First round cold bore shot

[skin]

 I haven't had the problem of first one or two rounds going outside a group, but have been u-tubing a lot lately and noticed a few things.
1. It happens mostly with tight chamber target barrels of most any manufacturer.
 I've noticed that most competitors will fire 5 to 10 rounds before starting a string.
2. They will clean the barrel anywhere between 200 and 500 shots. Almost all will bore scope the barrel to make sure its perfectly clean. And then put 15 to 20 rounds to foul the barrel.
Mostly prs rimfire shooters, but other comps as well.
 They tend to shoot a lot of ammo!

[M1A4ME]

In my experience not all rifles have that issue.

My Win. M52B never showed the issue.  Neither did my Rem. M700 VS in .223.

When I used to really enjoy groundhog hunting with the M700 I only did head shots.  I'd clean the rifle and put it away.  The next trip I'd carry it out into a field (or along a field/meadow) after loading it at the car.  I missed two groundhogs in 3 years.  The first one was not a first shot on a clean barrel but the third of a three groundhog string of shots with them spread a couple hundred yards apart about 150 to 200 yds. away from me at different elevations.  Most likely my fault for not understanding how to use a rifle even though I was pretty good with one.  The second miss was me trying to show off to my buddies and taking a shot at over 400 yds. up on the side of a mountain.  That one may have been a cold bore shot but it was farther than I usually shot and higher up the mountain.

I could pull the clean M52B out of the case, load it up and shoot flies off my 25 yd. target or thumbtacks out of my buddy's 25 yd. target.  One shot each.

But I once had a Win. M190 that would do that.  First shot went somewhere else (anywhere it wanted to within a couple inches of the point of aim) and the rest of the magazine would tear a hole in the target (nickle to quarter sized at 25 yds.).  Traded that one in on a compound bow.  Still have that old Bear Kodiak Magnum.

My father-in-law firmly believed that a clean barrel would shoot different.  I really made him mad one time when I cleaned his deer rifle.  He took it out back of the house and put a couple rounds through it before bringing it back inside to hang on the wall.  He was lucky corrosive primers were a thing of the past.

[2morechains]

I shoot a little PRS (centerfire and rimfire) but I am not obsessive about cleaning my barrels.  In fact, I’m not even that obsessed about tiny one hole groups.  For me I’m more about being able to get hits on steel plates at various distances and either guess the right wind call for the first shot or make corrections on the fly based on the trace or splash. 

So as far as cleaning, I’m more in the opposite camp of infrequent cleaning and usually if/when accuracy starts to fall off or I shot in crap weather which would force my hand to swab the bore.  Granted, I don’t shoot my centerfire guns all that much but I do try to clean it at least once or twice a year -carbon and copper removal.  Then I make sure to shoot 10 or so rounds thru it before trying anything serious or competitive.  Most matches I go to allow people to check zero prior to the Shooter’s Meeting, so if I cleaned prior to the match I try to shoot enough to foul the barrel while checking zero.

On my rimfire rifle, I would probably shoot 500-800 before cleaning.  Then definitely foul it with 10-20 rnds before expecting any serious performance.  Similar to the centerfire PRS matches, the NRL22 or PRS Rimfire matches allow time in the morning to check zero and even allow us to engage steel out to 300 yard to confirm dope for the day.  Recently I suspected I had a carbon ring forming in the chamber, so may shorten up the time between cleaning.

I did shoot one ARA match early on to see what it was about.  Instead of ‘fouler’ shots, I think it was more about checking the wind with a few ‘sighter’ shots.  Then once you had the wind hold figured out some of the guys would try to shoot the 25 targets fairly quickly before the wind changed….

 

[skin]

Assuming everything is tight and torqued, some tight chamber 22lr may have that problem. None of my center fire rifles have this problem.
 I don't think that all match barrels have that problem. With the same ammo and same manufacturer of barrels,one will and the other one won't. Why? I don't know.

[cournot]

I have been practicing benchrest 50 yards for several months now and I find that the accuracy can fall in as little as 200 rounds.  I clean every 200 - 250 rounds at least and my CZ 457 thumbhole has really settled down.  Despite being a beginner, I've managed to get scores of 2300 and 2375 on the ARA 50 target with Tac 22 and Sk Std + ammo.

I like the gun a lot.

[skin]

That's good shooting!

[Cinimod]

One of the reasons for accuracy decreasing is a carbon build up in the chamber.