Importantly, Calfee did not have an academic education and it was easy to pass negative views on his work with academic technicalities (which have fallen short as time has proven) rather than examine the concepts because Calfee could not say why it worked but he could
repeat results because he knew what to do make it work through experiment. You don’t have to know how a microwave works, but someone did break the ground to enable us to just press the buttons and further the knowledge. The inverse problem arises when people put things in the too hard basket and scoff at academics. It’s a cultural thing.
Litz, like quality commentators, has a great mind, and perhaps will quantify the things for economic advantage and rightly so, while in the meantime some already practice with success and won’t give out a free lunch and rightly so because they have done the work to get a competitive edge. It’s naive to think otherwise. As Kissinger once said, “It’s not about relations, it’s about interests.” It’s a competitive world. It’s not about challenges to respond. That’s why it is wise to seek broad counsel and sort things out for yourself with the right questions. Others countries are now playing catchup. Let them. Australians have let a lot of good ideas slip from “Ugg boots to Wi-fi.”
It’s not so much about this theory or that theory, but an ability to compartmentalize and identify known factors and their magnitude in the combined effect for better results and being a creative thinker to push the envelope. Great minds have a thirst for knowledge and new ideas. For some it’s just about winning rather than the journey with like minded people to make you better. That’s why I honour Cam McEwan.
When someone says they don’t check ES, then I say that experience is biased towards dealing with difficult wind to obtain better scores or understanding the effects of light. Keep records and you will have enough data to measure results in club shooting.
The practical reality is a good barrel is often worn out by testing too much but benchmarks have been established with statistical significance from a machine rest firing thousands of shots. The machine rest takes light factors out. This approach has been used to identify an outlier; and from my experience its cause in practical terms. It is not random in reality and belongs to a vibration pattern when variables have been discounted. A solution is sought for the outlier which seems to always do us for score. We can accept low SD’s and run with probability of success, but it’s nice to know if there is more insurance in case a steer jumps a low fence.
We are not getting side tracked into theoretical stuff, but it seems to me that if people don’t even check their ES and they have not explored why their shots go where they do even with light, then it’s going to be harder to isolate the variables to evaluate the rifle’s capability to improve further even if it is at the margins with a tuner.
Yes, you do minimise ES as best you can, that’s a given, but there is a tolerable range to accommodate an outlier with a velocity spread where gravity is working with you through positive compensation. Or other harmonic balances at the micro level of the muzzle which compensates the distortion of at least three fundamental frequencies from different sources by balancing their interaction depending where you set it in relation to a tight load development. That is known and is not a theory. That can be manipulated by a tuner if you tune a load by traditional means in the first instance to minimise variables. A basic understanding of ballistics was written by Rinker is worth a read.
The question is always, can the performance be repeated? It does not have to be a rifle with a tuner but one satisfying the reasons for performance even if some do not know why.
These rifles are more common than you think and as I have said, a few barrels may have to be sorted to match criteria as Boyer does in bench rest. That is where the sport is bought. A tuner may correct some issues but that depends on the correct diagnosis of a barrel’s personality in macro and micro lift terms. It is a different question if you ask can a shooter drive a Formula 1 to its potential. A poor shooter cannot buy a score.
In Australia, some have witnessed 10 super centres shot by Mike W not at one range but at three ranges in a row to take out a prize meeting. We regularly have iron sight guys pump in 10 centres at long range. On tough ranges this is not as easy, but it doesn’t mean the rifles are not capable. I posted a recent group of a rifle I own that is capable of meeting those requirements over a full string of 10 shots in elevation at 1000 yards - a test shoot was witnessed by AlanF and others. It is repeatable. I have put this sort of information out for many years and assisted many at the local level including a few who have won international events and Queens Prizes around the country. So I am satisfied it has had peer review because the results speak for themselves. This area would make a paper for a budding PHd because I am not aware of such work.
I have posted a diagram below which gives some basic patterns once a rifle is tuned. It demonstrates rhythmic patterns to look for that are more suitable for different distances and or conditions. While it is a composed of 3 shot groups by Ecomeat at my direction, the similar patterns can be shot with more shots. Too many shots increase fouling, so the prospective area can be followed up with a single 10 shot string or you can take the gear to a prescribed distance on the range and refine a little further. Hope it is food for thought for new shooters using a tuner that have only one barrel to use? The tune velocity was previously established within a statistically significant range. Of course groups can be tighter.
Tuner Group.jpg
