This weekend, I had a major refresher course on the impact of the basics on marksmanship performance. I thought I would share this refresher with you.

You might remember that I switched to the Hornady A-tip bullets after Swampy passed away and my beloved JLK bullets were discontinued. My latest barrel on my F-TR rifle was chambered in a way that should handle the long heavy 230gr A-tip bullets. It has the proper twist, throat and barrel length. I started developing a load for it last year and found one that was quite decent, it performed very well in my ladder tests. I had some mods made to the barrel to better suit the bullet after a few hundred rounds. At the 2019 Nationals, my bipod malfunctioned and everything went to hell and even when everything was fine, the gun just wouldn’t shoot anymore.

After struggling for a few months after that, the Chinese virus hit us and all shooting competitions came to a halt. We restarted last month and my first match was horrible. Everything worked perfectly but I was not shooting nice little groups on the paper, I was shooting patterns and my scores suffered. At one point, I shoot my rifle with some remaining match ammo with the JLK bullets and it was doing quite well. The big difference was the bullet used. At that time, I came to the conclusion that the 230 A-tip was just not cut out for my game.

I consulted with my gunsmith with whom I had been discussing, planning and working on my use of these bullets and he said they were shooting great for him, in bigger 30 caliber cartridges, big-ass magnums that he uses for ELR. He also reminded to check the seating depth and also said that if I had a borescope, I should inspect the barrel.

As it was, I did have a borescope, a nice one that I won in Phoenix a few years back and had not used very much. I inspected the bore and where I thought I was doing a good job maintaining the bore, the borescope showed me that I was simply deluding myself. Out came the JB Weld bore paste after a vigorous cleaning with the regular chemicals. Within an hour, I had a spotless bore and everything looked good.

Yesterday, I shot a 1000 yard match with the rifle and that’s when things got very interesting, at least to me. The first relay was in bunny conditions, no sun, no mirage, no breeze. Just hot and humid, so the bullets fly faster in those conditions. I took 5 sighters to foul the bore and refine the elevation. The hits were like a pattern still. I started for record and I was dropping points everywhere; got me 9s some 8s and even a 7. Elevation was crap and I could not hold a waterline. I kept shooting, so I could finish the string and I had not shot in competition much at all since the beginning of the year. Around shot 7, I noticed than I dropped 2 8s, back to back at 6 o’clock, so I dialed 1.50MOA of elevation and my next shot was a, you guessed it, a 7 out the top. At that point, I realized that the bullets were just not suited to my purposes and I was going to have to do something else completely.
I took off .75 MOA and proceeded to finish out the string. The next shot was a 10 at 9 o’clock, followed by a bunch of Xs. Yep, it seems that when I hit about round 14 or so, including sighters, the barrel was finally where it needed to be and the A-tip bullet made for some great ammo. I finished that 20-round string with a 185-9X. That’s 9 Xs in the last 12 rounds. I think there was another 9 in there, but the rifle was on fire.

Of course, I was thinking this was just a fluke, so the next string started and I ended with a 194-8X. The rifle was definitely running well. I did notice that I dropped a few shots due to poor marksmanship, I collected an 8 a 6 o’clock, which I knew was bad the second I pressed the trigger. The heavy 230s are totally unforgiving of mistakes; I threw away 2 points because my rifle got caught in the fold of my shirt at the shoulder. I was soaked through and through with sweat; it was hot and sticky but not sunny.
There was no mirage during the first two relays, but we had a slight breeze from the left. I had increased the magnification of my scope to 50X and I was enjoying the nice clear picture through my March High Master. At this time, I was finally gaining confidence in my ammo.

Prior to the third match, the sun popped out from behind the clouds and I made the simple statement; “here comes the mirage.” Sure enough, when it was my turn to shoot, the mirage was meandering and the target was shimmering just a tad, but I did not reduce magnification. I stayed at 50X and let the Super-ED lenses deal with the mirage. By this time the conditions had worsened and the wind was up a little more and going back and forth. I shot a 192-7X or some such. I think I had another 8, again my fault on gun handling but the remainder of the dropped points were just out the right, not holding enough wind and one out the left, because I held too much wind. The waterline was excellent.

