How to have an Accurate Rifle ~ It's not what you might have been told!

welcome back today i'm going to open up a can of worms and i'm going to talk about accuracy i get questions about accuracy or sometimes it's the lack thereof what what what what's going on with my gun is doing this that or the other thing and um very often i can tell that somebody is maybe a little bit jaded they've they just bought a rifle and it's not getting that you know that iconic moa accuracy that that everybody is talking about and uh that sometimes is an unfair standard to place upon yourself or your rifle let's talk about accuracy in realistic terms for us and let's define what we're talking about because accuracy can mean different things to different people accuracy can be an absolute thing to a bench rest shooter somebody who's in the adventurous competition field and you know they're looking to shoot point zero zero zero you know just in other words in the same hole all day long that's what they dream about that's accuracy of a different standard than uh the person who buys a model 94 winchester or or 336 marlin or a henry and and he's basically going out deer hunting and accurate to him is mean means getting his deer each year that's accurate he may you know my my uh my old acquaintances back in the 50s and 60s i don't think they even had a clue what their what their gun printed on paper they just knew that the sites were regulated from the factory and you know they shot they shot at knot holes in the trees you know from 50 paces and they hit the knot hole and they said the gun's accurate that was all that was necessary for them so and they got the deer every year and i talked about that you know back in the video previously you know they got a box of ammo when they bought the gun and that that ammo was depleted you know one round one round at a time each year until finally you know the flap was falling off and the box inside was empty that was that was the standard that was applied to accuracy in those days and it was sufficient it was more than sufficient i'm going to talk about grading your accuracy in a minute then there's the sort of accuracy that uh has evolved over the years with bolt action rifles back in back in the venerable jack o'connor's day an accurate rifle back in the back in the 40s late 30s and 40s and and 50s uh you know an accurate rifle was defined as one that could shoot a two-inch two inch two and a quarter inch group that was considered a very good high-grade uh rifle for long-range prairie use so remember that now we're talking about rifles that it can shoot that could shoot up to two and a half inch groups out of the box that was considered a standard in those days for a highly accurate rifle since bullets have improved since bullet construction has improved and since barrel construction has you know improved with with more i should say smoother smoother internal surfaces uh guns have evolved this is this most guns now are coming out with free-floated uh barrels uh many are coming out now with uh as this one is with uh epoxy bedded uh two-point betting systems in the receiver uh everything everything has scaled them to a point where these guns now are certainly capable of moa with the correct uh ammunition out of the box and as i've done in the past let's first of all discuss what moa means it does not mean an inch at wherever whatever distance you happen to be shooting moa is means minute of angle now in a in a circle you got 360 degrees that circle is divided those that 360 degrees is further divided down into minutes so each degree has 60 minutes one of those minutes a slice of that a slice of that circle goes off infinitely and that hap just happens to be one inch at 100 yards roughly speaking it's it's not exactly that but for all intents and purposes moa means one inch at 100 yards it means two inches at 200 yards it means 10 inches at a thousand yards and so forth so when somebody says that they shot mo moa at 50 yards no if he's if he's shooting a 1 inch group at 50 yards that's 2 moa 2 minutes of angle okay so now when it comes to when it comes to various standards of accuracy there have been standards that are pretty much applied through the industry through the years and these are not these are not written down anyplace and i don't want somebody to write me and tell me where you see this this is this is basically this is just common industry standards that have been used for many many years they're what you would call acceptable in the industry and they're certainly acceptable to the the public that were buying those guns through the years and even to the military the military actually did have a standard of four moa for infantry rifles most infantry rifles were probably better than that but that was that was the gold standard was a four moa rifle i don't know if that standard has changed since the 30s 40s and 50s or whatever but that was the standard one time was 4 moa that meant that a soldier could engage an enemy as far away as he could uh shoot with his open sights with his iron sights and strike an enemy most of the time that's all that's all that they were looking for so i'm gonna set three i'm gonna set three standards that i consider to be uh legitimate and i think if you if you listen to why you'll understand functional accuracy is out to 150 yards for many many rifles the functional rifle that can shoot between three to four moa again this is probably military standard that would be that would be this that would be this model 94 winchester i can do better than that with some loads uh some some loads i've i've got that i can i can shoot two and three quarters venice groups on occasion down to you know maybe three and a quarter inch groups on occasion three inch groups