Advanced Marksmanship The Measure of a Man and His Rifle

[Precision Underground]

My first attempt. Lost focus on a few.

That’s a nice target sir!

 

[supercorndogs]

I think those are shadows.

The targets were printed on card stock.

Parts of the paper raised up and you are seeing shadow.

Plain as day now that you said it.

 

[pmclaine]

Plain as day now that you said it.

The printer did suck on laying down the toner also......looks like a lot of pepper beside the middle targets.

 

[JBoomhauer]

Ok, so now that I’m back home here is some information about the above target.

It was shot fireforming .223 AI, 69smk with 24.5 RL15. No load developent just started with a good load from another .223 and shot. Check out the brass.

You can see that the bigger dots I shot when the sight picture was good enough, as it got smaller I slowed up and focused a bit more. A big dot means a big group.

 

[ShadowBear]

I was making a joke

Gotta confess- had to think about that for a minute- thought maybe the OP dropped a zero or two (nope)

 

[theLBC]

got to hand it to "real shooters" (not like me) that can shoot good 5x5s or 6x5s. i tend to screw up on shot #5.
btw, who chose 5x5, the hotdog and bun guys?

 

[ShadowBear]

Ok, so now that I’m back home here is some information about the above target.

It was shot fireforming .223 AI, 69smk with 24.5 RL15. No load developent just started with a good load from another .223 and shot. Check out the brass.

You can see that the bigger dots I shot when the sight picture was good enough, as it got smaller I slowed up and focused a bit more. A big dot means a big group.

You're a braver man than I, shooting groups with mixed brass

 

[Ledzep]

I had meant to run the dot drill tonight but didn't get to it. I'll try to get it done this week some time. Nonetheless, I wanted to see how I compare to the accuracy fixture I use in the large sample tests. This same load shoots 1.0-1.1" at 200yd in the fixture. I tossed the action in a chassis and put up paper at 100yd and let the accoustic target pick up 200. Take note those of you who think that group size somehow is larger at 100yd than at 200 or 300...

 

[mark5pt56]

Reference target configuration, I have used coroplast backers, doubled them up via glue, fix a shoot n see target to them. Just keep patching the target via pasters and re surface with target if need be. Used one at the 600 locally and can track shots over a certain time period. It's best to look at the backside and make a note with a sharpie with anything wild or you can take a pic each trip. It is interesting to see the pattern, mainly wind calls. I have done something similar at closer distance by taking a sharpie, mark the outer corners and use the same target(replace target each trip), track over time via the backer pattern.



If this helps any?

 

[wpeach1912]

Tried out the dot target. All prone shots. Top row is support side slow fire, second row is slow fire strong side, third row is speed drill (I jammed the gun after first shot so had to restart), fourth row is up and down with descending time limits of 15,12,10,8 and 6 seconds. Last row is slow fire prone. Took two shots at third target because first shot the round fed weird and thought it might have been something with the round, but it was just me.

 

[DJL2]

@Ledzep - thoughts on this? Surprised no one has posted it yet here...

Precision & Group Size – Statistics for Shooters Part 3

This article is going to dive into the most effective ways to quantify the precision of a rifle and...

precisionrifleblog.com

 

[Ledzep]

Solid article! Hadn't seen that one yet. The ballistipedia reference is some good reading material, too. I'll be looking into that for some different ways to look at the data I've collected.


This is another source I've found that gives some solid information on the subject.

https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-33607572/documents/7f15a36e4a52403d9ac4e42ae6342116/The%20Tyranny%20of%20Statistics.pdf

And the rest of his page:

Home

bulletology.homesteadcloud.com

 

[BFuller]

For most of my adult life I haven't had the opportunity to own any rifles other than the .243 Savage my grandpa bought me when I was a kid and I haven't had the opportunity to do much shooting. I really enjoy hunting, and have managed deer season back in Michigan a few times, from a blind. The Savage with some $40 Walmart special scope has always got the job done. The only reason for the lack of shooting and hunting over the last 15 years was access and available $. I lived over seas and didn't have much money.

