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3 shot groups look good but seldom hold up to 10, shoot the challenge...

I think I saw that on arfcom's industry page and it may not be official so please disregard. However I think since Mark's main goal was to show how accurate his barrels are, he ain't gonna let a dog slip through.

My Colt chrome lined pencil barrel is a 1.5 moa shooter, out to 400 yards but that's 3 shots too. Which now 3 shots don't impress me, even 5 doesn't convince me now, dang that wareagle guy...

MK262 shines in the DD!

Why stop at 10? If we're gonna shoot two 10 shot groups we might as well make it one 20 shot group.

How about 5, 3 shot groups on the same target shot back to back?

Works just fine for me. Makes it almost just like our matches. You can't keep 20 snug, you loose. Makes a person a much better/relaxed shooter IMHO.

RE barrel accuracy guarantees, folks like Mark, if they guarantee the uppers to X degree, the barrels will do the same as long as they are put on correctly, stress free etc... and typically in isntances like this, if you can't get it to shoot, they ask for it back and send you another, sometimes after seeing if they can get it to shoot, but generally just send another regardless, its just good business. Me, I'd take it back and shoot it first if I was Mark... some folks can't put a good gun together, some don't have good ammo and some cant' shoot.

Side note I did send a TC renegade 54 barrel back once.... told em the gun wouldn't shoot better than about 3 inches at 100 with irons... they sent it back with a target, about 3-4 inches at 100 and said it passed their requirements.

I told TC they sucked big time and ordered a green mountain and told them so, sent pictures of those groups in the 54 with 565 grain bullets back to them, ordre of 1 to 1.5 inches with irons at 100... MUCH better. TC never replied... LOL. At least I got my old junk barrel back.

which model do you have?

valid point, I noticed that LaRue supplies a special barrel nut and I believe they have a proprietary rail system. There is the possibility of building less than a 100% rifle with their barrel by someone.

That can always be the case. Minor things like the tubes not lined up and tight, gas tube touching a bit, not mating the thread surfaces on the barrel nut/reciever, and so on. Just minor things that can make a difference and can add up. Or not if you have a super hummer tube sometimes.

Its one reason I cut away one "tit" on any kind of barrel nut, I don't want that gas tube rubbing. I can't prove it matters, but in my mind it matters.

There is a happy medium between having a big enough sample size and introducing shooter error. Not a whole lot changes in group size between 10 and 20 shots unless the shooter causes it. That is what makes a 20 round group even more challenging; although more of a challenge for the shooter than the rifle.

I can't recall, but isn't 7 shots somehow statistically significant.?

I know it took me a lot of shooting to be able to relax enough to learn to put 22 plus shots on a target without screwing up more than 50% of them or so. Mind you still a winning group typiccally but with irons you always have aiming/holding errors.

You guys keep talking about this and I am going to have to give larue $500 just to see what all the commotion is about.

Not really; as long as a human is holding the gun, there can shooter error whether the group be 1 or 100 shots.

If you really want to know what the gun can do, lock it up in a mechanical device & fire 30 shots............then there will be a statistically valid picture of what the gun & the ammo can do.

Anything else has shooter induced influence.

MM

True, but for those of us that don't have a machine rest, multiple 7 - 10 shot groups are a better representation than 3 - 5.

Here is the link again for those who haven't had a chance to read it. Let us know if you have evidence to disprove anything Molon found in his testing.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/279218_The_Trouble_With_3_Shot_Groups.html

From the link that you posted:

"Rick Jamison, the author of the Precision Reloading column in Shooting Times magazine approaches accuracy testing in a very scientific manner. He uses a machine rest for testing and fires 10-shot groups. Here are his own words on the subject from one of his articles:

There are stories of a single bullet that for no explained reason flies out of what might have been a tight cluster. This often occurs with a three-shot string and many times with a five-shot string. If you're lucky enough to fire a group without a flier, you can end up with a very tight group. However, usually what happens if another five or seven shots are fired to complete a 10-shot string, other bullets fill in the space between the main group and the flier to make a reasonably rounded group. Ten shots are a more reliable indicator when it comes to predicting what a load is likely to do in the future.