So, lessons learned. Where I thought my standard cleaning regimen was good enough, it was not good enough for these A-tips. For some reason, I believe that a dirty bore has more effect on these very heavy bullets compared to the JLK 210s I had been using for years. I have to do everything perfectly with these heavies and when I do my part, the bullets perform exceedingly well. My Hawkeye borescope is now part of my cleaning ritual as a final inspection. I think I’m going to put together a fouling load to dirty up the bore after a thorough cleaning. I don’t want to waste world class ammo on that task, and 12-14 rounds is quite a bit of ammo to burn on the line during a match. So I will burn that up at the 100 yard line prior to the matches.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NikonUser,

Thanks for that report; interesting to say the least.

But do you believe that using JB “Weld” on your bore might have had some tiny effect?

It cleaned the snot out of the barrel. The bore was shiny through and through when I finished. This is a Krieger triple lapped barrel with about 600 rounds through it.

ETA: I should point out that my regular cleaning regimen includes the use of Iosso paste to really clean the barrel. It looks like it was not cleaning as completely as I thought. My gunsmith recommended JB Weld bore paste, and I had some on hand so I used it according to the directions. It seems to have worked.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NikonUser,

J-B Bore Cleaner or J-B Weld the epoxy was what I was winking at.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
J-B Bore Cleaner or J-B Weld the epoxy was what I was winking at.

Ah! That is too funny. There's nothing like and old fool who gets confused easily. And you even tried to get me to correct it in a very gentle way.

You are of course, correct. It is JB Bore Cleaner. Not JB Weld.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Thanks for that report; interesting to say the least.

But do you believe that using JB “Weld” on your bore might have had some tiny effect?

I read the same thing and thought, "shit he put epoxy down the bore? Why?"

I am glad you mentioned the J-B, though. My newest rifle came with barrel break-in instructions that included use of the bore cleaner. I have both the original and the less aggressive “Bore Bright,” but I did what the manufacturer recommended. It’s been very long time since I’ve used either, though, and I was always a little hesitant about doing so with a precision rifle. And I was a little surprised to see it recommended with a gas gun. In any event, thanks for letting us know that it does have a valid use.

What is waterline?

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
What is waterline?

It's what we call the elevation variation on the target. If the waterline is good, your shots are not having any elevation issues, all you're fighting is wind displacement. Think of the waterline as a horizontal line going through the X-ring.

A good waterline is when your shots are within 1 MOA of overall elevation; a great waterline is when they are within a half MOA. That means as long as you call the wind correctly your shot will be within X-ring accuracy.

In real life, it's pretty much recognized that a top F-Open shooter will hold a waterline within about one MOA throughout the match. That's 60 score shots over 3 strings. If the conditions are excellent, than will shrink and I have seen them hold a half MOA line for one string or more. When you get a high number of Xs, your waterline is really good.

Of course, we have such things as unexplained verticals. This is when shots go up or down and there's nothing we can detect that causes that to happen. When that occurs, it can be quite maddening.

When shooting team, the wind call is on the coach and the waterline is on the shooter. However, an astute wind coach will also help with the waterline if we can detect things like change of light (like a cloud coming over,) or a rear wind burst of a front wind freshening or lessening.

Also, if you are holding quite a ways into the wind, you usually put in a little elevation on a left wind and take away a little bit on a right wind hold. So let's say you are holding 3MOA right because the wind is pretty stiff coming from right to left. You would hold at 3 MOA and just a shade low to get the bullet to hit waterline. So the astute coach would say something like "4 and a half right, favor low."

Also, during the course of a string (20 rounds plus sighters), the barrel will get hot and sometimes the POI will drift a bit up or down. If you know your barrel well, you know about what round count you need to favor high or low, or just put a click on the elevation knob, up or down.

On my prior barrel, after about 13 rounds, I would add a click of elevation. This current barrel doesn't seem to have a need for that. So far.

Finally, holding the waterline is very important because the rings are not square. Many are the times where we rescued a fat 10 when I missed the wind call but the shooter had a great waterline. Also, may are the times where we got a 9 because even though my wind call was good enough even for an X, the shot drifted low at 4 o'clock or something like that, well within the dimensions of the 10 or even X-ring, but too high or low.

