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Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

Cold barrel?


Mike41

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My best groups seem to come from 1st 3 shots from a cold barrel.

 

i tend to wait 5 minutes or

more before shooting next 3 shot group but they are slightly larger groups.

 

is it me or the hotter barrel the reason for the larger groups?

 

mike

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Could be either. If it is a thin barrel then it is likely the barrel. If it is a factory heavy barrel then it is likely the barrel.

If it is a custom barrel on a trued action built by a good smith then it is likely you.

Best way to tell is to get someone who you know can shoot and see if it does it with them too.

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My best groups were cold bore....   With a minute or 2 between shots.   My shooting days also included frequent cleanings.... ( (obermeyer amu barrel, gap trued Remington 700 action. Lapua brass, federal match primers )

 

i havent shot shot a PR match I a long time but I doubt the small change in group.size will change the outcome of a match.

 

chasing that tiny group.... You risk falling down the rabbit hole of bench rest shooting

 

given a custom barrel action and good smith I agree that it's most likely not the barrel.    

 

I would look towards more towards consitincey load, bullet jump, components....

 

  Are you getting consistent chrono stats?

 

do you use a scope level?  Once I started using one i was able to break .20 moa regularly.  

 

When you say slightly larger.  How much larger?

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Have not chronographed loads yet.  Barrel is factory Weatherby.

 

Group goes from 3 touching each other to 1/4 " separation between the 3.  

 

It is probably me but wanted to know if the barrel being being warm is the norm for larger groups.

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sounds normal.    warm bore is always different from cold bore.  (with all the bolt actions ive owned)

 

sub moa cold to   moa  warm , 1 (ish) moa change is not a big deal   actually decent for factory barrel

 

read up on ocw (ish)  testing and shooting groups in a round robin (ish) same load, slow fire to get better idea of rifle overall accuracy.  

 

ill bet you could squeeze our more accuracy tuning hand load

 

 

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  • 10 months later...

If you keep a data book, you should be able to see a pattern for cold bore shift and account for that just like you do with any other factor.  You can't eliminate it entirely, but you can reduce it be identifying the problem and addressing that issue, whether it be a hardware issue or an operator issue.

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