From this past weekend -- a week after the previous two sessions. Same 14.5" LWRC, FGMM 69, 2.5x10 optic. I can honestly state my group sizes would be larger with a red dot, than the 10x scope. They would definitely be larger with iron sights. With a higher magnification scope, the groups might get a little tighter.



As before, I'm not shooting early in the day, after breakfast and a nap. This day's targets were after a burning a tank of gas in a chainsaw, then hauling off the trash wood to clog up erosion gullies. My shooting instructors state there's a big difference between shooting one good group, once in a blue moon, when the stars are aligned -- and being consistent across an entire shooting season.

After chainsaw duty...



After trash hauling duty...

Inspired by this challenge I went to the range today do see what I could do. I admit that I thought this would be fairly easy. On a good day there are a couple of AR's that I can get at least 1-2 5 shot groups to be less than an inch at 100 yards. Turns out remaining consistent for 10 consecutive shots challenges your rifle, your ammo, and most of all you.

Don't have (or know how to post) pics, so you're going to have to take my word for it, but if I wanted to cheat I suppose I could set targets up at 25 yards and claim they were shot at 100.

Brought two rifles to the range with me, neither of which are really set up as precision AR's. The first is a franken rifle. PSA stripped AR receiver with a LaRue trigger. Upper is a 12.5" Noveske switchblock stainless barrel built on a blemished BCM upper receiver and BCM handguard. Scope is a 1-8x Eotech (which I quite like). Dead Air Sierra 5 suppressor is up front. Gun is really set up as a do it all rifle I can shoot at 50 and in, but take out to 400. Rifle is zeroes at 50 yards, so I just held about 2.5" below the bullseye for 100 yards. Switchblock feature makes it pretty soft shooting and reduces gas to the face when shooting suppressed.

With this set up shot four ten shot strings at 100 yards (range isn't set up for 100 meters). Best group was slightly under 2", but if I eliminated the one flyer the group was probably 1.6-1.7". Two other groups came in about 2.3", but again if I threw out a flyer they would be under 2".

Ammo was AAC 75gr, which this gun generally seems to prefer over the AAC 77 gr.

Second gun was kind of a surprise. It's a Sig 516, 14.5" piston upper that I picked up on sale for $500. Lower is built on a Joe Bob stripped receiver. I think I have a Geissele trigger. Also suppressed with a used Sig suppressor I think I picked up for $200 (plus ATF tax of course). Optic is a Gen 1 Primary Arms 4x Prism scope with dot and horseshoe reticle. So definitely not a big budget or precision set up. I was curious to see how this would shoot, since I've used it to bang fairly small steel plates at 200 yards and always been happy with the results. Only shot one 10 round group, which proved to be the best group of the day at about 1.8". Ammo was AAC 77 gr.

Takeaways:

10 shot groups are challenging. Maintaining your concentration for 10 consecutive shots without having that one dreaded flyer is hard. Also, with a suppressor you start getting heat/mirage off of the suppressor after 7-8 fairly rapid fire rounds, which adds to the challenge.

Although a precision scope helps, you can get good results with a fairly modest 4x scope.

You don't need a precision rig or super premium ammo to get decent results. I think the AAC 75gr and 77gr rounds run .50-.60 per round.

This is a good test of your skill since it rewards concentration and consistency.

My next challenge will be to try taking both these rifles out to 400-500 yards to see if I can get fairly consistent hits on an IPSIC size steel target, which is as far as I'm likely to shoot either rifle.

One final note, the conditions were pretty shitty. Variable wind. Probably between 5 and 15 mph, although that's an estimate on my part. I suspect my results would at least have been slightly better if it was dead calm.

Thanks for the report, houndog. I have always liked those 516 piston guns, but haven't ever had one (likely never will, at this point). Piston guns are typically classified as less accurate, but perhaps the inherent quality made up for it.

You're right in your assessment of the 10rd group, of course. They're telling. In the past, that flier is the first shot, for me. Something I do sometimes is have two aiming point for the 10 shots. Put the first shot on one, and the other nine on the other. That'll isolate that first shot for you, so you can evaluate it.

Yes, been pleasantly surprised by the 516. I don't remember the last time I've shot for groups with this gun, but I'm able to pretty consistently hit 6" steel plates at 200 yards, so I was curious to see how it would do.

I was still expecting the Noveske to do better. It has a stainless barrel vs. chrome lined, DI vs. piston, and 8x scope vs 4x, so you'd definitely expect better accuracy out of the Noveske.

And for me, it's generally either the first shot or the last shot that's the flyer. I usually do five shot groups and inevitably I'll have four shots making a nice cloverleaf and then shot 5 will be an 1+" low or high.

And don't get me started on the challenges of shooting an AR10. Still trying to figure that one out.

I think this is one of my SiG 556 rifles but not sure which one, I haven’t been shooting much since getting my German Shepherd pup a couple years ago, I take her with me almost everywhere and she doesn’t like gunfire … anyway, I think this is a 20 round group at 100yards.

