Shorty, thanks for doing all the work with Eley target rifle ammo. I shoot silhouette with it also, and weighed a few boxes. Came close to your results, and got wondering what Eley Tenex would weigh. Just a small sample of 50 rounds:
51.2 (20 rounds)
51.3 (20 )
51.4 ( 8 )
51.5 ( 2 )
Looks like the best Eley Target rifle will be at 51.2 & 51.3 since that is where most of the Tenex is. Too cold to do any testing outside now, maybe in the spring.
Jim

Are you guys crazy? We do this in smallbore prone, and I'm still not convinced. Aim at the middle and squeeze. That's what it's all about, Alfie

Heh, we did the same thing in smallbore benchrest, too. It really only helped at all with cheap ammo, and even then it didn't get rid of enough flyers to make the cheap ammo worth using for matches. After a few of us spending months testing, our conclusion to get higher scores was "buy decent ammo and spend time practicing instead of sorting ammo."

I can't figure out how to practice while sitting on the couch watching TV, though.

Put a dot on the wall, stand up and dry fire practice.

hehe, it was a joke. ;) I sort ammo while sitting on the couch watching TV, and so, there is no time lost. And ammo makes absolutely no difference when dry-firing.

Did your scores get better?

If you're asking me if scores got better, then no. The sorting only helped with cheap (<$1.50 box) ammo and it didn't make it shoot well enough to compete with even moderately priced ammo, much less match ammo. It didn't help match ammo that I or anyone else who was trying it could tell.

So to make a shot in practice with the cheap ammo, you need to make more center holds and break the trigger without moving the gun. Hmmm, I heard that somewhere before. Oh yeah... Troy Lawton says that everytime he gives a seminar about offhand shooting. less sorting, more shooting... Less Sorting. More Shooting... LESS SORTING, MORE SHOOTING.

And don't you have to sight the rifle back in when you shift from cheap to match ammunition? Not to mention cleaning up after the mess cheap ammo leaves in your rifle.

Depends what you mean by cheap ammo, I suppose. I don't think I get any changes in POI going from cheap Eley to more expensive Eley, at least nothing to worry about. But, I already have to keep track of four zeroes for silhouette, and three more for benchrest, and another for a 30m fun match. If I did shoot with another ammo, what difference would it make if I had to keep track of another zero or two? It's not like I completely forget what the other zero was, it's written down and I just switch to that setting.

_Shorty wrote:Depends what you mean by cheap ammo, I suppose. I don't think I get any changes in POI going from cheap Eley to more expensive Eley, at least nothing to worry about.

In 2006 I used Eley Practice to, well, practice, and Silhouex in matches for exactly that reason, although it was hard to call Eley Practice "cheap" then and today it definitely seems expensive.

Care to take a guess as to what my plans are for tomorrow? hehe

Shorty, how does that RWS shoot?

I didn't get out to the range today after all, but at least that'll give me some time to weigh this stuff tonight and see how it fares in that department. I should be able to get out there tomorrow hopefully, and I'll let you know how that goes. My only experience with that RWS is shooting it through a defective Savage that wouldn't shoot anything, so that's useless. I'm looking forward to trying all this stuff through the 453 Varmint.