Just thought I'd give a quick thanks to Rex. The videos made me think a bit and get back on target the next shot.
A little history (you're not going to like this)... I thought I'd try to prove something and assemble more or less the cheapest rifle I could and see how well it could shoot. It ended up being:
Howa 1500 in 223 1-9" complete with rubbery hogue stock
Caldwell XLA 6-9" pivot bipod
Nikko Sterling 6x40AO mil ret/moa adj
Cheap rings
Home made cheek riser from crafting foam, cohesive bandage, buckle tie downs, and some second skin left over from my army days.\
Shooting 'Aussie Outback' factory loaded 69gr Sierra HPBT
All in all it owes me less than $780 AUD as it sits ready to shoot. Quite the cheap setup.
Most of this will change soon, however I figured why not give it a shot and see how it goes... Long story short, from virgin barrel during break-in, shots 6-8 were about 1/2 moa group in horrid wind. Shots i think 9-14 were about 1 moa in an almost perfect chevron. I was doing some bad things at that point I'm sure.
Anyway, long way to get to the point. I got bored so started lining up clays (on the butts), smack bang on for the first 3 in fairly quick succession, shot 4 comes along took a little longer to line it up and splash just over the top. Thought to my self, what the hell? Then something that was covered in one of your videos registered, held the next shot half mil low, boom! no more clay. took the next one out same deal, half mil low, no more clay. Thought I'd try a different approach for the next shot and lined up before chambering, did a quick chamber/shot sequence and shot and held true, no more clay.
Goes to show, even with the ADI ballistic temperature insensitive whatever powder, leaving the round in the chamber too long will certainly shift the point of impact.
Can't wait to get out again on a not so windy day and get a true zero.
Side note if you get this far, when you put the stupidly cheap LR setup together, did you think about using the Howa (Weatherby Vangard) barreled action?
For some reason that lesson was never taught in the infantry. Go figure...
Thanks again.
On the first topic yes leaving a round in the chamber over 10 sec will definitely heat it up and generate more muzzle velocity and have you shoot higher. For the second topic on the weatherby vanguard action I have built a very strong and highly accurate rifle from the vanguard in the 300 whby. Mag I have put an valdada scope, lilia mk13 barrel, m11s muzzle break, 40 moa base, and a timminy trigger on her. My McMillan A5 and CDI bottom metal with ACIS mag is on order. She shoot .75 moa with 185 Berger hand loads before the barrel Job and now shoots .432 moa and 160 fps faster at 100 yards. Great rifle I know I could have dropped another grand on a action but this rifle I had for about 6 years before I learned the art from REX and got my hands on XRLS 8.1
Thought I'd run a quick update on this.
I don't get to the range very often, so I'm a fair way out of practice. Turns out muscle memory is worth more than I thought.
I took my cheap bucket rifle back to the range and shot off the rifle bag instead of running the bipod on the concrete. Since the last outing I have glass resin filled the fore end to stiffen it up, ground out the fore end to ensure the barrel is 100% floating, filled the butt stock with glass resin and added a kydex cheek riser as the foam one was making life hard and consistency was suffering.
Grand total for the rifle as is? Less than $600US ($814 AUD) + some resin I had sitting round.
Effect? Consistently sub moa, getting down to sub 1/2moa @ 100m. Noting that this is with factory loads only. I need to invest in some reloading gear soon as I cant seem to find 65-70gr factory hunting ammo.
I tried maybe 3 or 4 different boxes of "hunting" ammo between 50gr and 55gr and it looked like I was using a shotgun.
I think it is possible to make higher caliber rifle to go well out past 1000m for very cheap these days using the Howa actions. I intend to try with something like the 6.5 creedmoor or higher in the future, though this does mean importing an optic from the US, like the SWFA or Primary Arms.