Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

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Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Seismic Sam on Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:57 am

This involves the stock MP-15 Sport II AR I bought a couple of months ago for $623. The first thing I did was mount an Leupold Mark AR Mod 1 3-9x40 mil-dot scope on it with a 1 piece Leupold mount. The handloads were benchrest quality with less than 2 mils of runout on the finished round.

The target below shows the results from the bench at 100 yards, and this is the best I could do with the stock rifle. For right out of the box, 2 MOA isn't half bad.

Image

While the S&W stock trigger wasn't absolutely vile like most AR's, it was a stock AR trigger at about 6+ pounds, and there was clearly room for improvement. As such, I sent the lower in to JP Enterprises, which is local, and had them put in their "Original JP trigger", which is not as good as their full match triggers, but it's better than 95% of the match stuff out there. The cost installed was $220, and they individually grind the trigger and sear to be dead nuts perfect. (That's why I did NOT try the cheaper DIY trigger kit!!! :banghead: )

The target below is the final convergence on the bull with the scope dials, and after I stopped fiddling with the scope the single hole group is what I shot. Looks to be 1 MOA straight up!! :grin:

Image

This target is 20 rounds fired after that, and apart from the three fliers where I thought of Hillary and damn near barfed on the gun, it's a solid 1 MOA group. A few days ago I was talking to a "real gun junkie" who had Class IV ATF rifles (in wildcat calibers, no less!) and he had mentioned to me that upgrading the trigger on my stock M&P would be a huge improvement.

Image
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Erud on Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:00 pm

Hmm, lots of 9's there. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to adjust your sights?
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby BigDog58 on Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:16 pm

Erud wrote:Hmm, lots of 9's there. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to adjust your sights?



He must have been going for Group, not Score. He'll learn to get both, as he learns to shoot :rotf:
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby xd ED on Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:49 pm

BigDog58 wrote:
Erud wrote:Hmm, lots of 9's there. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to adjust your sights?



He must have been going for Group, not Score. He'll learn to get both, as he learns to shoot :rotf:


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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby BigDog58 on Sat Oct 29, 2016 5:03 pm

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :rock: :rotf:
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby crbutler on Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:16 pm

A better trigger makes a rifle more shootable.

The intrinsic accuracy is what it is. Frankly, your bench technique needs some work.

Erud can correct me, but in my book, you count your flyers in your group, and you need multiple 5 or 10 shot groups to call a rifle 1 MOA or whatever. If you flinch, you throw the entire group and start over with a new group and target. Some folks use 3 shot groups with "magnums" but I insist of shooting 5. I had a lot of rifles that I thought were 1/2-3/4 MOA guns until I shot 5 round groups, now maybe 4-5 are that good. Strangely, the big bores seem to do better for me.

As an example, prior to burning out the barrel my buffalo rifle (.416 Rigby) was a solid 3/4 MOA with its preferred load. That meant 90% of the time, I would shoot a 5 shot group from the bench and it could be covered with a silver dollar (since the bullet is .416") I shot at least 50 groups with that barrel, and all but a couple were less than 1" The 94gr H4350 loads were all .75" or less, basically big cloverleafs. The ones that were not were called flinches and such. Since rebarreling its a 1 MOA gun. I could probably get it back to 3/4 MOA with playing with ammo, but rebarreling it was more money than I want to spend and if I can't shoot buffalo with a 1MOA rifle, its WAYYY too far away to be messing with.

Of course, others didn't do as well. Some here may have done better, but the recoil from a bench tended to cause any competitive type shooter to refuse to shoot it.

I really wish my JP AR shot as well as that rifle did and my .375 H&H does now. To me, a 1-1.5 MOA rifle is pretty much the norm, but some really good ones do exist.
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Ghost on Sun Oct 30, 2016 11:16 pm

Need to do the MOA all day challenge from arfcom.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_16_17/51_.html
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Seismic Sam on Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:34 am

You can call the groups whatever size you want to according to some set of rules, but the 1st target is 2 MOA with 30 shots. The 2nd target is 1 MOA, because the flyers were all at different scope settings. If you want to call a different number for the 3rd target, that's fine with me. The whole point here is that I'm trying to get ready for the election. No, not the one on November 8th, but the one AFTER that, and I'm not talking about 2020. Trump is the biggest ass-clown I have ever seen, and Hillary is the EFFEN wicked witch of the West who wants to burn the Bill of Rights. This is a totally unprecedented occurrence for our country.

If I may be permitted a tinfoil hat moment, I have had the feeling for some time that this has been a cheap reality show that's staged just like a professional wrestling match, with each candidate going back and forth with crises involving damaging information. I think the two relevant pieces of the puzzle are the continuing dribble of Wikileaks damaging both candidate, and the general suspicion is that this stuff is coming out of Russia. In addition, we have Putin manipulating Trump and stroking his ego, and even providing spin control for the big Ass-clown.

