Should I invest into a lead sled before going further?

I guess my thoughts on it are.. How can you evaluate your shooting skills, until you know your weapon and ammo are producing the best they can..??

Once you have that information base, then any deviation is something that you work on with your motor skills and abilities..

The most "perfect practice", with inferior equipment, doesn't really allow me to improve, on a personal basis..If the best my ammo or rifle can produce is 2 MoA groups, at any given distance, I'm wasting my time and resources attempting to get 1 MoA results...
 
OldTurtle,

I see your point, I hope you see mine.

New shooters want to shoot like old hands, without doing the work.

One of his groups goes horizontal, the other vertical, new shooter, commom errors.
 
Well I dont have shooting benches but i do have a nice concrete pad that i set up on. Either way I will probably have to reset the sled after each shot.

ninehorses i get what your saying but I also wont get to shooting small groups without knowing that my gun/ammo is capable of doing it in the first place. Its just nice to know that your gun and equpiment is running correctly and running at peak performance.
 
Try to shoot as much as you can, working on a slow trigger squeeze. Your 10-22 will work great for this, squeeze it so slow that you can feel the creep. Make every shot like it was the only shot. Try to set the rifle in the bags the exact same way, everytime. Hold your rifle exactly the same. The horizontal stringing is usually jerking the trigger. Vertical stringing is the rifle recoiling differently from being held in different places on the bags, or pressure with your hands. Is the heel of the rifle in the same place, on the rear bag? Be a perfectionist!
 
that group is crazy...is this rifle new...even if its "burned up" it should group better than that.... i think your scope or mounts are loose or toast.....good luck noob...
 
Gun was new last october. Scope and rings are new last month.
Id mount the old scope back up but its a PITA to mount the new one because the rings i Have are the kind where you tighten them onto the base then tighten the top to hold the scope in place.
 
One group going left to right, then the next going up and down is usually (and I said usually) not the rifle or scope.

Unless I'm looking at the posted groups wrong. Five shot group picture is turned 90 degrees.
 
noobie,

If you combine both groups into nine shots and throw out the fliers you have a fair group. Look at the groups in relation to the 8 on your targets. Five of the nine are within a 1/2" of the number 8 with 2 more just over an inch.
 
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Ok I went and shot two more 10 shot groups. First group (Top Pic) is with my dads .22-250 and just shooting a "plinking" load as he calls it. Just a 55 grain FMJ he just loaded them because they were cheap and worked great for plinking.
Second Group is my SPS Tactical this time i took out my 50 grain Speer TNT loads that my dad loaded for my moms guns back in '96. Both groups were shot off of the same bipod with the same little bag underneath the butt stock.
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As you can see from the .22-250 group i am no pro at shooting. In fact this was my first time ever shooting the gun. The very high and left shot I claim. That was my first shot becuase I didnt know what to expect. Didnt know what the recoil was like on a 250 and didnt know what the trigger was like (it was lighter than i was expecting.) The other 2 flyers were somewhere in my first 5 shots as well.

With the new group would you say its ammo and opperator error or equipment?
 
Originally Posted By: the noobieThats exactly how i was setting the trigger off but i had to give it a little bit of pressure or else i couldnt get on target and stay on target. Tomorow Im going to go get a lead sled, pending i can find a ride. Do i need weight in it just for a .223? I have 15 pounds worth of weights like you would use for weight lifting if they would work.

Would the one that Slugger listed above work pretty good? its not much cheaper than the entry level lead sled but every penny i can save without loosing a ton of quality will make me happier.

Slugger, do you weight yours when using it?

I don't have it weighed down, I have it strapped down! I used a couple of those ratcheting straps and have it strapped to my bench that way. It has a storage area where you could probably get 2 bags of sand/shot, but with straps, I use it to store my chrony.

I have used this to sight in my 7mm Rem Mag elk loads and with the tie down straps, it feels like a toy rifle, virtually no recoil.

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Considering that in the first group, you have 8 of 10 within one inch and a called flier, I'd consider that pretty good shooting, especially not being familiar with the rifle...

In the second group, you have 6 of 10 within one inch and the fliers could be either operator error due to different trigger weight, or inconsistency in loads....1/10gr in the powder charge weight can throw a round off as much as is showing..so that would depend on how critical your dad was being back in '96, when they were put together..

