Have you ever had a load shoot consistently tighter (in relative MOA) at distance (200/300) than it did at, say, 100 yards?

Have you seen loads that don't/won't "settle in" until they get past 200?

Thanks for any input.

It's a challenging question actually.  Things happen at distance, that straight up you won't see at 100 yards.  But at the same time, environmental impacts start showing up at distance too.  Load testing at 300 yards can be tough, because wind effects can very much start to show up at 300 yards.  Where as such factors are notably more mild at 200 yards, and a basically non-existing at 100 yards.

To that point most of my load development I do at 200 yards, as a compromise of  trying to get far enough to see maybe SOME distance effects, but avoid the wind effect noise to the test data.

300-500 here.  More consistent, easier to read results.

Grain of salt: two loads for 308 only so far, with 168 and 178 gr.

Tested at 100 and 300 (meters).

After the loads stayed consistent on both distances, they worked up to 900 and 1100 meters.
Even with barely sub-MOA groups.

100/300 like others have already posted.

Thank you all for your input.  I do appreciate it.

At this point 100 but I’m just a beginner.

200yds and then as far as I'll shoot it (ie my SR loads get out to 600yds).  
But really at 200yds, I can see the groups and indicators of a good load or crappy.

Short answer; No.

Long answer: I have access to a 200yd indoor range that has built in chronographs and acoustic targets at 100 and 200yd lines, as well as paper targets.  I have tested hundreds of rounds worth of groups where I will set the acoustic targets to read at 100yd, then shoot 200yd paper.  It gives me a paper group at 200yd, and a digital print-out for 100yd (or visa versa.. 1 sheet of paper doesn't seem to affect trajectory).  I can then go back and check whatever I was testing to see how the group looks at both yard lines.  Every time, the group is the same just scaled pretty much 2x at 200yd.  Same shape, same relative impact locations for each shot, etc...  It's pretty linear.

I have also gone to the local outdoor range when it's empty and put a paper target up at 100yd such that I aim at 500yd paper underneath the 100yd paper (just a sheet of paper, no cardboard).  This catches groups at 500 and 100yd.  Same story, except you get wind variation, and muzzle velocity variation starts to show itself a bit.  But if you have decent spreads on a calm day, it's a 5x scaled group.  If you have variable winds and bad MV spreads, then the 500yd group can appear bigger OR smaller depending on how things add/cancel.

The question that comes up next is "can you get things to repeatably cancel?"... And I'll be conservative in saying "I don't know how".  If someone I like asks, I say "No" so they don't waste their time looking for a way to do it.  I've done a lot of testing with those 200yd acoustic targets and chronographs (I can get the data in Excel for impact location and velocity tied to each shot) and have never found any way to get my high MV rounds to trend towards a lower POI.  As far as I can tell, it's random.

50 yards at most but I just load for pistols. I thought about starting to load for rifle but I don't really have that "precision" mindset that it seems to take to make good rifle ammo.

No, I have never seen that.  I have read about how it MIGHT happen but I have never observed such behavior in a test.  

I have never seen a load that has markedly more vertical dispersion than lateral, either.

I would likely avoid such a loading, as the uncertainty associated with it is unwarranted.  


I typically test at 200 yards so I can see the impacts during the test.  Mirage effects make that more difficult or impossible at longer distances.  

Having purchased a Shot Marker, I can now test at any distance I want, 100, 200, 300, 600, 1,000 yards and anywhere in between.

I build loads at 100 yds. When I am happy there I move out to 300 & 600 yards. As long as the environmentals aren’t a factor my 100yd groups are normally equal to my 600 yd groups. My next step will be moving out to 1,000, 1,200 and 1,600. I’m getting there…

I’ve never observed a load that shot remarkably better at distance, but I have seen shooters that “appeared” to shoot better. I saw a buddy use a 3” paster to shoot at 100 yards and get 1-1.25” groups. Not bad, but not great for his equipment. He used the same 3” paster at 300yds and shot several 1.75-2.5” groups. The load didn’t magically get better, but the point of aim (in moa) was much smaller, which I largely attribute to the better groups.

Shooting the same ammo and a smaller target, he was able to shoot tighter groups at 100 on a subsequent range trip (Avg 0.7moa for a 5x5). This is one example, but I’ve witnessed similar things numerous times.

I normally do load work at 100 yards, followed up by shooting out past at least 600 yards, often past 1000 yards, but my long range shit is a magnum 30 cal..testing at 2-300 yards really isn't telling you much...

When I took this new barrel out, I shot 4 rounds at 100 yards and then went straight out past 750 yards, then 1053 yards, then 1176 yards and finally 1516 yards..I shot 4 rounds at each distance...

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