i'm limited i'm limited by first of all the rather this is this is a rather coarse buckhorn site uh you know in a bead uh it's not it's got a it's got only a 20 inch barrel so it's got a very short length uh it's got a very short siding plane uh it's not it's it's not fully stocked so it's difficult to really it's difficult to really get a good cheek weld on this gun and things like that so within its limitations uh this gun is capable of three to four moa and that's minute of deer that's that's going to bring home my deer anytime i want up to 150 yards or more so that's that's a reasonable standard of accuracy for such a rifle that's also very reasonable standard of accuracy for most ar-15s now people are going to snicker at that but i can guarantee you that most ar-15s if they don't have if they don't have a free-floated barrel you're going to be shooting somewheres around with many of them you're going to be shooting somewheres around three to four moa that's about that's about typical for uh an ar-15 and if you do better than that and again don't write me and tell me that you that you get you know three-quarters moa i'm sure you do there are many my my national match barrel here uh this will this will perform this will perform very very highly uh you know i've i've shot i've shot half and three quarter moa groups with certain loads with this with uh with no trouble whatsoever this is this is when i strap this on my uh either it's on my colt chassis or if it's on my homemade chassis whichever it is it's going to shoot because it's got that barrel is free-floated the next level of accuracy i would call standard standard hunting grade accuracy and this is good for long range shooting at big at big game uh it's it's satisfactory for uh you know anything anything that's medium game at long range uh coyotes even at long range and we're talking at a standard which pretty much goes back to the older standard which was very very satisfactory for many years and that's inch and a half to two and three quarter inch groups at 100 yards so one and a half to two and three quarter moa if you have a if you have a rifle that comes out of the box and you put factory ammo in it and you're shooting one and a half moa you get yourself a dandy that's a very nice rifle and you don't have to go any farther than that you've got a rifle you can take out any place out in colorado wyoming montana or wherever you might want to be and at 375 to 400 yards your bullet's going to be striking exactly where you want with very very little displacement from your aiming point some rifles can even shoot greater groups bigger bigger groups than that and you're still going to be fine the guy who has a the guy who has a 300 winchester magnum that's going after nothing but elk if he has a 3moa gun he's got a fine gun for shooting elk at at 350 yards and i'm certainly not about to be recommending taking elk beyond 300 yards most the time because you've got a big creature that can very easily amble off on you and you can lose them i'll get into ethics some other time in a different video then we get down to then we get down to the holy grail which is varmint grade accuracy this is where this is where basically there is no bottom you can go as low as you want but it's less than inch and a half less than a minute and a half groups then then you've you've got a legitimate environment grade barrel and you've got a legitimate environment-grade ammunition to put in it so that's the sort of accuracy that you want for a varmint grade gun many varmint great guns and many large game guns this this rifle here is capable of i've i've shot many 3 8 of an inch groups with this model 70 with 130 grain standard 130 grain uh bullets and it it doesn't mean that that shoots all the time three quarters three eighths of an inch but this will certainly shoot three quarters to 7 8 of an inch with hunting grade loads big game loads all the time these guns have just gotten so much better than they were not too many years ago 20 years ago you could not expect that kind of accuracy but again with the three floating and the glass bedded uh receiver everything about these guns and the hammer the cold hammer forged barrels they just they just do superbly and you know target target crown everything is built for accuracy and the trigger trigger is essential to high accuracy if you want to have if you want to have good accuracy the best accuracy you're not going to get it whether you're not going to get it with a four and a half or six pound trigger and you're certainly not going to get it if you've got a lot of creep in the trigger and drag and things like that that i've spoken about in previous videos so let's talk about let's talk about accuracy problems i think again you have to have a reasonable understanding about what you're looking at on paper you can you can tell you can tell if you've got a dysfunctional gun immediately by looking at the sort of groups that you that you're getting first of all if the groups are just falling apart if in other words that the shots are just not they're everywhere and i'm talking about way sometimes you can't even find them on the paper the very first thing you want to look at is your siding system make sure it's screwed down tightly because and i don't mean i don't mean that you're torquing the rings i'm not talking about your torque setting on your on your bases or anything i'm talking about looseness physical looseness anytime you have any kind of rattling around or looseness you've got a problem the slightest degree of looseness on on the rear sight or the front sight or the scope is going to cause incredible loss of accuracy downrange um i watched a fellow one day at at the range and he was having unbelievable amount of trouble he