Assuming those are one-inch squares, that's stinkin' good, kimberkid. Especially with one of those rifles. Well done. What was your optic and position? Can you recall?

So I took the 2 MOA challenge today, and failed massively. The short answer is every 55GR ammo I used was on average about 3 MOA regardless of which AR upper I ran it through. Pics to follow once I sift through all the data.

I brought four rifles\uppers with me for this test. These two are the oldest and newest in my collection. The rifle with the Magpul forend has been my training carbine for 25 years. The upper is a very old RRA 1\9 twist with a chrome chamber\unlined barrel. I have over 10k rounds through the barrel with minimal maintenance. The rifle in the rest is a lightly used Windham Maine factory Bushmaster with a 1\9 twist fully chrome lined barrel. The round count on this one is unknown, but based on the bolt wear and how stiff the trigger is I don't think it has more then a few hundred rounds through it.




The next two are a White Oak spacegun upper with a 1\7 twist SS barrel. It's been sitting in my safe for 15 years, and has a very low round count. The other upper has a surplus M-16A2 barrel with some heavy putting around the gas port. Round count on the M-16 barrel is unknown.




I shot 28 targets chasing the illusive 2" group. I managed three actual 2" groups, and one that would have made it but I had a called flier and chose not to include it.


This group was shot with the White Oak Upper and Federal M193 Ammo.



This group was shot with the White Oak upper and Wolf Gold 55GR ammo.



This group was shot with the training carbine and Swiss GP90 ammo.



I used brass cased 55GR ammo from Federal, Winchester, RUAG, and Wolf. I also has some steel cased 55GR Wolf, but I only shot one group with it. Bottom line is except for the three above groups, I was shooting consistent 3" groups with every type of anno through all four uppers.

I realize I screwed up a bit with this test by including the White Oak upper. I also forgot to bring match grade ammo to see if that would tighten up the groups compared to the 55GR stuff. I think I stacked the deck against myself because in my experience 55GR ammo groups best out of the older 1\12 twist barrels.

I'm going to have to do another test with just the non match barrels, and match grade ammo to see if the number of 2 MOA targets increases due to better ammo.

Those three groups are quite good indeed. All of them seem, to me, to be around 1.75" center-to-center. Good shooting. Like you said, the White Oak upper is a bit outside the parameters established by the OP, but the group with the training carbine is by-the-rules and very good. I am curious how you fare with match ammo.

Troy upper with a PSA lower. 2” All day long with 62gr black box. Multi round groups.

Next time you go shooting, put a couple ten-round groups on paper, per the parameters in the OP, and share your results. Your rifle, like SgtGold's training carbine, would be an exceptional example.

In keeping with what it seemed to me was the spirit of the original question, I decided to try the challenge with a “patrol” type rifle.

The rifle is a Colt model LE6920; sight Aimpoint CompML3 with 4 MOA nonmagnified reticle; ammunition IMI 77 grain HPBT-Match. The groups were fired from a bench rest with a bipod and rear bag for support.





The 4 MOA illuminated dot reticle without magnification required me to develop my own targets to have any hope of maintaining a consistent point of aim for the shot string. The pictured target has an inner circle measuring 5 inches, or a little larger than what the 4 MOA reticle subtends at 100 yards. The target served as well as I could have expected, although the outer ring could be a little thicker for somewhat better contrast.

I fired four 10-round groups in succession at separate targets positioned at 100 yards. My groups tightened as I became more accustomed to the targets, and as I made more of an effort for my vision to clear between shots (which I didn’t time). I have a lot of visual “floaters,” and sometimes the very small image of the reticle and target was very blurry.

The first three groups measured about 3.37, 3.15, and 2.52 inches, center to center. Each of those groups had seven or eight shots clustered in well under two inches, but with two or three outliers that opened the groups up. I believe the outliers were primarily due to blurry vision aiming errors (that’s my excuse, anyway).

The last group and when I made the most effort to have a clear sight picture for each shot measured 1.798 inches center to center; increasing that by 1.09 would open it up to 1.96", or just under the 2 inch goal of the challenge.





Thanks for the thought-provoking questions you post.
This one prompted me to make a trip to the local range on a very nice and sunny, 39° day. Now if the snow will all melt and the ground dry up, it would be perfect.

It wasn't the best day for shooting for accuracy. Started cold at 25 degrees, then warmed up to mid-40s...but with wind. 20+ mph in the open pastures, but generally 10-15 mph in the trees where I was shooting. Variable wind speeds, sometimes dropping to nothing for a few seconds, then ramping right back up. As usual, I ran a tank of gas through one chainsaw, and moved 2 pickup loads of logs & branches.

This time I shot a Wilson Combat 16" Recon, suppressed, with a 2-10x Vortex. Its second barrel, 1/8 twist, shot prone with bipod & rear bag. The first 2 targets were with FGMM 69. Winds from the left. POA was a little left of the 9 o'clock black point in the center, and let the wind do its thing. Maybe some cold bore issues here, but most likely a bunch of cold shooter issues. This DI rifle prefers a little less aggressive forward bipod loading than the LWRC. I was a little disappointed with the 1.29" group, because it can do better.

