minimized by continuing to feed with a bottom pour, but the alloy runs over the top of the mold. If you hold a ladle in contact for a 10 count it also feeds the base and you get less porosity. Velocity makes compensating for conditions easier, but cast bullets are velocity limited. Sectional density also makes compensating for conditions easier and 180 - 220 grain 30's have a sectional density advantage which requires much heavier bullets as the caliber goes up. You can get high SD with smaller calibers, but this requires very fast twist rates which seem to cause problems for cast. I always wanted to try a 6.5 mm but never did, it would have been interesting. Steve

Attached Files

Categories
Search
Popular Tags
This Weeks High Earners
Hot Topics
Close