That's what we call the waterline.

quote:

Also, if you are holding quite a ways into the wind, you usually put in a little elevation on a left wind and take away a little bit on a right wind hold.

Can you explain why you do this?

quote:

Originally posted by Patrick-SP2022:
Can you explain why you do this?

Not to answer someone else’s question, but a little-known ballistics phenomenon is “aerodynamic jump” which refers to the fact that winds from the side of the bullet’s line of flight can cause the bullet to hit higher or lower than it would without the wind. The higher or lower depends on the direction of the wind and the direction (left/right) the bullet is spinning. The ballistician Bryan Litz discusses the effect in his books on long range ballistics and the Applied Ballistics (AB) solver that he promotes includes it in its calculations.

I first learned of the effect when I was puzzled by the fact that when I included a side wind in my calculations with my Kestrel and AB calculator, the elevation figures weren’t what I expected. And I say “little-known” because although I have studied ballistics and worked with ballistics calculators for years, it was only when the AB calculations included it that I had even heard of it.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

Not to answer someone else’s question, but a little-known ballistics phenomenon is “aerodynamic jump” which refers to the fact that winds from the side of the bullet’s line of flight can cause the bullet to hit higher or lower than it would without the wind. The higher or lower depends on the direction of the wind and the direction (left/right) the bullet is spinning. The ballistician Bryan Litz discusses the effect in his books on long range ballistics and the Applied Ballistics (AB) solver that he promotes includes it in its calculations.

I first learned of the effect when I was puzzled by the fact that when I included a side wind in my calculations with my Kestrel and AB calculator, the elevation figures weren’t what I expected. And I say “little-known” because although I have studied ballistics and worked with ballistics calculators for years, it was only when the AB calculations included it that I had even heard of it.

Well, that sounds reasonable.
Hopefully this is not an ignorant statement but I also suppose there would be a difference if you have a barrel with a left hand twist versus a right hand twist.

I did perform a search on RH twist v. LH twist and some of the responses started bringing in variables like Coriolis effect and whether you are north or south of the equator.
My eyes quickly glazed over when they started getting into the weeds.

quote:

Originally posted by Patrick-SP2022:

quote:

Also, if you are holding quite a ways into the wind, you usually put in a little elevation on a left wind and take away a little bit on a right wind hold.

Can you explain why you do this?

It has to do with the spin of the bullet. With a right hand twist, that's what you expect. I found a diagram from Benchrest.com, I think it's even from my friend Speedy. (I'll ask him the next time I see him at a match.)



So, as you can see in the picture, if the wind is coming from the right (#3 arrow) the bullet will be pushed up and left, so that's why an astute wind coach or shooter will hold a little low when holding quite a ways right. This is where your waterline is critical and also you need to have a reticle that is level, very level.

If you have a left-hand twist, you reverse it. You can also read up on the Magnus Effect. And you need to account for spindrift also.

NikonUser, I am enjoying this thread and wonder if you could clarify a few questions.

The matches you are referring to, what distance are you shooting? What size targets?

Could you give some more information about your rifle and the loads you are using?

I doubt I'll ever approach the kind of shooting you are doing, but even reading about your matches is interesting to me.

rsbolo, I'll be brief as this has been covered many times in the past but on various threads so I'll take this occasion to bring it together.

The competition discipline I am focused on these days is NRA and ICRFRA F-Class competition. I generally shoot at 1000 yards, but I have been known to shoot the 600 yard course and even sometimes at 300 yards. This discipline is nowhere as exciting and varied as what fritz and offgrid and others do in their PRS pursuit. F-class is shot from prone and at known distances. The target is the standard NRA target with a 5 inch X-ring, 10 inch 10-ring, a 20 inch 9-ring and so on. It's essentially a half-MOA X, 1MOA 10, and so on.

We shoot three matches of 20 rounds for record each and with sighters prior to record. We have 30 minutes in which to shoot the sighters and then the 20 rounds.

