How has cleaning your rifle affected the size of its groupings
I've been doing a lot of shooting this summer up in my backyard range at our cabin with surplus ammo. Sometimes I clean my rifle right after the outing (1 box of ammo),,,,but usually after a couple of weekends (2-3 boxes).
While I was shooting yesterday morning I was pretty shocked that I was getting MOA at 100 yds. when shooting from a bench rest. Needless to say, it's far from quality ammo. I had now run at leat 4 boxes through it so when I got home I cleaned the rifle with Wipeout.
So today when I went out my first three shot grouping was at least 4-5 inches at the same distance! I couldn't believe the difference shooting from a clean rifle made and was wondering if I should have left well enough alone? I should mention that I've been using Wipeout for some time now with this firearm and have not had anything but carbon fouling, no copper fouling has been present from this South African ammo I've been using even thogh the casing are made from brass.
I noticed this change in accuracy with another firearm I was using last year after cleaning it with Wipout,,,,, but this rifle did have a lot of copper fouling. It took at least a dozen shots down the pipe before some copper eqilibrium took place to make the groupings smaller. Each grouping got noticably smaller which kind of happened today before I stopped shooting because the wind was really starting to blow,,,,12 shots later to be exact.
I know some guys who don't even bother cleaning their rifles until they see accuracy falling off. Just wondering if I should do the same? Have you guys noticed the same thing in terms of accuracy after cleaning your firearm or does it shoot straighter?
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