Well first off let me say I'm fairly new to hand loading so take my limited experience as it is. After my last trip to the range I came home and thoroughly cleaned the bore of my savage 12 bvss 22 250 (almost new rifle) with hoppes #9 solvent until my patches came out clean to remove all my powder fouling. Then yesterday I went to the range to try out a new load I had worked up. I only loaded 10 cartridges because I simply wanted to see if it grouped well enough to justify messing with that load anymore. My bright idea was to shoot them first ( i had other loads with me) thinking the clean barrel would be a benefit. Well I set up my chronograph just to check out the velocities as I shot them. First shot around 3300...ok slower than I thought but if its accurate who cares right. Next shot 3330, no biggie. Then 3370, 3400... and so on until the last shot at just over 3500 which is about where I thought it should be and needless to say forget about a decent group with the ever climbing velocity. And no I shot pretty slow the barrel never got over "just barely warm". Well I continued to check other loads and after I got 15 or 20 total including the first load down the pipe guess what my velocities flattened out. Several loads tested were very consistent. Shot several sub .250 groups (at 100yds) with later loads I checked. So long post longer did I mess up cleaning my barrel before testing a load? Seems like my gun shot alot better fouled. This will be a hunting rifle not a bench rifle I'm just trying to figure out a good load for shooting groundhogs this summer. I see so many guys on other forums who apparently clean barrels all the time but I don't think thats working well for me. I just started using a chronograph when I started loading so I'm learning a lot and fast. Any input on this would be very helpful! Thanks!