was he was throwing one shot after another with his mini 14 downrange and uh i could tell he was very frustrated and i asked if you know if i could help and he said sure so he just stood back and and um he knew me and i i just took a look immediately i could tell that the the gun was the the gun was coming apart the scopes the scope rings were literally loose and he had he had improperly positioned them base and i went through this with a different video on setting up ruger rings ruger rings the bases the the bases of those rings have to be set first in their little notches they're a little uh basically they're like they're like little half moon uh notches in the top of the receiver those have to be perfectly situated before you put the scope in and those have to be tight before you put the scope in once you put the scope in then you can clamp things down with your upper section of your rings but if you don't you can't do it the other way around because once you once you get the the rings mounted to the scope and try to get it lined up on the receiver you're going to have one one ring is going to be pulling again one ring is going to be pulling against the other and they're just going to start loosening up immediately those thumb screws will back off so that was a that was immediately apparent when i first received my m16 rifle in the 60s when i was in the army down at fort gordon at basic training now i was a i was already a very very accomplished shot by the time i was uh in the in the army i had been shooting for a long time as a kid and i and i already knew about sights and you know the things that could happen with them well this the the ar-15 rear sight was loose um and i i spoke with my my di and i said gee you know i i really have to have a different i have to have a different gun before i can start using this uh for qualification enough of practice i said because this this rear sight is loose and he took a look at it and he said well he said he was a di but he was not a he was not familiar with firearms he says that should be okay you know it's not that loose well i knew you know my eyes rolled and i said boy you know loose is loose and it means that that thing could be off as much as a foot or two you know down range at 100 yards 100 meters well anyway i i managed to convince him that i needed to have the armor take a look at that rifle and they replaced that rifle with a different one everything was fine from that point on but uh that was because the day we went to the thousand inch range this is where you're shooting you know 25 yards you're shooting at a at a target look like an upside down it looks like an upside down rear notch site and i you know i i was only getting groups like this at 25 yards and even he could see that there was a real problem with that because he tried it himself so that's how that got resolved but that's how badly a you know loose site can affect things so the very first thing you want to check is physical looseness in the sighting system looseness can also occur on the internals of a scope check the tracking on your scope make sure that you know when you set that when you set that rifle and scope solid solidly in a padded uh situation where it can't move that you can rotate both turrets for elevation and windage and make sure that they track accurately back and forth on the paper if you put a if you put a siding in target that's got the that's got the grid lines the moa grid lines you should be able to track that crosshair going crosswise on that paper consistent with the clicks that you're turning it and it shouldn't be it shouldn't be sloppy it shouldn't have any backlash it shouldn't go out it shouldn't go out eight clicks and then not return until you turn two or three clicks and then start coming back it should go out eight as you come back eight with no backlash you shouldn't hesitate to come back remember that when you're looking through a scope there's an inverter mechanism inside that scope because if you if you just built a telescope without having the inverter you'd be looking at everything upside down inside out because that's the way if you if you have a celestial telescope and you look at the sky you're looking at the sky backwards you know the the big dipper is upside down because that's the way that's the way optics are unless they put an inverter inside so remember that when you're looking at the crosshairs as you're turning the as you're turning the thing where it says uh left the crosshair is actually going to be going right on you turn it around the other way for you but that's the way it is so everything is going to be backwards so that's not a problem when you're turning when you're turning the turret where it says down the crosshair is actually going to be going up okay so check your tracking and check make sure that your your your clicks are what they say they are barrel interference is probably one of the most common things that uh can occur with a gun this has to do with the actual rifle itself it can be barrel interference with uh with the stock and the barrel in other words check if you've got a if you've got a free-floated gun make sure that it's free-floated consistently all the way back because if your barrel is slapping if it's colliding with that stock you're going to have issues you're better off if the gun were firmly bedded within the stock all the way than if you have it actually banging into it that's really bad because that that's inconsistent depending on how much uh how much weight you're applying and where you're applying it on the front end so those vibrations can change there should be no collide no colliding with the stock whatsoever and if you're shooting you never ever place that barrel on your resting surface never