These days I live in California and have enough money to get into it (at least if I don't tell the wife). I like shooting, but what I like more is hunting. I am working on getting preference points in different states and I want to do Elk hunting. I want to buy equipment and practice shooting in a way that gives me as much confidence as possible that I am going to put the bullet where I want to on that first shot.

I have read through this thread and enjoyed the discussion. I like your one shot per circle drill target Frank.

I am waiting for parts for a new rifle. When I get it and when I have some sort of load, either factory or hand loaded, that I want to use for hunting I want to take some time to quantify what my accuracy capability is for different firing positions, especially cold bore 1st shot from a previously zeroed scope. When I am planning to hunt I check my zero before the season and then I don't clean my gun till after. I would use this information to decide what distance I am comfortable taking a shot at depending on what shooting position is possible.

Any thoughts on an approach?

I was thinking of interspersing some form of exercise in between time for the barrel to mostly cool before taking two shots at a time, on targets at different distances and from different positions. Making a weekend of it, probably trying to shoot each position-distance combination 5 times (2 shots each time). I guess it would essentially be a bunch of first round hit tests, plus one follow up shot. I am certain the limiting factor will be my ability, so hopefully I can improve my confidence at different distances and positions over time with practice.

The data would look something like:

100 yard seated - 1st round, 5 shot group (xx inches) - 2nd round, 5 shot group (xx inches) - all 10 shots (xx inches)
200 yard seated - 1st round, 5 shot group (xx inches) - 2nd round, 5 shot group (xx inches) - all 10 shots (xx inches)

Repeated for other positions and distances. Hopefully it will give me an idea of how accurate I am at the first shot with the equipment I have and after some exercise. But having 10 total shots at each combo will help give more significance to the findings.

If I repeated the process on another weekend with the same ammo and setup that would add to the weight of the data. If the environment conditions were way different that would give me a more diverse data set, in terms of knowing how those conditions might affect my abilities.

Ultimately I like shooting, I like exercise and I would rather go and "practice" what I plan to use in the field rather than just punching paper off the bench, even if I do some of that to get things setup. I want to have a reason why I say, "Yeah, I can take this shot in these conditions at this elk at 600 yards" or "No, I won't take this shot"

Damn, I wrote a long post again, that wasn't my intention.

 

[DJL2]

Solid article! Hadn't seen that one yet. The ballistipedia reference is some good reading material, too. I'll be looking into that for some different ways to look at the data I've collected.


This is another source I've found that gives some solid information on the subject.

https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-33607572/documents/7f15a36e4a52403d9ac4e42ae6342116/The%20Tyranny%20of%20Statistics.pdf

And the rest of his page:

Home

bulletology.homesteadcloud.com

Thanks. That resource inspired me to be a bit less lazy and start collecting more data by hand (versus hunting down a program to do it for me). I feel decidedly less bad about my shooting outing yesterday having done so, too. I was messing around with H4831sc because I overlooked it during workup somehow...really solid accuracy despite shooting three different charge weights. With both outliers included, SD of .25 inches and an ES of 1.25 inches. It will be interesting to see if the group converges and the SD shrinks over time...especially once I load a single charge weight (58.3 grains, a bit crunchy).

That being said, it would be nice if my $8 bucks for BallisticX gave me access to the same data...because I know the app has to collect or calculate it based on the outputs...so, it's there...I just cannot see it.

 

[BFuller]

Solid article! Hadn't seen that one yet. The ballistipedia reference is some good reading material, too. I'll be looking into that for some different ways to look at the data I've collected.


This is another source I've found that gives some solid information on the subject.

https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-33607572/documents/7f15a36e4a52403d9ac4e42ae6342116/The%20Tyranny%20of%20Statistics.pdf

And the rest of his page:

Home

bulletology.homesteadcloud.com

Just read through the article, it has a solid logical approach.