When I switch firearms, it usually takes me awhile to adapt to the characteristics of each, as each has it's own differences (stock, trigger, cheek weld, etc)...and even with premium factory ammo, I can get variances in shot placement...Just as the stress of trying 'too hard', can cause me to throw off an occasional round...

That's the main reason I employ the use of the Lead Sled to develop new rounds for a rifle, or the initial setting of the scope...
 
i think he was as close as he could get as far as powder but the brass that they are loaded into are just cheap brass. some of it is mixed head stamp but most of it was some bulk Norinco ammo that he got from a buddy. They were originally inteded for my mom to use rabbit hunting but she never shot them and he couldnt shoot the .223 because the stock was cut off. So they sat around untill here about a year and a half before i got my .223 Could just the fact that they were loaded so long ago and traveled from Utah-Montana-Idaho also be a factor? I need to just shoot them up but not untill i get another hunting load worked out.

Not sure Why the American Eagle ammo patterns and doesnt group but the 10 shots of the TNT's look more like a group too me. Im going to hold off on the lead sled for now around my birthday maybe i can pick one up and in the mean time ill just keep an eye out at garage sales.
 
Quote:Could just the fact that they were loaded so long ago and traveled from Utah-Montana-Idaho also be a factor.. Sure it could...movement can result in vibration and that can break down some of the qualities of some powders, as well as storage conditions...

I think age is not that much of a factor, as I've shot military rounds from the 60s that produced some outstanding results in both handgun and rifle...
 
I work up all my loads in a sled these days. I agree with Old Turtle about the need to eliminate MOST all shooter error while trying to get the rifle to shoot perfectly prior to any practice.

However, practice is just practice unless you do it correctly the same every time.

"Perfect Practice makes Practice Perfect."

Once you get the rifle to shoot, and obviously it needs some work, then you can settle in for practical field positions.

Dry firing of the rifle can make a substantial difference in your groups. All competition shooters use dry fire as a way to get into their bubble. Once you can get your head wrapped around controlled breathing, trigger feel/let off, cheek placement, follow through, etc, you will then understand that shooter error is all that is left, providing the gun/load shoots well. It's a mental state you need to get into.

It is also entirely possible that your rifle is not set up for you. There are several YouTube videos describing the proper way to set up the rifle/scope to fit you as an individual. Do some research and listen to what some of the theories and styles are. Not everything works for everyone, but the basic fundamentals are all the same. Take the good that works for you and apply them, make small adjustments to your style of shooting to see if any improvements come of them.

Take notes, I mean written notes so you can go back and compare later especially if you are changing things up.

I used to spend hundreds of hours behind my rifle and 35 years later I still manage to send around 200+ rounds down range every week. Today I worked on a 6x45 AR build, yesterday I worked on my 22-250 from 50 to 600 yards. Tomorrow I get to pour concrete
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Good luck.

But I say yes to the Sled.
 
It looks to me like you need some better (different) ammo.

Mixed brass can cause lots of problems.

Try different brands of ammo, different weight bullets.

Clean it good, and keep shooting it, it'll tighten up.

PS. The 55 grain FMJ's don't usually shoot that good, so those fliers out of the group probably were not your fault, and nice shooting.
 
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ninehorses is right, various brands of ammo will create havoc on targets.

I'm certain you are cleaning it occasionally but are you sure you are getting the copper fouling out? It could be that the copper fouling is causing you some problems. I use Montana Extreme solvents and copper remover and I scrub the bores really well. I will sometimes use the foaming types of copper removers and let them set for several hours to remove copper.
 
Not sure if im getting the copper fouling out but i filled the barrel full of Gun Slick foaming bore cleaner and when it came out there was barely any (blue??) which ever color it is that represents copper. Ran patches through untill it was clean and filled it again. This time there was no blue and there was only a little black. So far this gun has only had 150 or so rounds put through it. 200 Max.

Im trying to go to town here in the next couple of days. Should I just pick up 2 or 3 boxes of factory ammo? I just dont want to buy the ammo then have 20 odd cases i usually buy my ammo at least in groups of 100 so i have 100 cases to reload and tinker with.
 
Although against popular belief... All guns will not shoot small groups.

Find someone that has a rifle that will shoot (consistantly) & check your technique. I'd much rather have a GOOD bi-pod & decent rear bag than 10 leadsleds.
 
It is nice to test loads with the sled. It gets rid of errorso you know what load works best. After that sight your gun in on it and switch to a bipod and practice.
 
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