Shooting BPCR in a tight-breeched rifle, I had issues of primers standing proud of the base, which made closing the action pretty hard.  turns out the issue was primer residue in the primer pockets.  Took me quite a bit of time to find the cause too.  So yes, for BPCR, cleaning primer pockets is pretty important functionally.  No idea if it helps accuracy or not.    But the functional element was enough to convince me to clean those primer pockets...

You don't mean what you wrote. What you mean is that with a certain set of equipment, with a certain set of skilled shooters, wind-doping is very important.
You don't mean that a good wind-doper with a NEF Handi Rifle and a Tasco scope on canvas sand bags will beat a properly equipped br shooter who is slightly less able to dope the wind.
Tell us the order of importance of the variables-any classification you want. I use equipment, skill and "Wind"; put in as few or as many as you wish. I want to know if ex primer pocket cleaning is more/less important than shooting in the order cast.
Isn't that what accuracy-seeking is all about?

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Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  (Thoreau - Walden)  Which demands evaluation of relative significance of each element.

If it doesn't matter, why do it.

BUT sometimes three or four features that are individually insignificant will collectively make a large difference; as in tuning a rifle.

Joe, are you snowed in? You seem bored the way you are poking everyone! 

It's far less work to clean the primer pockets than is it to "prove" that doing so makes a difference 

Chris.

JLouis wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2014 at 8:36pm:

Faith will conquer all. Thank God that you're not involved in aircraft design.

Looks kind of like cleaning primer pockets has little effect, until it doesn't.   That is, until the residue builds up enough to interfere with mechanically consistent function/ignition, any primer grunge variable is probably masked by some/any/all of the other variables we have to deal with.

When shooting at the bench I tend to scrape them out (wait does that subtly change the primer pocket, damn another variable) every four or five shots.  of course I also keep a rabbits foot in the back left hand corner of the middle drawer in my bench tool box.

I have shot in the Benchrest Agg at Etna Green since it was introduced. Shooting that match has taught me a lot. First it was my equipment that needed to be up graded. Then my technique needed to be fine-tuned. Finally the skill that I struggle with most, reading the wind. The game is two marked targets shot every day for all 4 days of the match. While you have all day to shoot the targets, in truth, the first relay of the day is the best time to shoot. I have noticed my targets are almost never as good in the second relay as the first. So last year I resolved to do my best to get all 20 shots off in the first relay. I have honed my reloading routine so I do the same things in the same order every time. Open the action and eject the case, seat a new bullet decap, recap, drop powder, add and seat the wad, load, return the scope to battery, set the trigger. Adding another step increases the time I’m off the gun and not watching the wind flags. Because in my load I don’t experience off shots when I clean the primer pocket after 20 or so shots I don’t hesitate to clean and move on. But if I don’t have to I don’t.