The problem with 10-shot groups is that when you report them, everyone thinks you aren't shooting very well or that the ammunition is not good because the group sizes are so much larger than three- or five-shot groups. Also, when we're firing three- or five-shot groups with a flier, it is only natural to assume that it was caused by a flinch or "pulling" the shot. Therefore, since the flier was our own fault, the tendency is to eliminate it from any reporting of group size.

This is one of the advantages of using a machine rest... The machine rest reduces the human element.
After using this machine rest for several years, I have determined that a 1.5-inch 10-shot group at 100 yards... is a good one. "

MM

I don't doubt the statistical relevance of a ten shot string.

But the real world value that shooters place on a ten shot group is highly suspect.

MM,
We are one the same page as far as a machine rest goes. 10 shot groups will show human error, thats why we shoot them. Once you see it, you know you need to work on it.

Blue,
It all depends on what the shooter is going for. Some are happy with 3 shots. The debate is those claiming "MOA all day long" and only putting 3 shots on a piece of paper. Its just not enough to base actual accuracy calims.

The human error only matters if it's greater than the total variance in the gun & ammo; to determine that, you need a baseline.

Without the baseline to determine the gun/ammo variance & capability & just proceeding to start shooting ten shot groups, you really have no idea what is the gun/ammo & what is the shooter.

Obviously, small groups mean good gun, good ammo, good shooter.

Unless you are shooting matches that require 10 shot strings, or you're into self flagellation, it just really doesn't matter much.

MM

****This isn't a commentary or rant about anyone here, just a general observation about something that I think most shooters could improve on****

I suppose my irritation with the entire idea of "MOA" shooting is that people shoot to accomplish the goal of "MOA" rather than what they need to actually do. Which is why I think we have gravitated toward 3 shot groups, to chase the elusive "MOA" that we might not even need.

I've never shot a deer that a 2.5MOA gun wouldn't have worked for. And never fired more than four shots while hunting (the only time I fired four was once when I shot two deer).

So every year I fire one magazine full (4 shots) at one of those targets with the 2"ish orange diamonds. And all four shots, for as long as I've owned the gun, have landed in that orange diamond. Sometimes clustered tightly, sometimes spread out a bit more. But always well within what I need for my hunting. I fire four because I don't think I'll ever reload to shoot at deer, and I just want to be accurate enough for my hunting, and life is good.

It really doesn't matter to me what 10 shots will do because honestly, by the second group of our challenge my neck was so cricked up I had a headache and I had eye fatigue from trying to squint into the eyebox of the too-low scope. There was a ton of shooter error involved, that I'll never experience in the field (because I don't ever carry that janky setup), so I don't sweat it.

My complaint isn't necessarily with ten shot groups, but with shooters who chase goals that are pretty arbitrary to what they actually do with their guns.

For example, for the shooting I do being able to hit 10-12" plates offhand, quickly, at 100 yards is much more important than shooting off of a bench. So that's what I practice and what I've gotten pretty good at. And a lot of the people I shoot with need that same skill, but it's a difficult skill to develop so instead they shoot groups off of a bench and brag about "MOA".

If ten shot groups are useful to people, great. If ten shot groups are fun for people, great. I shot them too so I could play along in the challenge.

But I wish that the shooting community would gravitate more towards shooters developing skills that are applicable to what they do, rather than just using the litmus test of MOA group shooting.

It matters to me, that I and two of my cheap non custom made guns can shoot close to a MOA for 20 shots. Harder will be 50 yards and off hand for 10 shots, those will be some big groups.

However for the sake of argument, if you cannot or don't want to do it that is fine, its kind of like the gay marriage thing. If your gay and want to get married, it is not my business so I say go for it, just leave me and my church out of it.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

The "Challenge" was an attempt to see what results people are getting from different rifles as well as a way to bring to light those "MOA all day" groups aren't as common as some may claim.

As for real life scenarios, I have another challenge in the works for that.