Revolutionary New Barrel Accuracy Testing

[Marty]

This has turned into an accuracy game changer!

Many of you would have been closely following the evolution of the Axis Testing Project overseas. Seeing this unfold and also seeing the mass of data and results they are getting over the last two years of testing has been very exciting.

I believe they are very close to actually publishing their work and I was able to get a preliminary copy of their findings which has a very detailed explanation of the way they are achieving their significant accuracy improvements. It is a pdf which I briefly saw on their web site before it went down. I was able to download it and have attached it here.

Hopefully their web site will be up again soon, it’s a fascinating read.

Axis Load Development.pdf

[Azzopardi]

I saw that they were very close to getting some detailed info out, the results they’re getting have been beyond impressive!
Haven’t seen anything new uploaded there for about a week…

[Craig McGowan]

I’m pretty sure the lead guy is either directly employed by, or a civilian contractor/researcher, to the military. I’m guessing it might be one of those contractual things, where “if you invent it while you’re employed by us, we have the rights to the knowledge”.
Given what they’ve achieved, it’s quite possible the military told them to pull the plug on the web site…
Lucky we got what we got!

[SteveL]

Seeing this develop, for me the most interesting thing was they way they tested for the vibration axis with accelerometers to prove the initial theory, but then devised a simple test which can be done without all the lab equipment. This is what makes it so useful moving forwards!
It’s so simple in theory, why has it taken us this long??

[pjifl]

I am a little distant from this these days but I have heard rumours.
If the improvement shown in the initial post is indicative, it could be a game changer.

Peter Smith

[jasmay]

I could be wrong, but I heard that the data pool was a bit corrupted as the pool included data from different test range locations which failed to take into account spin drift variances. Perhaps another reason the website/data was removed, until the data is tidied up or a new set is generated.

[BasicRifle]

This phenomena was addressed in the past in barrel indexing (as I now see you address further down the write up). Some people did it by making measurements of the barrel with an indicating rod in the bore, don't know how accurate that was. Some did it by shooting the rifle with different headspace settings to see where POI was for each setting to determine bore orientation and harmonic plane.

[Rich4]

Bill Calfee wrote about indexing for rimfire benchrest and made significant gains, but I don't believe he followed it to this extent, mainly due to the work his chambering style required.

[AlanF]

I could be wrong, but I heard that the data pool was a bit corrupted ...

I tend to agree...

[bartman007]

It highlights what TR shooters have known for years, that Rifle Cant has an affect on score.

And also why my Armourer (Gazza) times my barrels.

This is the science behind it.

[Daveh]

Very interesting reading.
So left/right stringing might be the barrel index and not my wind reading skills.

Screenshot_20220320-135625.png

Not sure if the pic worked.. Not the best score but good example of horizontal at 800yds..

Dave

[Old Trev-39]

Some time back Rim Fire bench rest shooters have been playing with this idea. Especially Anschutz and similar rifles with clamped or pinned barrel tenons. Remove extractors and just rotate and re -tighten. No hasels with altering thread and re touching chambers. They called it barrel indexing. An article appeared in the now defunct Precision Shooting Magazine late 90's early 20s. Nothing new.
Cheers,
Trevor.

[!Peter!]

Some time back Rim Fire bench rest shooters have been playing with this idea. Especially Anschutz and similar rifles with clamped or pinned barrel tenons. Remove extractors and just rotate and re -tighten. No hasels with altering thread and re touching chambers. They called it barrel indexing. An article appeared in the now defunct Precision Shooting Magazine late 90's early 20s. Nothing new.
Cheers,
Trevor.

Further to Trevor's comments, if you dig around in rimfire benchrest forums you'll see targets where guys have an action in a fixed rest firing down a tunnel and rotated the barrel through 360deg in steps. You see something similar.

I also recall seeing a US centerfire bench rest shooter comment about doing the same and described his method of indexing the barrel.

[Marty]

Well Ladies and Gents,
enough time has passed now, so I just wanted to complement both Jason and Alan on their insight in spotting the joke. I'm also sure many more will have seen straight through it with your replies being equally courteously subtle.​ Thanks also to Azzo, Steve and Craig for their help with the set-up.

If you read the entirety of the protocol, I hope in some small way that the idea of turning a rifle on its side around to 90 degrees, looking through the scope and hoping to hit ANY target, let alone the one the scope is aiming at, and then achieving the mythical results shown, gave you all a good chuckle.
I hope I got just enough theoretical "believability" into the concept to make you think twice before smiling about it.

I also put this up on the US forum "Accurate Shooter". They were also onto it fairly quickly with one post commenting:
"Don't forget what the date is today "

That said, there was one comment over there which I loved and really made me chuckle:
"I think the April Fool's rub with the new tuning method is that you no longer turn the tuner. The tuner always remains in the exact same position. Now you turn the rifle instead. "

The intent was certainly to have a light hearted moment in these somewhat testing times, and it does look like it stirred some thinking and mirth.
Best wishes to all and stay safe!
Marty.

[Daveh]

Well done gents!
I was hoping someone would give me some advice on which way to tilt the rifle to fix my stringing..
Now I will have to go back to figuring out wind/flags/mirage.. Damn..

Dave