SniperCentral

[dougiefresh101]

Hi guys,

Have a few questions relating to a friend's Sako Vixen in 223. He bought it just recently, it has had a rebarrel at some stage and now has a 1 in 12" twist. We took it to the range today and it is grouping around 12" top to bottom, and only around 1" side to side (this was at 200m). With this kind of grouping, my thoughts were that it needs a good bedding job?

Now on to the 223 twist myths.....my friend visited his LGS and asked the guy what weight bullets to use for his 1 in 12" twist barrel and was told the following:

1. Twist rate is not important.

2. Go for whatever weight bullet you want and in order to combat the slower twist just "load it up with more powder to get it moving faster".

3. BC is far more important than anything else when determining what bullet to use.


Can I get some input here? I'm happy to be wrong, but my understanding of these statements is that they are totally off. I told him beforehand to aim for bullet weights around 40-55gr, preferably the 55gr but certainly not much higher. Any help is appreciated.

[ekaphoto]

1 and 2 Twist rate is very important. Whilevelocity is a factoer and SOMETIMES increasing velocity will stabilize a bullet do not count on it. As a general rule you can not over stabilize a bullet. There are some exceptions. One of those is the 22-250. A very high velocity with a fast twist barrel and light jackets can cause the bullet to come apart in the air. I have seen this myself.

3. BC is NOT the only factoer in what bullet to use. Many facters come in to the equasion such as use ie hunting rabbits vs hunting deer vs target shooting, rifle twist etc etc. Many times a rifle just will not like some bullets and shoot better with others. The only way to know is to get some trigger time and test diffrent bullets.

Now to your rifle specificly. The 1:12 should stabilize the 40-55 gr bullets just fine. Since you have stringing something else is going on with either the rifle, you or the scope. Here is a list os things to try.

1 Check all action screws and scope mount screws make sure they are tight but not to tight. Gorilla tight can mess things up.

2. See if the barrel is free floated and make sure the stock is not flexing and touching the barrel when you are holding it.

3. Have someone else that is a confirmed good shooter shoot the rifle and see if the rifle does the same thing to them.

4. put on a diffrent scope from another rifle or borrow one to see if it does the same thing.

5. try diffrent FACTORY and a GOOD QUALITY ammo.
_________________
John

1.Humans are more important than Hardware.

2.Quality is better than Quantity.

3.Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced.

4.Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.