Q: Ammunition manufacturers and gunwriters often laud a cartridge as being “inherently accurate”, but give no indication of what that actually means.
What factors make a cartridge inherently more accurate, or less finicky about bullets?
If there is such a thing as inherent accuracy would you please describe it so that I can improve my marksmanship.
Leslie Hill
A: According to my dictionary, inherent means inborn or fixed from the beginning as a permanent quality or constituent of a thing, or the relationship of an attribute to its subject.
In reference to a cartridge, we take it to mean that a certain cartridge or calibre is considered to be more accurate than many others.
With modern chamberings of equal capacity, shorter, fatter cases with relatively sharp shoulders might have a slight edge in accuracy but the difference is only slight.
This has to do with how rapidly and uniformly all powder granules ignite, but generally it’s the quality of the chambering job and rifle-building precision that gains certain cartridges a reputation for being inherently accurate.
Also, cartridges for which superior quality cases are available, like the .22 and 6mm PPCs, have an accuracy advantage having nothing to do with cartridge design.
Other factors have proven that all else being equal, inherent accuracy and case capacity are inversely related.
Throat design and rifling lede angle can also affect sensitivity to bullet design but those factors are not related to case design.
Be like me and take this inherently accurate label with a large grain of salt.
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