When less is more

**Asmodeus** · April 26th, 2009, 05:35 PM

I spent the day doing some cleanup tasks at my BOL, cleaning up the ATV trails, hanging steel, etc. Around 3:30 I decided to do some shooting. Figuring I hadn't shot my precision 308's in a while I brought out the AR10(T) and FN A3G SPR. I hung some targets out in the woods (measured at 111 yards with my range finder), dialed in the scopes, and let fly. Shooting was in a sitting position with a small bench, rifle bipods, and no sandabgs or anything other than my shoulder supporting the butt of the rifle.

I was pretty unhappy with the AR10; I couldn't get groups under 1", with most running bigger. As I started to put the rifle aside for a bit, figuring that I was tired and it was tough holding the rifle steady after a tiring day in the sun and heat, I realized that the free float tube was loose and the bipod was loose. Don't know how that happened, but without a strap wrench I couldn't tighten the tube enough to stop it from moving, so it was done for the day. None of my neighbors had a strap wrench, either (called one and rode the ATV over to another).

I knew the A3G didn't have any loose parts and it loves Federeal 168gr GMM, so I loaded it up and proceded to shoot a couple of crappy groups.. The gun has a Lepould LR/T 6.5-20 on it and I was shooting with the scope at 20X. My average groups were looking like this:

I realized that with being tired and bothered by the heat I wasn't really able to settle down; my heartbeat and respiration were jumping the scope all over the place. So I dropped the magnification down to ~ 12X, which made the reticle movement from my physical movements far less noticable. The next 3 groups looked like this:

I normally don't have to do this, but it's good to know that I can. If the rifle had been sandbagged it wouldn't have been an issue, but using just the bipod for support really magnified the effect my respiration and heartbeat had on the visable movement in the scope. I know this is old school for hard core distance shooters, but it bears repeating.

Gratuitous FN A3G porn -

**308man** · April 26th, 2009, 11:14 PM

Ran into same situation awhile ago. I thought it was just due to not being used to the rifle. I'll have to try it again sometime when I cant hold groups.