Cutright wrote:The Barnes' shot well. They shot 2" higher than the FTX and opened up a little. I need to shoot more to be sure. My gun seems to like a dirty barrel, so the difference may be because of this. I guess I need to clean the bore after every group. How do you guys shoot for groups? Keep the barrel dirty or clean between groups?
This is another one of those loosely defined questions.
We are talking an AR, so some high precision, bolt action, BR techniques are probably overkill. That having been said, I generally store my bores wet with Kroil and patch them dry at the range just before I shoot. Yes, I take my cleaning platform with me since I like to do an end-of-session, thorough cleaning, while the barrel is still warm, but that's me. A lot of what follows depends upon how anal retentive I'm feeling for the particular experiment I'm running. Generally, I load up 6 rounds for every 5-shot group I intend to shoot. Starting with the dry patched bore, I shoot a fouler. After shooting the remaining 5-shots for keeps, I do a brief 1-wet, 2-dry patch pass and shoot the extra round from the next run as a fouler. I then proceed to shoot the remaining 5 for keeps. In the warmer months, that has the added bonus of allowing the barrel to cool back down some. With the pistol type ball powders we use in the 450b, there is a degree of temperature sensitivity you don't see with extruded rifle powders or blends that are temp-comped by design like Hodgdon Extreme Powders. As the barrel warms up, I try my best to not let each round sit in the hot chamber too long so it doesn't soak up too much heat. To that end, I confess that I single load rounds when testing for groups. Not the same process as I use for function testing or general shooting for fun using blammo ammo.
This process is when I'm not being overly attentive to controlling as many variables as possible.
You should see when I'm testing for extreme accuracy from a bolt gun.
Safe to say, I tend to over-control the variables and again, its probably lost in an AR platform. You should see how fastidious and precise I am with my brass prep though. I never change that regimen as it affords me a strong sense of confidence that what I'm going to shoot is as good a representation of the experiment as possible. The journey is as much fun as when I get to the destination. That's how I look at it. The 450b is so forgiving, we can shoot 5-shot runs where one has a velocity variation of say, 70 fps and it still shoots a ragged 100yd group and the next has only a 15 fps velocity variation and it doesn't shoot any better. Never get away with that using some 55gr pills in a smaller caliber. That's what I love about this mortar caliber.
Find the middle where you're comfortable with your results without making it too much like work.
Hoot
The most important aspect is leaving the range and feeling like I accomplished something useful.