This is all good stuff and incidentally after almost forty years of striving, the author is still trying to consistently achieve this Utopian Ideal.


In reality, a half-decent smallbore rifle fed with half- decent ammunition will do just that. It is of course the apocryphal ‘loose nut behind the butt’ who puts the fly into the ointment! It is only the cream of smallbore shooters who can consistently shoot tight enough to achieve this. Which brings us neatly on to one of the bedrocks of group theory.


Apart from weather conditions - which we do not want to consider just yet - three factors contribute to increasing group size and these are: inconstancies in the ammunition, defects in the rifle and/or sights and shooter induced errors.


If you are shooting in a competition, where ammunition is ‘issued’ (mercifully a much less frequent occurrence than it was ten years ago) there is little you can do about this. If however you provide your own ammunition you should only use the best you can buy or make. My approach to competitive shooting has been heavily influenced by the writings of Bill Fuller. Here is what he says on the subject:


“Always shoot the best grade of ammunition you can get - not the best you can afford.” (Small Bore Target Shooting, WH Fuller, Herbert Jenkins, London 1963.) Very sound advice and a lesson I have never forgotten.


DEALING WITH THE WIND PART 4


packaging but red sleeve). The only Tenex available was at a gun shop 40 miles away. I couldn’t afford the train fare so I hitched. A trying and memorable experience but one which served to tighten my resolve.


I hove up for the shoot with my single precious box of Tenex - in a Club sleeve. The reason I won was probably due to psychology; nevertheless whatever other errors might have been present ammunition errors were limited by buying the best product on the market at that time. (In my opinion it still is!).


Simply, however, factors which affect the velocity of the ammunition will cause vertical changes and factors which relate to the accuracy of the bullet’s construction and seating will cause radial errors. Some of which may, of course, be up and down.


Problems with the rifle’s bedding will (usually) cause vertical errors. In the case of full-stocked classic rifles, Long Lee Enfields for example, these can be quite dramatic. Worn barrels and damaged crowns can cause radial errors. Worn sights can cause vertical and lateral errors and problems related to poor barrel- fitting and/or chambering can cause all sorts of errors including lateral ones.


Some ammunition shoots tight groups and some doesn’t


Early in my shooting career, whilst I was an undergraduate, I joined a local club so I could shoot when home on vacation. This club had an annual competition for novice members for which I was eligible. The only ammunition sold by the club was Eley Club, packaged in those days in a cardboard tray inside an orange coloured sleeve.


My main competitor was a brash loudmouthed type for whom I had developed a dislike. I resolved to quieten him down!


Money was tight. I rang round the local gun shops to find out where I could buy a box of Tenex (same


47


The very design of the rifle may limit its grouping capacity or produce asymmetrical groups. For example, the late George Swenson established, by experiment, that classic Mauser type two lug actions produced elliptical groups with the long axis at right angle to the plane of the lugs when the action was locked. That is horizontally, an effect which would be perceived by the shooter to be wind related. That’s why my TR rifles are all built on three lug actions!


What we need to understand is that our rifles shoot groups and do not put all the shots through the same hole. We need to understand what the size of this group is likely to be, so that we do not ‘chase’ errors.


A competent smallbore shooter, shooting indoors losing a point in any direction, will almost always blame him or herself and, in most cases that assumption will be correct. On the other hand most TR shooters will assume lateral shots to be down to the wind and radial ones to be down to bad shots.


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