rest that barrel on anything always rest always rest the gun on the stock when you rest that barrel you're going to throw your group you're going to throw that shot way way out of your group and i mean several inches lighter barrels it's going to be significant but you know i had a i had a ruger model 7722 many years ago and due to betting issues with that with improper influence on the uh four end of the barrel the front of the barrel by the forend i was getting changes in the i was getting changes in the group that was six inches at 100 yards until i rectified that it was literally the barrel was not secured solidly against the receiver and it was causing issues with impr in inconsistent uh foreign contact so that was that's how that influences thing barrel interference is a very very significant thing with many rifles just by their own design so you know the model 94 336 marlin or henry whatever it is you've got barrel interference from the get-go here you've got a you've got a foreign barrel band you've got a stock band those things are interfering with the barrel to some degree and that's that's interfering with vibrations depending on how many rounds you have left in the magazine and how much weight is in the magazine it changes the vibrations on that barrel so you know that's those are all things that cause barrel interference and that's why there's limitations on the type of accuracy that you can expect from certain firearms the receiver loose or improperly bedded unstable the receiver should be ideally the receiver i consider the best the best betting system possible to be a two-point epoxy bedded system one that's bedded one that's bedded at the front and the rear screw now if you don't have many rifles will shoot extremely well without having a two-point epoxy bedding that's fine and and uh you know i've got a i've got a number of rifles that will shoot that way that have shot that way from the get-go they had just very good solid solidly bedded receivers and they shot like a house of fire and that's fine but if you want the very finest degree of accuracy you have to do what this manufacturer what fn does with their winchesters now and their in their brownings is that's a two-point uh epoxy bedding system that will that will derive your most solid receiver contact but on an elementary basis it means just checking your stock screws making sure your stock screws are screwed down tightly torque is really not as big i did a video on torque the most important thing is to have them tight reasonably tight and when i say reasonably tight you know using a screwdriver don't use never use a wrench on a stock screw you're gonna you're gonna split your wood absolutely that's way too much torque simply a hand filling screwdriver turned around and tightened with the gun on the vise and you've got enough and you don't have you don't have to reef it down you don't have to have big guns to do this or anything and you don't have to have a torque wrench if you're talking about actual torque value you're probably talking about 25 to 30 pounds inch pounds 25 to 30 inch pounds maximum for for stock screws the most important thing is if if you've got a good solid bedding system when those screws come in tight and they're tightened up the screws stop that's all they do they don't continue to squish down and you don't feel it turning into you know five inch pounds and 10 inch pounds then 15 and 20 and so forth until you finally can't turn it anymore good stock betting system that those screws should go in and they should they should be clamped in within about a 90 degree turn in other words from the time they from the time they stopped turning reasonably then all of a sudden you're squishing down that's the final 90 90 degrees or so that's that's a good betting system when you have that and pillar bedding systems will give you that so solid receiver betting crown damage crown damage is something that you don't very frequently see but you can certainly see it on older used rifles and rifles that have you know gotten damaged uh where somebody i remember i remember it was not uncommon when i was growing up there were there were some people in town that used to they used to drive around town with their rifle you know they had their model 742 remington with the barrel stuck against the you know the floorboards of the truck and that's how they drove around because you know that way there they could exit the truck really easy without you know turning it around and all that so to them that was logical to to stuff that to stuff that gun barrel into the rug of the truck or the or the rubber mat it was all sandy and and gravel and everything else they didn't think anything of it but that will certainly damage the crown of a gun and that's by the way why they put a rounded around a field crown on a lot of rifles especially in the past where you have this one right here uh this is a this is a rounded this is a rounded field crown and that's why they did that was because that that crown uh literally protect the uh where the where the rifling the bore ends so that even if i even if i hit that with something it's going to protect where the barrel uh the bore comes through so watch for the crown and if you think you have any issues with if you have any issues with wide groups but they're usually consistently wide you know if you have looseness in something shots are everywhere and they don't have a reason they just land in different places all the time but if you have if you have something which is like a a poor crown it'll cause a consistently uh open group because that same that same defect is constant it doesn't change from one shot to another bullet's too long for the twist rate i'm not talking about weight i'm talking about bullet