F Class Accuracy - What is required to win ?

[ecomeat]

This is more or less a complimentary thread to Matt Paroz's recent one on ES and SD that is in Equipment and Technical.
It also fits in with stats that Alan Fraser has published about how scores tend to fall away in big events once we get past 600 yards, and with Williada drumming into us that he reckons we need two and/or ideally three specialist guns, or barrels (he rarely approves of my switch barrels though ) or as a minimum, specialised loads developed.....to cater for short range, mid range and long range F Class matches.
For the five years that I have been shooting F Class, the "Rule Of Thumb" for required accuracy in F Open has always seemed to have been 1/4 MOA. Plenty of shooters seem to claim 1/2 MOA but those who can loudly and proudly claim 1/4 moa are few and far between.
I shoot 1000 Yard BR whenever i can, and shooting two x 10 shot groups in Heavy Gun,(which i have to do with a 9.95 kg F Open rifle) a 10" group Average would win it for you most of the time. Its a totally different game in Light Gun 1000BR with its 3 x 5 shot groups, and the very best I ever did was an average of just over 7.5" for the three. Recently I couldnt help wondering about what sort of "ten shot groups" real people are achieving with real guns under real competition........where there is wind, nerves, sledging etc etc
The stats page below is what happens when you sit in the warm dry home, instead of risking a wet arse at a major Prize Meeting like the Natives OPM at Belmont this weekend that kicks off nine big days of high level shooting.............you have time to look at obscure statistics.
Thanks to the Hexta electronic targets in use at Natives OPM, i can easily pull off the stats for 6 well known, well travelled, consistently performing F Open shooters, and 5 similarly placed FTR shooters.
I mean no disrepect to any of these F Classers by posting their groups......and i have rounded off to one decimal place anyway.....but that doesnt affect the "trend". For the ease of use, I have simply called 1" at 100 yards as 1 MOA.
Steve Nelsons one off 48" group at 1000 obviously takes the average out a long way, but "Hey !!"....it happened, and his groups at 300-600 do a lot to lower the averages over those distances, so all his results are in. There is nothing listed for Steve at 800 yards, only because some sort of glitch in the Hexta system has him as 0 ??
How is our 0.25 MOA requirement looking ?



Dont get me wrong....I absolutely believe in the power and importance of having goals, and of striving for the best possible accuaracy as a never ending quest, but from these results, it would seem that 3/4 moa accuracy for a ten shot group would get you on the podium most of the time, if you can put them in the right place.
Now i am off to weight sort primers, bullets and cases to load for the NRAA Queens............... I wonder if that Williada bloke might be right on the money about no rifle being capable of being perfect at every range from 300-1000 yards .

Speaking of "Primers", after discovering yesterday that the Q Store had none, my local gunshop told me that he has been told that there are about 650,000 CCI BR2 primers on backorder......and not a single box on the water to Australia yet ! I have three x 284 Win barrels running on BR2s and will have about 20 left after the NRAA Queens.
I have 2500 x CCI450's and 1000 CCI BR4's if anybody is interested in trading some Also have a 5000 pack of PMC LR's. I know they are good too, but it would be nice to have 1000 BR2 in the safe !!

[Julian D]

That is very interesting Tony. Thank you for doing all this, it has certainly helped me to understand the reloading process & what seems to work & what doesn't.
The "smart blokes" on here should sit down & write a book on accurate reloading & what makes an accurate rifle to suit our conditions here in Oz. I for one would buy a copy.

[mike H]

Tony,
You have lost me,or more likely,I have lost you,without looking at the scores for the day and the Hexta data,I am assuming that the plots of the results have been converted to MOA.The way I look at is that one or two bad calls/shots in the string can affect the score as well as the group measurement.The only way a looser grouping rifle/shooter combination can win over a tighter grouping rifle is if the shooter of the more accurate rifle is not shooting well.
Mike.

[ecomeat]

Tony,
You have lost me,or more likely,I have lost you,without looking at the scores for the day and the Hexta data,I am assuming that the plots of the results have been converted to MOA.The way I look at is that one or two bad calls/shots in the string can affect the score as well as the group measurement.The only way a looser grouping rifle/shooter combination can win over a tighter grouping rifle is if the shooter of the more accurate rifle is not shooting well.
Mike.

