Predator Xtreme - Feb 2012
from the bench J C Munnell Accuracy What Is Good Enoug h Not all rifles and loads will shoot a ragged hole three shot group but they dont all have to Pro Staff j c Munnell J C Munnell has been an avid handloader for over 30 years His interest spans European combination guns to the most powerful revolvers and includes all facets of predator and varmint cartridges His loading room houses over 150 sets of dies from conventional to exotic He is first and foremost a passionate experimenter who takes the art of rolling your own to a new level Accuracy velocity and terminal performance 12 www PredatorXtreme com FEBRUARY 2012 these are the Great Triumvirate of all reloads Occasionally only two of these three are required or even in the case of short range target shooting or plinking accuracy may be the sole goal But for almost all hunting all three are of equal importance If we concede as we should that the quality of todays factory loaded ammunition and the choices we are given are pretty darn good then it becomes obvious that the reason we reload in the first place is to pursue at least one member of the triumvirate to a higher degree in our guns than that offered by the various ammunition factories As a general rule velocity with any given bullet can only be slightly if at all safely improved above that offered by commercial ammunition Terminal performance may be improved by tailoring the bullet used to the type of animal being hunted the power of the rifle being used and the distances at which we expect to get a shot at such animal This is a subject upon which thick books not short columns can and have been written Therefore we will now deal solely with the question of accuracy Certainly we can go out and buy 20 different types of factory ammunition and try each in our new 223 or 30 06 then buy several boxes of the same lot of the best performing ammunition and be done with it However we dont often do that instead we juggle bullets powders and charges as well as primers bullet seating depths and a myriad of more subtle factors until we find the best load But what exactly is this best load or more precisely what can should we expect from the best load in our individual pet rifle One constantly reads where this experts or that writers new Remchester M 777 7 8 produced three or five shot groups which averaged 1 inches at 100 yards Yet one expert will pronounce such groups as more than adequate and another will decide such accuracy is reason enough to return the rifle to the maker and request he install a new barrel Usually such pontifications are not accompanied by any reasoning Then too we must look at each individual rifle before we can pre judge what should be acceptable accuracy for it As I am sure we will all admit a 223 or 22 250 should be expected to group better than a 338 Ultra Mag or a 93x64 Im sure we will also agree that part of the reason this is so
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