length and i did an entire video on uh twist rates and i i encourage you to watch the video on twist rates because if you have anything to do with uh hand loading yourself and you're loading up uh bullets which are long you've got to know what the twist rate of your rifle is and whether the bullets are correspondingly the right length for that twist rate because it's a length issue it is not a weight issue very frequently people think that weight is the issue it's not its length because as i showed in that other video you can have you can have bullets which are very very long which are lighter than bullets which are much heavier that that are uh blunter in other words have a have a more pronounced ogive long slender bullets you can take you can take us you can take a bullet which is say 130 grain 270 bullet and if you if you squish the ogive and make it and squish it in it suddenly becomes longer that that bullet may not stabilize in some barrels if it's if it's really long like if it's a burger it may be a burger uh super duper long ogi bullet and may not stabilize in some barrels so now we have a um poor ammo that's a very common that's a very common thing before you go considering you know trading in uganda getting rid of it just try a different brand of ammo because not all ammo is is going to work in all guns and don't think that just because you know your cousin fred is shooting dandy groups with uh you know his hornady super performance loads in his rifle that is going to necessarily shoot super great super great groups in your rifle because it may certainly not a lot has to do with a lot has to do with barrel vibration the thickness diameter taper of the barrel length of it and everything else and that that is very often the difference between a bullet or a load shooting well in one given rifle or another so don't condemn a rifle until you check it out with different ammo you might have to try several brands of ammo to find the one that actually shoots so and very frequently a rifle will have a sweet spot for a certain brand or type of ammo and sometimes the lowliest ones of all the ones that nobody else will even buy on the shelf are the ones that sometimes will work in your gun because it just happens to be the right combination of powder and bullet poor rest support now we're starting to get into we're starting to get into the dynamics the actual physical shooting of you know taking the gun out there and testing it you need to have very very good support in in my other videos you'll see you know when i was shooting my 257 robbers in one of my videos and my my tikka 222 you'll notice that i was using a very good support now you don't have to buy a very very exotic support it can be nothing more than it can be nothing more than sandbags that are filled up with filled up with sand and you know maybe covered with a blanket so they don't scratch your rifle and that can be a sufficient and a very very good solid rest but you should always make sure it's it's a resilient rest and nothing which is gonna bang and and cause uh undo vibrations uh at our range i mean they they always every it seems like every range somebody at the club decides they're gonna do a good deed by putting out these two by fours maybe with notches cut in them with his band saw or something so the guys can lay their rifles i don't know why they have i don't know why they have like three or four notches they did different different sizes i guess for different rifles and four ends but that's the last thing that you should be using as a foreign rest because that that slapping off the off of the board is not only uh not conducive to accuracy it's also going to damage your is not good so have yourself a good solid resilient rest it's a sandbag is the sandbag is the correct density so whether the sandbag is mounted on a you know tripod rest like a like a hoppy's inexpensive hoppies rest offers mounted on something more you know like a caldwell rest that like i have or something with you know all kinds of adjustment anything like that is fine but it should be a sandbag rest that cradles that foreign and also too you should have a good solid rear bag a good rear bag rest i like to use as i showed you in those videos a good you know a good rabbit ear bag that really cradles it and that you can squish with your fingers that's the sort of rest that anybody in bench rest competition will use and because uh that that provides an absolutely stable consistent shooting platform and that's the key is consistency you know shooting accuracy from one shot to another is all about consistency doing everything exactly the same from one to another you know just like a pitcher on the mound you know when he's thinking about throwing his fastball it's got to be the same fastball he threw the catcher the last time he threw a fastball otherwise that catches not he's not going to be in tune with you so consistency is the name of the game and that brings us to poor shooting technique this is a really this is a really difficult topic i i remember i remember vividly this gentleman that was uh at the range a few years ago and he was he was just getting his he was just getting his brand new ar-15 off ready to shoot national match he wanted to get into cmp shooting and so he had himself a specification you know nothing greater than four and a half power scope and um he had the correct setup he had a national match barrel he had the whole works going and everything and i could tell you i mean i could tell he he was totally inexperienced about benchrest shooting so uh he was having he was having a lot of frustrations he he couldn't get his he couldn't get his groups to come in tight and i looked at the setup and i didn't see anything wrong you know and he was he