I especially like Figure 14, it shows the futility of doing a ladder test without enough shots to truly characterize anything, and suggests if you did do "enough" shots you would simply find there is nothing to characterize, other than a straight line.

My question is: If people are claiming nodes do exist in the charge vs velocity line, what is physical explanation?

I can't think of a reason why a few more grains of powder would suddenly change how consistently impulse is imparted to a projectile and then change back with a few more.

I could see how packing density could affect consistency, but over much larger charge ranges, and not in a cyclic "node" forming way.

Good article, thanks for sharing.

 

[chase723]

At the end of the day, and after reading through all of this, before establishing a standard for anything you have to first ask, what is the actual point of the assessment? You then determine your standard. Are we always judging the rifle, ammo, and shooter simultaneously together? When do we determine that a shooter is adequately qualified to test a rifle system, the rifle itself, or the ammo? Or, conversely, when is the rifle system good enough to test the shooter?
I think that the intended purpose of the qualification very much defines what the standard should be.

From a practical and somewhat statistical limit standpoint, I think that starts with a rifle that in a no wind condition can shoot 1/2 MOA or less 3 shot groups at 500 yards (obviously this also tests ammo quality) on any given day, greater than 50% of the time. If mechanically and ballistically a rifle meets those baseline criteria and the setup “fits” a shooter then that rifle can be used to test the shooters ability. If the shooter can achieve that criteria with a particular rifle system, then it should also be assumed that the shooter can also be used to test a different rifle system to meet those same criteria.

Personally, I think that the standard should be based on target size, increasing distance, and hit percentage. That said, since the topic of this post is “The Measure of a Man and his Rifle”, and this is Snipershide I would say that the standard size target should be an IPSC target. What percentage of the time you can make a 1st round impact on an IPSC target, at a certain distance defines what kind of shooter you are and allows comparisons between shooters across multiple distances. An app to track this would be very helpful. It could also easily track the data for 2nd or 3rd round impacts as well as wind and other weather conditions you might want to track simultaneously. You could then input a reference standard (I.e. 800 yards, wind <10mph)and it would give you a hit percentage number. I.e. 85% at 800 yards in wind < 10mph, 95% 2nd round impact, 100% 3rd round impact. Obviously garbage in, garbage out and integrity would be the name of the game, but it would provide a quantifiable way of assessing a shooters legitimate capability.

If someone makes an app like this I’d appreciate some kudos. Lol.

 

[seansmd]

The comparison man to man is kind of useless, what's the equipment, time, wind, lighting, etc. For me the huge value is the measure against yourself, honest self evaluation, practice, and progress measured. Apples to apples, we have comps to measure man to man.

 

[Davo308]

At the end of the day, and after reading through all of this, before establishing a standard for anything you have to first ask, what is the actual point of the assessment? You then determine your standard. Are we always judging the rifle, ammo, and shooter simultaneously together? When do we determine that a shooter is adequately qualified to test a rifle system, the rifle itself, or the ammo? Or, conversely, when is the rifle system good enough to test the shooter?
I think that the intended purpose of the qualification very much defines what the standard should be.

From a practical and somewhat statistical limit standpoint, I think that starts with a rifle that in a no wind condition can shoot 1/2 MOA or less 3 shot groups at 500 yards (obviously this also tests ammo quality) on any given day, greater than 50% of the time. If mechanically and ballistically a rifle meets those baseline criteria and the setup “fits” a shooter then that rifle can be used to test the shooters ability. If the shooter can achieve that criteria with a particular rifle system, then it should also be assumed that the shooter can also be used to test a different rifle system to meet those same criteria.