Mike,
Its only talking about "groups", and what people seem to regard as acceptable.
Granted that you have to put your tight groups in the middle to win or do well....we are shooting for score after all. But the Hexta ETs measure the widest spread of the scoring "group", regardless of where it is situated on the target, and its printed there , online, and easy to grab/ I simply picked out some names that most F Classers would know......and who had done well at this OPM.....and got the Stats from Hexta, purely on GROUP SIZE.
Then I simply converted it to MOA as an approximation, calling a ten inch group at 1000, or an 8 inch group at 800 or a 3 inch group at 300 (etc) as being "One MOA".
We all know that on the mound, under pressure and varying wind strengths, that "sh#t happens", but I was simply interested in seeing what size.....and therefore what MOA.....these known performers achieved.
The Saturday where they shot 300, 500, 600 and then added 800, was basically dead flag conditions.
My point was that many of us aim for 1/4 moa groups as a target or goal, and are often as happy as hell with half moa, whereas here this weekend, it looks certain that 3/4 moa ten shot groups would get you the gong

[ecomeat]

Mike,
this is a screen snip of the Hexta page showing Josh Reids target that won him the second 1000 yards shot today.

It clearly shows the "group" size of 8.33 inches.
If you want to work out the Vertical with precision, it would just be the 129.3mm on the Y Axis between shots 5 and 10....just under 5.1" . So his vertical is about 0.51 moa and his actual group is 0.83 moa.
Note the "10 to 4" slant that Williada and Dave McNamara have been talking about lately, where the distinct elipse shape of the 1000 yard group runs from 10 oclock to 4 oclock. Groups do matter.
What sort of records do you Junee boys keep ? This 7 SAUM is consistently one of the best tuned rifles in this part of the world.
The chart that I posted is simply the weekend "groups" achieved by 5 FTR shooters and 6 F Open shooters.

[Chopper]

Must have had perfect conditions to test , Chop

[Norm]

Tony, I know Stephen had issues on the first 1000 yards after he decided to clean the "Molly" out of his barrel. May not have been a good idea as it obviously took a few shots to settle in after the clean and is not truly representative of his load or rifle. So things can skew the results of stats.

With regard to group size, I think the make up of a group is important. You can have 9 shots into the X ring and one shot out in the 5 ring for a score of 59.9 and a 1 MOA group size.

It the group forms with a more scattered pattern or hollow centre, you can have say 3 shots into the 5 ring and 7 shots into the 6 ring with only one shot into the X ring for a score of 57.1 and still have a 1 MOA group size.

I think that the standard deviation of all the shots from the centre of the group is a more useful indication of the accuracy potential of a particular load. Then you have flat groups and vertical groups to read and interpret. What fliers are doing. How the Mexican wave is going and Dave may even look at his tea leaves to do his final load adjustment.

[jasmay]

One thing that o am learning is that simply "testing" isn't thr only thing required, repeatability is.

Because you get good results during one test, or one shoot doesn't mean you have a good load.

Hell, if you like me and shoot of a bipod, position is so heavily critical you can stuff up a test in no time, and this was what I found during my first attempt at Williada's system, so at some stage I will have to prepare another 45-50 rounds and see what I can find.... Or, should I for go further "testing" and work with the results I see on range now? I know my rifle is performing great, so perhaps I need less testing and more shooting.

I think we can over use testing and forget that an accurate rifle is only part of the puzzle, and I honestly believe with the cross section of shooters I work with, and a familiar with their testing and loading procedures that "testing" won't give you all the info you need.

Shoot 10 ranges, then you will start to see some usable data.

Overtime perhaps this opinion will change, but it's what's working now.

I'll be paying very close attention to both the Daves and Tony over the next 12months to learn what I can and find the best possible development procedure that works for me, it will be very interesting to see where I end up.

[jasmay]

After examining both Josh and Nik's targets from the weekend did Josh win because he has a better load, or did Nik lose because he struggled with wind reading the longs.

From what I am seeing, the later is the case.

