I can still vividly remember a 'department" guy shooting his 338LM at the 100y line. Sitting turned sideways, shooting and then the gun ending up almost sideways. He'd have to disengage, sit up and move the gun back into place. Everything he was doing was wrong.
It was clear he was struggling, but walking out to the target, I was amazed just how badly he was shooting, certainly way over a MOA, maybe two. He goes on telling me how this gun is not made to shoot at 100 yards, and "my bullets do not go to sleep until at least 300 yards, but by 500-1000 yards, it's a laser beam." He had no idea that my 338 is a 1-hole gun at 100 and reasonably sure he had never shot his past 100 yards either. Of course, the conversation continued about his role "at work" and the fact that he said, " I may someday need to stop a moving vehicle at long range by shooting through the engine block, that's why I need the 338 LAPUA MAGNUM." I am thinking, maybe hit the static target at 100 first, shoot more, talk less.
I've heard some version of this type of story many times at the public range. It is almost always involving a 300WM or 338LM, and always someone with a similar lack of skill and understanding as above.
I am convinced that most of the propagation of the
Myth of the "sleeping Bullet" is from guys with big egos, shooting hard recoiling systems without the fundamentals needed to manage the recoil consistently and trying to cover up their lack of ability. The root of the
Myth stems from hearing that bullet
"yaw" might slightly settle with distance. Lacking the understanding of basic and necessary skills, they have no concept of how very little theoretical yaw shift contributes to the picture and
blow it into stupidity.
I
f you are that guy that believes that your "sleeping bullets" are magical, you need to invest in a precision rifle class with a reputable instructor. If nothing else,
don't use your keyboard to join the stupid is as stupid does club.
Yaw and Yaw settling in; if theoretical yaw and yaw reduction is present, is so small, we have to exaggerate it in illustrations even to begin to visualize the behavior. Then these exaggerated examples, of course, feedback into the Myth above.
Below is an image of my
Hide profile and the very same 338 bullets people shoot and claim needed time to sleep. It is a group off a bipod and at 100y. Assuming a bit of yaw, it is easy to see that any oscillation is hidden by the diameter of the bullet, even more so by the group's hole. With that said, if the tiny bit of yaw does reduce, how would it even realistically impact the group size?
View attachment 7271091