Personally, I think that the standard should be based on target size, increasing distance, and hit percentage. That said, since the topic of this post is “The Measure of a Man and his Rifle”, and this is Snipershide I would say that the standard size target should be an IPSC target. What percentage of the time you can make a 1st round impact on an IPSC target, at a certain distance defines what kind of shooter you are and allows comparisons between shooters across multiple distances. An app to track this would be very helpful. It could also easily track the data for 2nd or 3rd round impacts as well as wind and other weather conditions you might want to track simultaneously. You could then input a reference standard (I.e. 800 yards, wind <10mph)and it would give you a hit percentage number. I.e. 85% at 800 yards in wind < 10mph, 95% 2nd round impact, 100% 3rd round impact. Obviously garbage in, garbage out and integrity would be the name of the game, but it would provide a quantifiable way of assessing a shooters legitimate capability.

If someone makes an app like this I’d appreciate some kudos. Lol.

There are modeling apps that can do this. One is free, but I cant remember its name. Some kind of ballistic simulator.

 

[_Raining]

At the end of the day, and after reading through all of this, before establishing a standard for anything you have to first ask, what is the actual point of the assessment? You then determine your standard. Are we always judging the rifle, ammo, and shooter simultaneously together? When do we determine that a shooter is adequately qualified to test a rifle system, the rifle itself, or the ammo? Or, conversely, when is the rifle system good enough to test the shooter?
I think that the intended purpose of the qualification very much defines what the standard should be.

From a practical and somewhat statistical limit standpoint, I think that starts with a rifle that in a no wind condition can shoot 1/2 MOA or less 3 shot groups at 500 yards (obviously this also tests ammo quality) on any given day, greater than 50% of the time. If mechanically and ballistically a rifle meets those baseline criteria and the setup “fits” a shooter then that rifle can be used to test the shooters ability. If the shooter can achieve that criteria with a particular rifle system, then it should also be assumed that the shooter can also be used to test a different rifle system to meet those same criteria.

Personally, I think that the standard should be based on target size, increasing distance, and hit percentage. That said, since the topic of this post is “The Measure of a Man and his Rifle”, and this is Snipershide I would say that the standard size target should be an IPSC target. What percentage of the time you can make a 1st round impact on an IPSC target, at a certain distance defines what kind of shooter you are and allows comparisons between shooters across multiple distances. An app to track this would be very helpful. It could also easily track the data for 2nd or 3rd round impacts as well as wind and other weather conditions you might want to track simultaneously. You could then input a reference standard (I.e. 800 yards, wind <10mph)and it would give you a hit percentage number. I.e. 85% at 800 yards in wind < 10mph, 95% 2nd round impact, 100% 3rd round impact. Obviously garbage in, garbage out and integrity would be the name of the game, but it would provide a quantifiable way of assessing a shooters legitimate capability.

If someone makes an app like this I’d appreciate some kudos. Lol.

The comparison man to man is kind of useless, what's the equipment, time, wind, lighting, etc. For me the huge value is the measure against yourself, honest self evaluation, practice, and progress measured. Apples to apples, we have comps to measure man to man.

You guys are making this harder than it needs to be. People have access to 100 yard ranges and can print out a simple target to shoot at said 100 yard range. It is just a very basic evaluation of a man and his rifle. Think of it as a piece of paper you post up on a board and two team captains use it to pick people to be on their team.

If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the "venerable" 3 shot group, then I have 33 attempts to shoot a good group. If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the snipers hide progressive dot drill (25), then I only have 4 attempts. It is going to take a lot more ammo to try to luck my way into a good looking target.

 

[seansmd]

You guys are making this harder than it needs to be. People have access to 100 yard ranges and can print out a simple target to shoot at said 100 yard range. It is just a very basic evaluation of a man and his rifle. Think of it as a piece of paper you post up on a board and two team captains use it to pick people to be on their team.

If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the "venerable" 3 shot group, then I have 33 attempts to shoot a good group. If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the snipers hide progressive dot drill (25), then I only have 4 attempts. It is going to take a lot more ammo to try to luck my way into a good looking target.

I do understand but you are measuring the system not just the man, and that is fine especially if the purpose is sorting or grouping results.

