by in2anity » 19 May 2020, 8:45 pm
SCJ I basically saw the same in my 223 and 204 during load dev; both generally shot a very tidy group for 20-30 rounds, then groups open up a bit (sub moa to closer to moa) until I clean. The 204 is well broken in now, long since load development, so perhaps it could hold a sub-moa group for longer now (I wouldn’t know, I haven’t benched it for literally years).
The 223 is still early days; the barrel and throat are still relatively fresh (less than 300 rounds), and it certainly shoots stupidly for the first 30, then opens up a tad (around 1/2 moa to 1moa off the bags).
It doesn’t mean jack diddly squat in reality, because no way can I (currently) shoot better than 1moa from the sling, or a bipod for that matter (during a snaps match). And load dev is in the past, so perhaps I’ll never know for sure how bad copper fouling affects them (once they are broken in). Might be interesting going back and reinvestigating, I suppose...
I have a 308 and 303 which also see regular match use - with them, during load dev I didn’t particularly notice groups opening up due to fouling. Certainly heat, but not necessarily fouling. I still clean them the same however, with sweets to start. Perhaps though, incidentally, they just came out of the factory with cleaner tooling...
Then there’s the metallic silhouette guns, all slinging lead; 22lr, 32-20, 32h&r, 30-30, 44mag - given they all get shot offhand, a good spray of g96 down the tube followed by a bore snake or three is plenty. Apart from the scoped 22, it’d be hard to judge how much of an effect the fouling had, given they are far from precision instruments.
Last edited by
in2anity on 19 May 2020, 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
At what point does lack of maintenance become patina?