Originally Posted by Pinnah
Originally Posted by gunswizard
And the point of your question is ?

Sure.

I've been playing around with doing some testing with larger sample sizes and using a phone app to record and analyze the results. I'm wanting to better understand what my rifle/ammo combination is capable of off the bench before I add the loose nut behind the trigger, so to speak. To create these larger groups, I shoot 3 shots from a cold barrel, let the gun cool completely, then repeat the process until I've got 12 to 20-some shots on the same paper with the same point of aim.

With larger numbers of shots, you get more statistically significant results. And with the phone apps available that do all the math, you can get more insightful metrics for accuracy. The primary one is mean radius (MR), which is the average distance of each impact from the group's center. Roughly speaking, this is the radius of the circle for which 50% of the shots can be expected to land.

The second is the R95 value, which is the radius of the circle for which 95% of the shots can be expected to land.

The results for my Win94 lever gun have been sobering, particularly if the goal for ethical hunting is a 95% hit probability (in the best of circumstances). In effect, my gun is limited in range by its accuracy more than its trajectory or its terminal velocity.

All of this begs the question I asked.

I wonder what sort of confidence level people expect from their hunting rifles. 100%, 95%, 75%, 50%? At what point would people take pass?

You are way overthinking this in my opinion. I’m 74 and have been deer hunting since the sixties and (knock wood) I have never lost a deer. I only take shots I’m comfortable making, but I don’t go through any analysis, I just know. Most of my shots are from 30 to 150 yards, many of them offhand. I have taken shots up to 300 plus, but off a solid rest. It’s really not rocket science, it’s just muscle memory and a kind of, almost subconscious sight picture analysis.

Your question is kind of like asking an experienced wing shooter how much he should lead a duck on a crossing shot at 40 yards versus a canvasback? I have no idea, I just swing through the bird and my brain sends a signal to my finger without any conscious thought from me.