A little while ago, Modern Spartan Systems shot me an email about their products. Before speaking on the phone, I did my due diligence and dug into them. I’ll admit, some of the claims they were making threw up some red flags for me, mainly the claim that it tightens shot groups. I didn’t see any really convincing test data to properly back up the claim. I kept digging around and watched their videos. The closest thing to a scientific test I saw was their video of the Timken Bearing Test. The test was pretty impressive, but I was still a bit wary of the accuracy claims. So, when I finally spoke to them on the phone, I agreed to properly test the claim in an upcoming Basic Tactical Rifle course. The Basic Tactical Rifle course I teach was a great fit for the testing, because we spend time on the chronograph and grouping-­? so measuring results would be easy.

I’m not a bench rest shooter, and I did not feel in our application, that measuring shot group size would be an honest metric. The shot group size would naturally decrease throughout the course as we worked on skills. Grouping size contained too many non-­?deterministic variables to reliably test. For this reason, I focused on provable data. While more consistent velocity alone doesn’t necessarily mean better accuracy, consistent velocity is a key deterministic variable of external ballistics and does directly translate to bullet (gravity) drop when combined with other deterministic variables. Just wanted to throw that in there before the peanut gallery chimes in.

I asked all the students to clean their bores before they showed up so we could get clean results. I used an Oehler 35p chronograph. The Oehler 35p is an industry standard chronograph, which has 2 stop screen channels and compared velocities between the two to ensure there is not an error.

Day 1

We shot a string through the Oehler, without the oil, to establish velocity numbers and select a good zero distance on each rifle. We continued our training for the rest of the day without issues (we did find one rifle’s T-­?1 sight had the worst parallax movement I have ever seen past 50yds in a red dot sight, but that is another story) Students were told to clean their bores again that night and show up clean the next day.

Day 2

Early that morning I was notified we were -­?1 student as one got a sectional cleaning rod and multiple patches stuck. (Stop using Otis origami patches, use one square in your caliber and pull, don’t push from chamber to barrel. If it takes more effort than you can exert without spilling your beer (don’t judge-­? you know you do this), stop and lightly tap it out the way it came with a mallet).

On arrival, we followed the initial treatment protocol.

1. We ran a patch wet with Accuracy Oil through each bore a few times.
2. We then fired a 10 round group @ 100yds.
3. After checking targets, we re-­?treated all barrels, running a patch wet with Accuracy oil through each bore a few times.
4. We then fired a 10 round group @ 100yds.
5. After checking targets, we re-­treated all barrels, running a patch wet with Accuracy oil through each bore a few times.
6. We then fired a 10 round group @ 100yds.
7. After checking targets, we re-­treated all barrels, running a patch wet with Accuracy oil through each bore a few times.
8. We then fired a 10 round group @ 100yds.
9. After checking targets, we re-­treated all barrels, running a patch wet with Accuracy oil through each bore a few times.
10. We then fired a 10 round group @ 100yds.
11. All rifles were then chronographed

To summarize-­ we cleaned, then treated, then fired 5 x 10rd groups, treating between each group, then recorded data.

Everyone in the class was pretty amazed by the results. Every shooter gained velocity, decreased their standard deviation, and drastically decreased their extreme velocity spread.

Just in case you may not be familiar with chronograph data or it’s meaning, let me define the terms as the Oehler 35p captures them:

• Highest Velocity -­ simply, the fastest value collected.
• Lowest Velocity -­ simply, the lowest value collected.
• Extreme Velocity Spread -­ this is the simple difference between the highest and lowest value collected.
• Mean Velocity -­ This is the average of the data collected.

Standard Deviation-­ this value describes the uniformity. The value is represented like this: +/-­? 18fps. This value means that, based on the data collected, at least 2/3rd of the rounds you fire will be within 18fps of the average velocity (the actual math behind calculating this will make your head hurt, just trust me here).

The Hard Numbers

I liked that we had a good spread of brands and ammo, so we could rule out values only being consistent to one type or brand.