Once upon a time.... In the summer of 1953 to be exact... And many years before that, and a few after...
200 yards was a standard course of fire for NRA Smallbore Prone shooting.

I present this only as a comparison data-point for anyone who questions the accuracy of the .22LR at 200 yards in a "good" rifle, with a "good" driver behind it.

The target:  The NRA A-21 smallbore rifle target (no longer used in NRA competition, but still available from several sources).  The X-Ring: 2", the 10 Ring: 4", the 9 Ring: 8". Those rings are the "black". The 8, 7, and 6 rings are 12", 16", and 20" respectively.

Now, I have in front of me a copy of the National Match Bulletin from Camp Perry, Ohio for 1953.   
The Long Range Aggregate (total of 60 shots at 200 yards, prone)...
Winner: Alonzo B Wood  Score: 594-30X  (also a NEW RECORD for that time)
2nd: T.J. Knight, 592-25X
3rd: E.M. Kucera, 591-25X
4th: Herb Hollister, 590-15X

The scores do not drop below 580 until 47th place.


I offer this only as a comparison... since the sport of standing-on-your-hind-legs Schützen and Flat-on-your-belly Prone are quite different.
Prone shooters in 1953 could shoot scores in the 590's on a target with a 4" "ten" ring.


Now, there is some debate on the relative quality of smallbore ammunition of today, versus that of past decades. Don't beleive me.. .beleive 137 time national, regional, local, world, and possibly galactic level shooters like Lones Wigger about todays best Eley versus the Eley "Paper box" ammo of the mid 70's... They're pretty sure todays is NOT better. Maybe or maybe not worse.. but NOT better.

Hope this is of interest to folks pursuing 200 yard .22LR shooting.  Me? Once I can shoot my prone rifle for 200-20X with some regularity, and once I can shoot 200 yards a bit better with my centerfires... THEN I'll take up 200 yard offhand shooting with the .22LR.   I only have so many days in the week to practice!

Paul F.

DWS;
  Found another site for you if interested. 

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Fred

That sort of test would yeld results that could be counted on when match shooting. The US top teams test in the same way. Machine rest indoors.  However the idea thats often repeated in America is an individual can put his rifle on sandbags outdoors and fire a small sample with a number of different brands of ammo finding one that shoots better than the rest. As a sub goal he is also looking for inexpensive as well as accurate. The data collected under those conditons is simply not valid.   

My advice which few agree with, is to buy a top brand of match ammo and stick with it paying attention to position and conditons.  I would also say a shooter would not go wrong with Ely.

Boats

boats wrote on Apr 17^th, 2007 at 7:59am:


What Boats said, and plenty of it. I shoot Tenex and practice/rough zero with Standard. The ammo is a heckuva lot better than I am. Regards, Joe

Brent

I ought to modify that statement to "most test" Although I stand by the small sample part.  You can learn many things with small samples but accuracy  potential is not one of them. What I have found with pratice grade ammo is it shoots fine until you get a flyer.  It make take a 100 rounds to get a couple of flyers.   Given our re-entry format it's also possable to throw bad groups away masking true data.   

You need to stick with something a while to find out if it perfoms well.

Boats

Brent,

I think I understand what you are saying, I teach graduate level engineering, and am continually amazed by the conclusions drawn in the literature and by my students from insufficient data sets and flawed analysis.

On the other hand, I find the task of finding the "best" ammunition for my .22 (or load for my BPCR) to be a lot of fun.   

You say "That one can do MUCH MUCH better is pretty evident to anyone that understands testing processes and data analysis."  I agree with the theory, how would you apply it in practice?  I.e. what would you consider to be a valid and practical test of ammunition for a .22 rf?

Thanks,
Alan

Brent,

Thank you for sharing, and as my contribution to your royalties when we meet, I'll buy you a tall cool one after the shooting is done for the day.  One question, which maybe I missed, is there a satistical reason for choosing 12 as the number of targets?

For any of the rest of you who took one look at the big words and formulas on Brent's web page and clicked it off, if you have the Excell program, skip all of that stuff and go to the procedure he describes at the bottom - he has done the hard part, and Excell will do all the math work for you.  You will end up with a number that tells you how confident you can be that there is a difference between your two candidate ammunition sets.

Thanks again Brent,

Alan

Brent

There are 3 weak points in the Rifle/Ammo test I have seen at club ranges. Test taken outdoors, weather conditions masking validity of data collected. Rifle hand held allowing inconsistency.  Number of Rounds fired inadequate to draw conclusions. 

This is a key point. Re-entry matches allow throwing out flyer targets. Matches that include long strings and record every shot have another standard. Small-bore prone shooters cannot afford flyers.  The number of rounds tested need to take into consideration what’s required of the chosen ammo.

If those variables can be controlled I would agree statistical testing methods could show something useful about ammo selection. If they cannot be controlled statistics will not overcome the basic inconsistencies.

Another way to make a decision on what ammo to use is to consult match results.  The best combinations will be naturally selected. This in my opinion is the best test of all.

Boats