Originally Posted by Bluedreaux
Just curious, but why do we measure groups with 3 or 5 shots for regular hunting rifles and 10 shots for ARs?

Is it because when society collapses and I'm finally able to bug out the gangs of roving n'er-do-wells will try to steal my peanut butter so I need a barrel capable of holding accuracy as the action heats up to the point that I'm grabbing "field pick up mags" off of my fallen foes? Cuz that's the only reason I've ever been given, and it's pretty absurd for 99% of AR owners.


I don't. I shoot 5-shot groups during load development at the end of ladders for any gun I intend to shoot past 300m. With anything inside of 300m and/or over .308" bore I shoot 3-shot groups. With ARs I don't load ladders but will just pick middle of the road loads and load to SAAMI (or mag length if shorter) and go shoot some 5-shot groups:
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Using Army Sniper rifles I rarely shoot groups. When they are new I do during break-in, zeroing/evaluation, and I shoot groups suppressed and unsuppressed to determine POI shift. Once I have data on the gun I almost always confirm with a round or two at 100m then start field fires or stress shoots. The last time I shot a group with a long gun was two months back when I had a Leupold go tits up so I put a new optic on the gun and shot a group to make sure I was dealing with a bum optic not a gun that needed to go in for re-set. Five shots later the Leupold was determined to be the culprit.