The latest blowup with the FBI is the real tell-tale that this whole thing is a put-up job, when the FBI director suddenly comes out of nowhere with new information about Hillary, and is going to get to the bottom of this in a week.

WHEN, IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY, HAS ANY BRANCH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT EVER BEEN ABLE TO COME UP WITH ANY RESULTS IN A WEEK?? That has NEVER happened. The minimum time period to look into ANYTHING is greater than 6 months, and possibly years for anything to happen. So to quote John Cleese: "Stop it now, it's gotten very silly...."

But all of a sudden, some information pops up for Hillary just like the Trump Nookie Tapes mysteriously came out of nowhere, and NOW the same FBI director who just let the private server issue slide is hot to trot and is going to get to the bottom of this in a WEEK?? NOPE!! Not Plausible!! I'm not buying it!! It's gotten silly now.....
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby westhope on Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:35 am

.... (.416 Rigby) was a solid 3/4 MOA with its preferred load. That meant 90% of the time, I would shoot a 5 shot group from the bench....


Ouch! .416 Rigby from a bench!
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Erud on Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:44 am

Seismic Sam wrote:You can call the groups whatever size you want to according to some set of rules, but the 1st target is 2 MOA with 30 shots. The 2nd target is 1 MOA, because the flyers were all at different scope settings. If you want to call a different number for the 3rd target, that's fine with me.


3rd target looks like a 192-3x or so. At 100 yards off a bench with a scope, I wouldn't be happy with anything less than a 200 with 50%+ x-count.

Seismic Sam wrote:The whole point here is that I'm trying to get ready for the election. No, not the one on November 8th, but the one AFTER that, and I'm not talking about 2020. Trump is the biggest ass-clown I have ever seen, and Hillary is the EFFEN wicked witch of the West who wants to burn the Bill of Rights. This is a totally unprecedented occurrence for our country.

If I may be permitted a tinfoil hat moment, I have had the feeling for some time that this has been a cheap reality show that's staged just like a professional wrestling match, with each candidate going back and forth with crises involving damaging information. I think the two relevant pieces of the puzzle are the continuing dribble of Wikileaks damaging both candidate, and the general suspicion is that this stuff is coming out of Russia. In addition, we have Putin manipulating Trump and stroking his ego, and even providing spin control for the big Ass-clown.

The latest blowup with the FBI is the real tell-tale that this whole thing is a put-up job, when the FBI director suddenly comes out of nowhere with new information about Hillary, and is going to get to the bottom of this in a week.

WHEN, IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY, HAS ANY BRANCH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT EVER BEEN ABLE TO COME UP WITH ANY RESULTS IN A WEEK?? That has NEVER happened. The minimum time period to look into ANYTHING is greater than 6 months, and possibly years for anything to happen. So to quote John Cleese: "Stop it now, it's gotten very silly...."

But all of a sudden, some information pops up for Hillary just like the Trump Nookie Tapes mysteriously came out of nowhere, and NOW the same FBI director who just let the private server issue slide is hot to trot and is going to get to the bottom of this in a WEEK?? NOPE!! Not Plausible!! I'm not buying it!! It's gotten silly now.....


:roll:
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Seismic Sam on Thu Nov 03, 2016 7:34 pm

Well, I was looking for GROUP size, and not actual "score on paper" Yes, I could have tweaked the group right one click, but it was just a few days ago and I'm moving from a BRIGHT BLUE state to a BRIGHT RED state the day after the election, and if TSHTF at some point in the future, I'm not worried about a squad of paper targets trying to take all my guns away. 1 MOA is PLENTY good!
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Bearcatrp on Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:30 pm

Seismic Sam wrote:1 MOA is PLENTY good!

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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby OldmanFCSA on Fri Nov 04, 2016 4:24 pm

I currently use a crisp 1.25 pound trigger on my target 50BMG.

I have in past used a 2 ounce trigger on a Rem 40XB target rifle - had to "sand" my finger in order to "feel" the trigger.
Two of my hunting rifles are set to 2 pounds, which while light for most hunters, works well for me as I was used to light pulls.

Crisp, no drag, sear release is most important for accuracy.

Recently I've seen some new rifles that have trigger pull weights exceeding rifle weight.
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Re: Proof better triggers improve accuracy...

Postby Seismic Sam on Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:11 am

I did try a 2 ounce trigger on some guy's ultra match gun, and it was frustrating.... :x :x :x

I guess you have to get used to something like that, and to me it felt like screwing up a shot because I had no idea AT ALL when the gun was going to go off......

I've got two rifles that John Paul himself did the trigger work on, so I do appreciate good craftsmanship.
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