Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Current rifle accuracy and the truth

Any bolt action hunting rifle can be made to shoot MOA. Just depends on how much time and $ you are willing to put into it. The ones rolling out of the factories today need less tweaking in general and there are probably fewer "dogs" than in the old days. Used to be you bought a rifle and if it shot MOA. you were ecstatic, if it shot 2-3MOA you just accepted it unless you were a rifle loonie, then you started bedding, trigger job, truing, aftermarket barrel.... OR you sold it to the next unsuspecting slob and bought another.

i have some rifles that shoot very well and i am not showing what they can do or have killed . but i had a friend who was a manager - machinist at a ammo factory for 40 years. Jonny watched me shoot some very small groups with my handloads and he told me this : you are not shooting mice so a 1 inch group is just fine for deer maybe even larger groups its not that big of a deal for a small group with a hunting rifle within 200 yards where 90 % of the deer are shot or closer.

Of this I truly believe.....more 1/2" groups are fired on the internet than fired at any rifle range.

For the hunting I do.....(350 yards maximum) I can easily live with REAL 1.25" groups

What defines a real 1.25" group?

Repeatability ?


I’ve never claimed to have a 1/2” Rifle/load.

Most of my rifles & loads will do 3/4” @100 yds. “MOST of the time”.
For the targets I use and MY aiming procedure, I know immediately if I’m
ON target or hi/lo, Left/right when the shot goes off.


I have 2 rifles - magnums - that I’m sure will shoot better than I can.
I kill WT with both of them — proving that sub 1” loads are NOT required
for deer hunting.

Jerry

I have never had as much focus on "groups" as I have focus on the cold bore shot.

Shoot a group of ten cold bore shots.

Over ten days...

Yes, on one target.

mathman,

Apparently very few can define a certain level of accuracy--which as you and I know is not surprising.

Newer rifles do seem to be better than some of the older ones I have had. Yet for some reason they all seem to be capable of killing a deer. I get upset if I can't get a rifle to shoot MOA for a three shot group at 100 yards, I prefer a 5 shot group. Repeatable is the big issue, several will do it once... Even had a few with select loads hit 1/2 MOA (once)

I was reading a Precision Shooting piece that said a rifle would shoot bigger and bigger groups up to about 20 shots (the article was specifically referring to rimfire). So I decided to try it with a center fire.

20-shot group


And if the photo thing would work here’s a picture of the same rifle, 1/2 inch 5-shot group.

[img]https://imgur.com/a/Skks2iK[/img]

Really irrelevant to the discussion but while talking about maths...

If all I wanted to do was kill deer and elk a Remington 783 would get the job done.

One of the newer used guns I have is a custom flintlock of .45 caliber. It was built somewhere during the late '90s. Don't really know it's valid to compare it to new guns or not, but I was at the range maybe 10 years ago on the 50 yard line when some young punks with new ARs showed up. One of them thought the old fart with the old gun was vastly amusing. Some of his jabs were fairly rude actually.

Anyway, I was set up and the line went hot. Loud Mouth set up with his front rest and bags, snickering all along. I was shooting offhand and ol' Betsey went phfft-boom. Kid says "You hit the target?" I started reloading as he began ripping thru 30 round mags about as fast as he could. I got off 5 rounds before they called the line cold. We went down to check targets, his buddies tagging along.

I had already shot one string at the first of two targets, and I had a group of about 2" or a little less on both. My antagonist had not hit paper once. His buddies showed no mercy. Got all mad and packed his stuff then left.

I find it quite amazing these days the number of kids at the range that can't hit a damn thing at any range. I helped a young lady one day and all the pieces of the puzzle fell together for her to the extent that she was out shooting her man. He got all grumpy...

...I think old shoots better than new most days. Least ways in my neighborhood it does.

OK....for me it's five shots fired from sandbags at 100 yards and all within five minutes. and yes, I do cheat a little.....since I use mostly .308 caliber bullets, a quarter must touch or cover all or some of all five shots. I don't dismiss "flyers" as they are counted as part of the five shot group.

As to repeatability, when I get the above criteria met, I'm ready to go hunting.....no need IMO to fire five more.

Yep, especially pistols. Most setup at 7 yards and look at me very funny when my target is at 25 yards. The Plastic Fantastic group is always confused when the old fart has a better group at 25 yards with a revolver than they do at 7 yards with their Glocks etc.

I grew up hanging around an extreme groundhog hunter who taught me to shoot, hunt and reload. He thinks an MOA group looks ugly. He reached that time of life now where most things don't matter as much as they used to and sold me a collection of his bolt action 270s and 7mms. Most rifles he owned he got to shoot extremely well, if not, it was down the road with those rifles. I'll never match his knowledge in regards to what makes a rifle shoot or his dedication in fussing over concentric reloads.

It was not uncommon for me to bring him my used rifles like a 1963 Remington 243 carbine or a 1973 Remington Custom C 270 and have him tweak loads for the rifles and invariably have the rifles shoot three shot groups under 1/2". In the case of the Custom C - much less. The rifle that has given me a challenge is a newer Model 14 300 Savage American Classic that I can't get to shoot non leaded bullets under that magic mark.

My point is that in the right hands most rifles, even many of the older ones will shoot far better than most shooters. Shooting groups at the range is one thing, in the field under hunting conditions many other variables enter into the equation and "milage may vary."

Actually most of us use the phrase "accuracy" loosely or incorrectly. When we are talking 10 shot groups or 5 shot groups, that is more about precision than accuracy. Here's a picture defining both:



A lot of guys talk about how "accurate" their rifles are, but when they show their target pic, it's generally way off in left field (as I call it). By definition, that is very poor accuracy. It may be good precision, but still poor accuracy. It's better to have both, IMHO:


Then you have guys that don't like shooting paper targets, but swear their rifles are accurate enough to kill chitdt... More power to them, but if I don't know where my group is going on paper, I'm for damn sure not going to aim my rifle at a critter. Good accuracy and precision helps to put that bullet in the right place:


Then there are the guys that shoot competitively. They need to put that bullet in the x-ring. Not a damn thing wrong with that either:


Accuracy for me is keeping it in the orange. Cold barrel, hot barrel, I don't give a fu ck...:

Some people offset point of aim from POI intentionally when shooting paper. I'm so inclined up until the point I'm ready to zero the load selected for hunting. Doing so preserves a clear POA.

Cases in point:



Versus....



Your accuracy/precision target illustration is something all shooters need to consider. They are indeed different things.

And let's not ignore the fact that not everyone can shoot accurately. Heck, it's the rare buzzard who knows how to properly shoot off the bench, let alone the seemingly lost art of position shooting (24 HCF members excluded, of course). That's why I view accuracy rants on the internet as amusement only- I don't know if the guy even knows how to shoot.

yep, one of those is called "The Paper Tiger".


In my last post (IIRC) I said that 'most' of my loads are +/- 3/4".. "most" of the time. Some times I can't shoot 3/4" groups.


Jerru