I shoot in the F-TR (Target Rifle) division, which is limited to .223 or .308 and shot off a bipod. The rifle, including the bipod must weigh no more that 7.5 kilos, 18.18 pounds.

I shoot every month at our local club and in the two yearly Texas state competitions. I also shoot every year at the FNC, F-class National Competition, which floats around the country. I have also take part in 2 FCWC Fclass World Competitions; 2013-Raton and 2017 Ottawa. 2021 was postponed to 2022 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. I'm probably not going to that one.

My rifle, which I called the Arrowbee in an homage to my late father, is one that I "designed," which means I selected various components and got them to my gunsmith who put it together for me. It's my 3rd F-TR rifle and I first started shooting it in 2012. I am now on my 5th barrel. I don't shoot anywhere near as much as I used to.

The rifle is built on an aluminum Kelbly Stolle Panda F-class, right bolt, right port, no ejector. The dovetail on top is fitted with a one piece aluminum Picatinny rail with a combined 30 MOA of cant with the addition of Burris rings. The bolt uses the firing pin springs from Kelbly, they are a Remintong design but Kelbly finishes them a little more and ensures they are in the optimum 22-24pound range. I change the spring every 2-3000 rounds.

This action is pillar-bedded in a F-class lo-boy stock from Precision Rifle and tools, NC and has been lovingly refinished in a tasteful satin coating. The stock has an adjustable checkpiece, a 4-way adjustable pad and an Anschutz front rail.

The trigger is a Jewell set at 1.5 ounces, with no safety.

The barrel is always a Krieger, heavy Palma contour between 30 and 34 inches in length. It is chambered by my gunsmith and set up to handle the very long Hornady 230 A-tip or the 210JLK LBT bullet. It is a fast twist, 4-groove barrel. I buy my barrels in pairs and I get them chambered at the same time, the same way. I swap my barrels myself. The barrel is bead-blasted as a finish to enhance cooling and nicely crowned with a recess.

The first riflescope that was on that rifle was a Nightforce NXS 12-42X56 with the NP2DD reticle. After looking through a March-X scope, I bought a March-X 5-50X56 scope with an MTR-2 reticle and retired the NF NXS. 5 years on, I got the reticle changed from an MTR-2 to an MTR-5 (age caught up with me) and then earlier this year I acquired the very finest F-class riflescope, the superb March-X 10-60X56 HM with the dual Super-ED lenses, also in an MTR-5 reticle and 1/8 MOA clicks. I mounted this jewell in a set of Burris XTR Signature rings which in combination to the rail mentioned above provides for a 30MOA cant, placing my 1000 yard zero right in the middle of the lens for the best possible IQ. I also have a large wheel for the side focus and a Tubb-designed anti cant device. I leave the sunshade on the scope all the time.

The rifle rests on a bipod, called the Joy-Pod made by my friend Seb Lambang in Indonesia; a genius fabrication engineer and a great shooter also. The Joy-Pod is fitted with the latest feet from Seb and works like a dream. I have set it up in reverse from others, push down to go up.

My rear bag is another Seb design, the bigfoot, loaded down with about 19 pounds of heavy sand.

As you would expect from that stickied tread in the reloading section, I handload my own ammo. The components are Lapua brass, either Palma with the SRP or Match with the LRP. For primers I use Wolf for LRP or Remington 7 1/2 for SRP. Varget powder and the Hornady 230gr A-tip. I had been using the 210gr JLK LBT, but Swampy passed away last year and that bullet is no longer produced.

Here is a recent picture of my rifle:



And an older picture, late last year.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NikonUser,

Nice discussion, NikonUser; thanks.

Nikon, that was terrific! Thank you.

That looks incredible. Your rifle is a work of art.

How much do you shoot in a given month for "practice"?

Nikon, I went back and saw the Long range thread you posted.

I am still digesting the contents of that thread. Wow!

I don't shoot much from practice now. I dry fire every once in a while. I'm not competing much any more.

During the years running up to Ottawa, I was shooting a lot more and dry firing a lot.

Dry-firing in position at the house goes a very long way to keep you at the fine edge.

I am a fan of dry fire practice, I never considered it for long range shooting.

(Of course long range for me is anything beyond 100 yards!)