Help please
my budy and I are trying to develope a solids load for my 9.3 O/U Merkle for a upcoming Buffulo hunt next month. I had taken the advice given here regarding how to approach this. My soft loads were grouping around 1-1/2" at 100 yds, but, I wanted to know how much of a reduced powder load I should use to start with for solids. Well we backed off 1-1/2 grains and worked up to the full blown load match that was used for the softs.

The slower loads grouped low spread one above the other about 6" apart. The hottest loads shot ragged holes two each

one above the other, but one 2" high and one 6" low off the center.

My buddy thinks it might be due to the facxt that I was using a tight sling and resting my left hand on sticks and my right elbow on the bench and perhaps this was not allowing the gun to react normally.

We will load up some more and try again tommorow night, this time not using the sling. Has anyone had similar expierience. I would sure appreciate some advice, times getting short.