Thats the way I'd figured it as well.
Not smaller in inches but smaller in MOA.
Printable View
This might be an interesting experiment:
Place a 100m aiming mark. Arrange a sheet of onion skin paper so that the group will form on it.
Place a second screen behind the first at 200m - or 300m. Whatever.
Fire a series of shots. Measure the group in MOA on the 100 and 200 screens. Same shots form both groups. Would make group MOA size directly comparable.
One of the other things that came up as a cause of MOA decreasing with distance was the parallax setting of a rifle scope. Perhaps it would be set wrong at the short range and be set right for the longer range.
BTW the Sierra technician I spoke to was Paul Box 1.800.223.8799
VERY interesting article on the subject of LE MOA differences at longer & shorter ranges in the latest edition of the UK web shooting mag:
Target Shooter
So now I´m a bit closer to understanding why my .303 No. 5 is a lot better at 300 metres and useless at anything under 200m
The article in Target Shooter was very helpful. I'd read of this compensation factor before many years ago and had completely forgotten it.
As for Yaw
I've used only flat base 150 grain for my reloading, aside from a few experiments with 180 anf 215 grain also flat base.
The short 150 bullets don't seem to be as much affected by yaw.
Yaw with longer bullets can be pronounced, and is given as the reason AP bullets penetrate better at two hundred yards than at 50 or 100 yards. The bullet nose being settled in and striking dead on by then, rather than at a few degrees off center.
>>>Can get some pics of No4 Mk 2 have two of them Used as target rifles one is a sterling conversion, the other i dont know but a match trigger has been installed, have to say who ever did this, it is a work of art.<<<
bigduke6,
I would especially enjoy seeing a photo of the match trigger if you have any.
I have never even seen a photo of the #4 Mk2 standard trigger so I don't know how they were mounted.
Will post later today
My theory was that the bullet left the barrel and spiralled in a cork screw fashion until it was stabilised by its spin. Thus, it struck the target randomly at shorter distances until the spiral was reduced by the spin on the bullet, and it was better stablilised at about 300 metres.
BUT the article ".303 Compensation Characteristice and Commercial Ammunition" provides a differerent and more likely explanation.
Target Shooter
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The "compensation" properties of the Lee Enfield was relevant to the use of service ammunition. The vertical barrel vibration pattern, coupled with velocity variations in service ball resulted in a reduction in vertical stringing at long range. Compensation did not reduce the lateral spread at all, only the vertical.
As long as issue ammunition was used in competition, a Lee Enfield could have an advantage over, say, a P-14, at long range. The list of approved SR(B) rifles was short - SMLEs, No. 4s and P-14, for Bisley and Commonwealth competition, in the post-WW2 period.
Some competition shooters would use one rifle for the shorter ranges, to 500 or 600y, and then a Lee Enfield for the long ranges, to 900y. A P-14 might outshoot a Lee Enfield at the shorter ranges.
After it was no longer necessary to compete with a service pattern rifle, and target rifles in 7.62 were being used, some shooters still used a No. 4 based 7.62 rifle for the long ranges. This continued into the 1990s.
Once service ammunition was no longer mandatory, and commercial and handloaded target ammuntion became standard, the Lee Enfield target rifles disappeared from competition almost overnight. With consistant, quality ammunition, Lee Enfield compensation was irrelevant, and the superior grouping potential of other target rifles rendered the Lee Enfield obsolete for competition.