A Precise rifle becomes an Accurate rifle with a few clicks of the scope adjustment knobs.......
This post brings to mind my wife. She has become a very good shot over the last several years of our marriage. During the early stages of developing loads for her 7-08 & 7x57. She would complain that a certain load was not any good, even if the 5 shots made one ragged hole but was 2 inches away from the red dot she had been aiming at. I would take the rifle and adjust the scope and have her shot an additional 5 shots , she would then say that's the load I want to deer/elk hunt with. Yes, like I tell her sometimes, she is brilliant & sometimes she is blonde. Daniel
If that's what you prefer to believe, but most shooters don't care which term is used--and also don't care about that distinction.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, why is that difference in definition so important to a few shooters, but not most--and not dictionaries?
John, I'm thinking in line with precision target shooting. Take for example short range benchrest. You can have a rifle that will shoot low .1s in group shooting (precision) but you can't hit a 1/16" dot (100yards) consecutively for 25 shots in a row (accuracy). Same for long range prone. People strive for ½ moa precision at short ranges, yet struggle to shoot a score equivalent to < 1 moa centered on the target at extended ranges.
Yes, I know that--but as I pointed out in an earlier post, that definition does not appear in any English dictionary, including the two considered the best. In fact, both list precision and accuracy as synonyms.
So claiming accuracy and precision are two different things is essentially a specialized kind of jargon for for a few rifle loonies. That's fine, because lots of specialists use special jargon--among themselves. But that doesn't mean "correcting" (or making fun of) the vast majority of hunters and other shooters who say "accuracy" instead of precision is correct either.
It's sort of like the few folks who claim the "real" term for a pump-action firearm is a slide-action, or those who claim the "proper" name for Hungarian partridge is "gray" partridge. I cannot recall anyone who ever claimed to get some "grays" with their trusty slide-action, whether I was hunting them in Montana or Alberta, Idaho, Oregon or the Dakotas. Which is why most shooters (and even the two major English dictionaries) do not consider accuracy and precision different things.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
A Precise rifle becomes an Accurate rifle with a few clicks of the scope adjustment knobs.......
This post brings to mind my wife. She has become a very good shot over the last several years of our marriage. During the early stages of developing loads for her 7-08 & 7x57. She would complain that a certain load was not any good, even if the 5 shots made one ragged hole but was 2 inches away from the red dot she had been aiming at. I would take the rifle and adjust the scope and have her shot an additional 5 shots , she would then say that's the load I want to deer/elk hunt with. Yes, like I tell her sometimes, she is brilliant & sometimes she is blonde. Daniel
That is my wife to a T, mechanical engineer, so damn smart, speaks three languages, working a fourth, but sometimes, but sometimes she will say something that knocks me over. Yes, she is a blonde, don’t know why she wasted her time with me.
I ask her once if I needed to draw her a picture? She still brings that up.
I tend to look at it like this. Take a precision rifle, one made with the most precise tolerances possible with modern machinery. Put the most precise scope you can buy on top. Load it with the most precisely loaded ammunition you can possibly make. Everything that can be controlled done as precisely as possible. Add two different imprecise humans to do the same exact shooting regimen under the exact same conditions and you may well find that rifle is more accurate for one of the two shooters. Or more precise if you wish.
Steve
Theodore Roosevelt: "Do what you can where you are with what you have"
I just wish people would sort out Forster and forester.
On the Campfire, I suspect that's generally not a "people" mistake, but a spell-check mistake. But have heard some people say they prefer Forester dies...
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
I have written recently about this supposed distinction between accuracy and precision, partly because I got "corrected" by a pedantic reader who wrote to the editor of SPORTS AFIELD after reading one of my articles about accuracy.
I responded to to the reader by pointing out that the two major dictionaries of our language, the Oxford English Dictionary (Britain) and the Webster's Unabridged (American) do NOT make the distinction between accuracy and precision. In fact they both list accuracy as a synonym of precision, and precision as a synonym of accuracy.
Daniel Webster published his first dictionary of "American English" in 1806, with the definitions based on "common use." Claiming that accuracy and precision mean two different things is NOT common use, but some variety of rifle-loony OCD.
Now you're just muddying the waters!
"...the left considers you vermin, and they'll kill you given the chance..." Bristoe
Might also point out that I don't write articles for target-shooting markets, but for hunting markets. As I already pointed out, most hunters have never heard of the distinction between precision and accuracy, so they use "accuracy" to describe a rifle that shoots little groups. As a result, I do too when writing for those magazines, rather than either confusing 99% of the readers, or having to explain the difference in every article before using the term "precision." Which is yet another instance of a writer knowing the audience they're writing, which is a major part of professional writing.
In the decades I've been doing this have only had ONE reader contact any magazine, explaining that one of my articles on "accuracy" was really about "precision." He was the guy described in my early post on this thread--and never responded when I explained why I used accuracy instead.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
Might also point out that I don't write articles for target-shooting markets, but for hunting markets. As I already pointed out, most hunters have never heard of the distinction between precision and accuracy, so they use "accuracy" to describe a rifle that shoots little groups. As a result, I do too when writing for those magazines, rather than either confusing 99% of the readers, or having to explain the difference in every article before using the term "precision." Which is yet another instance of a writer knowing the audience they're writing, which is a major part of professional writing.
In the decades I've been doing this have only had ONE reader contact any magazine, explaining that one of my articles on "accuracy" was really about "precision." He was the guy described in my early post on this thread--and never responded when I explained why I used accuracy instead.
I guess I'm out of touch......I didn't realize how anyone could possibly giveaschittt about this subject and/or any supposed difference.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
Might also point out that I don't write articles for target-shooting markets, but for hunting markets. As I already pointed out, most hunters have never heard of the distinction between precision and accuracy, so they use "accuracy" to describe a rifle that shoots little groups. As a result, I do too when writing for those magazines, rather than either confusing 99% of the readers, or having to explain the difference in every article before using the term "precision." Which is yet another instance of a writer knowing the audience they're writing, which is a major part of professional writing.
In the decades I've been doing this have only had ONE reader contact any magazine, explaining that one of my articles on "accuracy" was really about "precision." He was the guy described in my early post on this thread--and never responded when I explained why I used accuracy instead.
I guess I'm out of touch......I didn't realize how anyone could possibly giveaschittt about this subject and/or any supposed difference.
You aren’t out of touch JG…. At least there are two of us.
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