P.S. Please excuse any typing errors, I use my phone and inhabe fat fingers

[scott/r]

I watched an interview with Brian Litz (I hope that's how you spell his name ) from berger a couple of years ago. He's of the opinion that you are better off with a rifle shooting consistent 1/2 minute groups and getting to know that rifle is going to react to different conditions, than you are chasing and changing loads and characteristics of said rifle. I can see where he's coming from when you it to Tony's thoughts.

[KHGS]

I watched an interview with Brian Litz (I hope that's how you spell his name ) from berger a couple of years ago. He's of the opinion that you are better off with a rifle shooting consistent 1/2 minute groups and getting to know that rifle is going to react to different conditions, than you are chasing and changing loads and characteristics of said rifle. I can see where he's coming from when you it to Tony's thoughts.

So correct!!!
Keith H.

[AlanF]

I think that its pretty obvious that all else being equal (seem to remember using that expression before ) you will generally perform better with a more accurate rifle. I think what Litz would have been saying is that you should ration your time sensibly between practicing shooting and accuracy development. Every effort you make towards accuracy improvement needs to be weighed up in terms of whether that effort will be worthwhile in terms of time and cost, and whether your time could be better spent practicing shooting, and money better spent travelling to different ranges to experience a variety of conditions.

FWIW I can tell you that I've competed in 3 Queens this year, mostly using a barrel/load combination that leaks about 1 point vertically (usually a 6 o'clock 5) for each range after about 700m. This was good enough to win the Vic Queens because conditions were tricky. In South Australia it would have probably been just good enough if I'd read the wind better than everyone else, which was far from the case and I finished mid-field. In North Queensland, conditions were very good, and there was a 60 in the offing at every range if you had the required accuracy, but I didn't and consequently finished about 5 points behind what Peter Smith's score would have been if hadn't wrong targetted!

In my opinion, at the top level you need a rifle that is accurate enough to hold the X-ring vertically 95% of time, at the longest range you shoot. Sideways accuracy is generally not going to be improved by rifle and load development, but by practice!

I would add that during my time of shooting F-Open over about 14 years, equipment accuracy has improved significantly, and will no doubt continue to do so thanks to better quality equipment and components, and in particular, to the efforts and willingness to share information, and I'm proud to say that much of that has been from members of this forum.

[shooter mcreid]

Chop, that barrel was run in with 25 rounds the day before with a mild load of 55.0gr of 2209. So no testing has yet been done. That load seemed good during the run in so I decided to use it for the prize meet.
Another variable to throw into it Jason could be the fact that I felt it was the right condition to start in the predominant condition and get them down quickly before a big change. I watched Niks last shoot as I was really impressed with how he was shooting especially on the first day and noticed he decided to shoot a little slower. So to sum it up the style in which you choose to progress through your string can make a big difference and it all depends on the window you get.

[RAVEN]

IMO

A rifle load combo that averages .3moa is usually good enough to win most competitions
chasing the holy grail can be fun but it’s about return on effort.
no point in tuning a gun to shoot in the ones if you can't read the wind and frankly a lot of rifle just aren’t capable of this higher level of consistent accuracy
RB
P.S the groups size focus is on vertical
any horizontal stringing is very hard to determine unless you shoot in a warehouse or tunnel and I know there aren't too many of those available.
so stop chasing the holy grail and get shooting competing will teach you more than posting 3 or 5 shot groups on the internet.

[KHGS]

IMO

A rifle load combo that averages .3moa is usually good enough to win most competitions
chasing the holy grail can be fun but it’s about return on effort.
no point in tuning a gun to shoot in the ones if you can't read the wind and frankly a lot of rifle just aren’t capable of this higher level of consistent accuracy
RB
P.S the groups size focus is on vertical
any horizontal stringing is very hard to determine unless you shoot in a warehouse or tunnel and I know there aren't too many of those available.
so stop chasing the holy grail and get shooting competing will teach you more than posting 3 or 5 shot groups on the internet.

Also quite correct. Consistency is the name of the game, matches cannot be won with vertical groups. The most important things in testing at short range is group shape, group size of .5 moa or less & a low SD. This formula must be achieved consistently to win regularly.
Keith H.