 

[Ledzep]

1. Set objectives
- What accuracy is required for what I'm doing?
- How reliable does that accuracy need to be?

2. Test the equipment to find the limitations. Improve the equipment if it doesn't meet objectives.

3. Test the human. Improve the human as far as you want/need to, up to the limitations of the equipment.

You have to test the equipment and have a solid idea of what the equipment is capable of before you start testing the human. If you assume the rifle will always print 1/2 MOA or better because you shot a few 3-shot groups-- when in reality the rifle has a 1 MOA cone of fire--, then you are bound to falsely place blame on the human (or other factors) when the system (equipment+human) doesn't meet expectations.

If the rifle shoots 1 MOA for 50 shots locked in a V-block or fixture, then the minimum size 'scoring ring' you should test the human is 1 MOA. If that same rifle prints a shit load of .1-.5 MOA 3 or 5 shot groups who cares? It will also print a few .6-1.0 MOA groups and you won't know whether to attribute it to the shooter or the rifle.

You can run down the rabbit hole and use mean radius and a bunch of other metrics to get a 6 sigma approach to the limitations of the equipment but off the cuff I'd say that 0.75-1.5 MOA is probably a good size for a minimum-size-scoring ring. 0.75 for most of the properly built Proofs, Barteins, Kriegers, etc. with hand loads... 1.0 with factory match ammo, 1.5 more for the Wilsons, Douglas, the better half of RPR's, etc...

The problem is that there is variance. Guy 1 has a .6 MOA rifle/load, Guy 2 has a 1.2 MOA rifle/load, Guy 3 has a .8 MOA rifle with factory ammo, etc... So there's a bit of fudge factor involved. Obviously everyone is searching to get the competitive edge so it can be hard to objectively name the minimum size target that is large enough to not be a gamble of random distribution, but small enough to test the shooter properly. And there is no way of getting around needing 15-20 rounds minimum to really qualify anything. Now whether that's 5 rounds 4 times over a month of weekends or 20 shots at once, etc.. doesn't really matter other than it introduces variability in environmental conditions.

So you may think 1 MOA is too generous but that's where getting off your belly or off the bench and into positional stuff is what makes you a better shooter. Most people that have the basics down can shoot nearly to the limitation of the equipment prone and bagged up. If you can shoot 10 shots in 1.5 minutes on 5 different positions into 1 MOA every time you run it, you're doing good. If you can shoot 10 shots sub MOA prone or kneeling with a sling you're doing good.

 

[chase723]

You guys are making this harder than it needs to be. People have access to 100 yard ranges and can print out a simple target to shoot at said 100 yard range. It is just a very basic evaluation of a man and his rifle. Think of it as a piece of paper you post up on a board and two team captains use it to pick people to be on their team.

If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the "venerable" 3 shot group, then I have 33 attempts to shoot a good group. If I have 100 rounds to shoot and the evaluation is the snipers hide progressive dot drill (25), then I only have 4 attempts. It is going to take a lot more ammo to try to luck my way into a good looking target.

Shooting dots is great at training fundamentals but I don’t train to shoot dots in the wild. Do those skills translate to shooting further distances? Yes of course they do but shooting targets at 100 doesn’t test a shooters ability to make a valid wind call and proficiently engage targets at distance, and the further out you go the more important that becomes. If we were to say we wanted to test a man and his rifle at 100 yards then a yes, a 25 dot target at 100 is excellent...but how does that reliably tell me how that person and their rifle system is going to do at 1000? I train to shoot fur. How many dots wide are the vitals of a deer, elk, etc? What’s the wind value of that distance? At what distance can you engage that target with > 80% certainty? Not hit probability calculated in WEZ but your personal actual hit probability?

