No Norma?

The article also doesn’t address the many variable that need to be considered – barrel age & maintenance, action torque, barrel and bolt cleaning, firing pin spring age, among others.

Bill

“The rifle did not have this tuner on it originally.

A little while ao, a friend was playing around with it, trying to see how it might improve his groups.

Frankly, I would have preferred using teh rifle without it.

But, I am afraid I only noticed this fact after shooting quite a few groups.

We are debating doing the test again, without this tuner.”

From that message it is impossible to tell which rounds “benefited” from the tuner (meaning that they took time to actually tune to the load).

I completely agree that the testing should have been done withOUT the tuner.

A couple of other things:

1. The test data are now 7 years old. To assume that no changes have been made in the ammo during that span is IMHO making an ass out of u and me.
2. Given all the effort put in to do the testing, seems they would have benefited everyone if they had taken more time to place more stringent controls on the testing. In particular standardizing of a retuirn-to-battery benchrest setup.
3. Butch Lambert in another AcccurateReloader thread posted this statement made by a world class 22 rimfire shooter he knows regarding how that shooter tests ammo.

“Butch,

We do 95% of our ammo testing indoors. If you are trying to pick out a lot outdoors, there is just too much variation that the conditions add. Also, there are probably only 3-4 shooters in the US who can really tell anything about ammo testing with iron sights from the prone position. The rest of them are just guessing or blowing smoke. Initially we narrow down our lot selection out of a machine rest and pick out the best 5-6 lots. Then we test with a scope at 50m off a good rest, also indoors. This is also where I adjust my tuner. We further narrow our lot selection down to 2-3 best lots and then shoot them outdoors with iron sights. This is where we see if the ammo shoots in the wind or if it needs additional tuning. In my opinion there are only two of us at the AMU who can do this effectively. For us the whole process of ammo testing on a new barrel can last up to two weeks and 2000 rounds. If the barrel isn’t up to snuff it will be a much shorter ammo test.

Good Luck,
Eric”

My bottom line is to look at what the match winners shoot and…if you are really serious…implement the procedure noted just above.