was telling me that he just couldn't he couldn't get any groups in there they were they were just big groups you know nothing like you'd expect to see from such a nice rifle and scope setup as that so i i took a look at it and you know i i just can do you mind if i just take a you know take a few shots at it and i turned it down to i turned it down to one power i just wanted to see i just wanted to see how you know the the power ring did on the front i mean on the back and so i turned down to one power and i laid in just you know five shots downrange and um then i turned it up to i turned it up to four power four and a half power and i fired another five shots downrange and the guy the guy said wow because he was looking at us through his spotting scope he said wow he said those are all going into this almost the same hole i said well that's i said i'm i said i'm sorry i said it's the gun is shooting great i said you've got a great rifle here whoever sighted it in for you did a nice job so um he was just having difficulties with his shooting technique his shooting style was such that every time he fired a shot from the bench it was a different style than he did the time before and as when i was watching him i could tell one time he would shoot with the he would shoot with the his his hand out here underneath the rest and he's shooting like this and the next time he's he's got it back here and the thing is sitting on the rest the next time he's got it and he's not he's not even using the same cheek weld so everything was different from one shot to another and so he was not applying any matter of manner of consistency and he was not sitting straight up and down perpendicular to the bench so after after a little bit of instruction and we just went over a few basics he was doing fine and he was shooting very very nice solid tight groups the way that gun was capable of so be very careful to assess your own shooting uh your own shooting capability what you what you're actually doing because you know shooting at a bench is not an automatic you know one holder that does not mean that just because you've got a bench onto you with a sandbag that you're going to be shooting straight not by any means anybody who's in the bench rest game knows that the last thing we get into is weather conditions people are frequently stymied by what they see on paper and they don't relate it to the weather conditions i watch people climb right off right off the center of the group and go up three four inches shooting one shot after another and i i knew they were going to do that just because of the day very humid conditions at conditions where you know when you're looking through the scope you see this mirage constantly where your crosshair is and sometimes the sometimes the bullseye actually just disappears for an instant because it becomes so thick that the bull's eye just disappears behind it when you see that whenever and that's why it's important to allow your barrel to cool between shots because if you happen to be out on a dense day when you have that kind of when you have that kind of aberration in the scope where you see what what i call it looks like oil in a swimming pool and that's what that's what warren page called it when you see that don't don't think that that's a good day to be out testing ammo that is not a good day to be out testing ammo because what's going to happen is that mirage is going to do the same thing as it does when you're out on a long highway in a hot day and you see something down the road a truck coming at you and the truck is not up he's not on the road he's up in the air the truck seems to be flying along you know three feet over over the ground that's exactly what you're getting with mirage when you're shooting on a day like that the the position of your crosshair will not be where you think it is in other words you're going to be seeing across here on the bullseye but it's really not on the bullseye anymore it's floating above the bull's eye because the bullseye now the image of the bullseye in refracted that water in the air due to refraction it's the same as looking at a fish in the water the fish isn't where you think he is he's he's he's here because the water refracts and causes that the light the light waves to bend so when you see the bullseye here you're shooting you're shooting at the bullseye and your bullet is landing above the bullseye because you're shooting at the image of the bullseye not the actual bullseye bench rest shooters who win the game are the ones that understand that and can read that mirage they actually watch to see how much that bullseye is jumping up and down in the air or how much is floating side by side which means that the wind is carrying that uh that denseness in the atmosphere so they they account for that they read it and they can read those they can read those waves but that's not a day to be out that that may be a good day for competing to see how you are against your buddies down the other side of the table uh how they how they shoot versus you that's a good competition exercise but that's not a day to be out testing your gun and testing your ammo so i've covered it all i think it's a very nebulous word accuracy can mean so much but i hope i helped iron it out a little bit so that you can understand uh what you should be looking for reasonably with the rifle that you're using and for what purposes that you're using it says thanks for watching benny's doing great he was down he was down here a moment ago and having a great time so thanks for watching and god bless

Channel: GunBlue490

Views: 1,022,927

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Id: q2qxTc30A2c

Length: 38min 52sec (2332 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021