 

[PlinkIt]

I've been after a way to give myself a metric as I'm getting back into trying to improve with a rifle

After going down a three mile rabbit hole of reading the PRB posts on the matter that seem to have been the root cause for this post:

I didn't come away with any thoughts that we need to move to ten round groups.. let alone twenty

I actually like the simple small dot drill if there was an easy way to overlay the impacts to show the group information this would be a no brainer... But the only app I'm familiar with it range buddy and I'm not aware of such ability within it. (I will look into ballistic x moving forward in case that app has function I'm not aware of)

I also know there are computer based options but I shoot "groups" sometimes on fresh painted steel so I can't stick that in my scanner

So I'm still back to four or five shot groups and trending the information I get off the app

Now the thing I did leave the reading with was the question of should we rank our rifles / skill based off extreme spread of group, or the mean radius?... I could say I have a 1/2 minute rifle even if it only shoots 1 inch.... I think I know where some people are getting their group sizes from now!!! Jokes aside the mean radius average does seem like the metric I would prefer to measure myself on as I can continue to trend the average and see if I am improving on average vs having a "bad day" where I throw fliers

That would be worth talking to Ballistic X about

Would be pretty smart really, creating an overlay with a reference point

Yes please do pursue an avenue to overlay for a longer time span. We could trend our info across hundreds of rounds!

For that matter if a only shot 2 rounds a weekend for a year I'd still have a hundred round group to trend in the app!!

We could likely see seasonal trend or personal improvement trends when we get a new bag for example

I feel like there is information GOLD somewhere in being able to overlay / trend a rifles group for a longer time.
Seems easy enough to have separate trend for prone vs tripod as well as long as they have different rifle profile saves within the app.

I live in the Pacific Northwest right up on the border north of Seattle. It rains over 180 days a year here sometimes, so if I want to get any shooting in I have to use a waterproof target.

I use Tyvek. It is a fucking fantastic target material. It is flexible, strong, not expensive and absolutely waterproof.

Put an orange dot on it and cover it with clear packing tape and it will withstand a day long downpour. You can shake it off, three-hole punch it and put it in a binder for next time.

Does anyone have an example of what they are using as a tyvek target? Like a link to where to buy whatever you are talking about?...

 

[Deleted member 113831]

Does anyone have an example of what they are using as a tyvek target? Like a link to where to buy whatever you are talking about?...

TYVEK 3 ft. x 165 ft. HomeWrap Housewrap (495 Sq.Ft) D15540828 - The Home Depot

TYVEK, the world's leading house wrap has the optimum combination of properties to deliver the best balance of weather protection, moisture management and, durability behind residential facades. TYVEK

www.homedepot.com

It is just house wrap used in construction. The back side is blank. Cut it to size, put whatever aim points you want on it and cover them with clear packing tape.

Done.

 

[PlinkIt]

TYVEK 3 ft. x 165 ft. HomeWrap Housewrap (495 Sq.Ft) D15540828 - The Home Depot

TYVEK, the world's leading house wrap has the optimum combination of properties to deliver the best balance of weather protection, moisture management and, durability behind residential facades. TYVEK

www.homedepot.com

It is just house wrap used in construction. The back side is blank. Cut it to size, put whatever aim points you want on it and cover them with clear packing tape.

Done.

Thanks

I was thinking you were referring to some type of panels. This makes perfect sense though, and I believe they also have tyvek tape... Could patch over holes with that I imagine. Perhaps they have the tape in different color and could use that as an aim point as well

Guess I just need to make myself a backer board of some sort now

 

[6.5SH]

Thanks

I was thinking you were referring to some type of panels. This makes perfect sense though, and I believe they also have tyvek tape... Could patch over holes with that I imagine. Perhaps they have the tape in different color and could use that as an aim point as well

Guess I just need to make myself a backer board of some sort now

If you want a weather proof panel/backer.

Coroplast 48 in. x 96 in. x 0.157 in. (4mm) White Corrugated Twinwall Plastic Sheet CP4896S - The Home Depot

Lightweight, weather resistant and moisture resistant. Offering a wide range of possible uses around the home, workshop and job site. Common uses include floor coverings, countertops and wall protection,

www.homedepot.com