For the lower group I found my stride. Well, except for the dipshit not noticing the wind almost died on one shot in the middle of the string. 1.45" total, but the 9 shots in .73" reflects what this upper can do. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.




Next up is a direct change to American Eagle 55 FMJ. As I've stated in a number of other threads on Sigforum, switching from one ammo type to another often results in wonky accuracy for a few shots. Here we go -- 3 rounds high and left, immediately after FGMM69. Then the barrel settles down a bit. Before shooting the AE55, I dialed in 2 MOA left on the scope. And of course, the wind decreased a bit. Same aim point as with FGM69 -- just left of the 9 o'clock point on the black diamond. 12 rounds on the upper target. Total of 3.3". If I kick out the first 3 rounds, then 9 in 2.3".

Lower target was same ammo, aim point, with 9 rounds, 1.98". IMO FMJ ammo will produce the odd accurate group here and there, but it's just inconsistent.

Good to see what's possible and what we can strive for.

I finally got a chance to try this today. I used cheap 55gr ball, and tried it with an M16 clone with iron sights, and a 16" patrol rifle build with an unmagnified red dot, both shot of a wobbly bench with a front rest, no rear bag. Because Fritz is my hero, I cut up half a truck bed's worth of wood before shooting, because a tree came down on the lane at the gun club in last week's storms.

Short answer, no, I cannot keep 10 rounds inside of 2" at 100 yards. It was more like 4-5". I guess I have something to work towards.

A couple posted by request.

Thank you, sigfreund.

As is customary, I will first share what I did in the first part of my day, preceding the execution of this group. I replaced a leaking faucet, repaired a fence, repaired a chicken house ventilation fan, and cleaned out a vehicle I need to bring to the shop this week. Immediately before firing the ten shots, I walked the 100M from the target to the shooting position, which is almost entirely uphill.

I had swapped the Wilson trigger into this lower, established a prone position, but sure as heck didn't take my time!

The trigger felt good, the position was solid, so I just "let 'er rip, Tater Chip!".

I am not disappointed with the result. Barely missed the 2" at 100M criteria, but did achieve sub-2MOA. Considering all my shooting happened inside of about thirty seconds, I can dig it. I had to realize an eye relief issue and adjust my stock after hitting the timer, which ate up some time before the first shot.

Hornady 73gr FTX and 14x on the scope.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
Assuming those are one-inch squares, that's stinkin' good, kimberkid. Especially with one of those rifles. Well done. What was your optic and position? Can you recall?

They are 1” squares and I would have been shooting from the bench load testing. 3 years ago I had my left knee replaced and last year my right so I wouldn’t have been kneeling or prone and I’ve never shot that tight of groups offhand. Optic was most likely 4-12x40 Rifleman or Freedom Leupold. The ammo was probably some of my Sierra 69 grain molly-coated load ran though a Dillon 550.

If it wasn’t my early P556 SBR. If not it may have been one I built 20 some years ago with a JP Enterprise stainless cryogenic treated barrel.
It’s really got me curious so going to see if I can find the target and get more info off of it; then if not I’ll make a trip to the range and see if I can duplicate it. The weather is supposed to be mid-70’s through the weekend.

A test today using a JP Enterprises JP-15 rifle. Ammunition was Black Hills 77 grain OTM, which I believe is similar to one of their MK 262 loadings. Support was provided by a Two Vets model Recon tripod. Shooting was from the kneeling position. Targets were placed at a measured 109.5 yards (100.1 meters) from the firing position.

I fired six 10-shot groups; center to center measurements and 10 shot string total times:
1. 2.17 inches; 31.20 seconds
2. 2.00 inches; 31.49 seconds
3. 2.95 inches; 42.95 seconds
4. 2.56 inches; 38.44 seconds
5. 2.60 inches; 55.02 seconds
6. 1.95 inches; 34.44 seconds

Pictured are the two groups that met the 2 inch challenge question.








The rifle. The scope is an older Leupold Mk6 3-18×44mm; magnification was set to 18× while shooting.





My obligatory excuse for not doing better was that even when shooting from the kneeling position the relatively strong, gusty wind (~9 - 15 mph) from 2:30 to 3:30 buffeted me and made it difficult to hold position. As indicated, the shot string times were well under the total of 100 seconds permitted (including a max of 10 seconds for the first shot after a timer start). The only time I had a split between shots in a string longer than 10 seconds was on target 5, and that was 12.47 seconds.

Except when I was trying to deal with the wind movement, I had no trouble getting shots off in well under 10 seconds. At times I thought maybe I should slow my firing cadence, but I don’t believe it would have made much difference except when I was trying to deal with the wind. Otherwise it was get on target, fire, settle from recoil, get on target, fire again.

All in all I was satisfied with my results and I believe it was a good drill. As has been mentioned before about strings of fire like this, 10 shots require the shooter to maintain focus far more than twice as much as for 5 shot strings—for me at least.

And finally: a gratuitous view of the range today.

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