IMHO scope power doesn't hurt groups that much and neither does trigger pull, I'll bet its ammo or conditions more so... IE lots of ammo can be good at 100, but you have to start tweaking to get great at 200 and beyond.... Just an observation and not a negative intended one at that.
Scope wise, I can generally shoot .5 to .75 moa groups with iron sights at 600 yards with a sling and not off a bench... 8x is plenty to do better than you are. And then to assume that a .6 inch group at 100 is going to be 1.2 at 200... that doesn't mean a thing.. .heck I've got ammo that shoots 3 inches at 300 which sucks but shoots 3.5 to 4 at 600.... and thats good for irons...
Jeff
Wow, I am impressed. Shooting .5 MOA is the equivalent of the X-ring in F-class, which means 3 inches at 600 yards. I have seen a couple of cleans at 600, but that's with F-Open rifles in exotic calibers, high magnification scopes and ammo assembled in clean room environments. Shooting .5 to .75 MOA with open sights is quite a feat. The sling shooters, even the high masters have trouble staying reliably inside their 2 MOA 10-ring. Mind you, they come close with scores in the high 190s, but cleans are extremely rare on these 2 MOA targets.
I'm just a lowly F-class Master and at 600 yards, my scores are usually good enough to win F-TR class, but they are not cleans, they are usually in the low 190s, which translates to about 1.1 to 1.3 MOA for 20 round groups. It is true that I sometimes get a run of 10s and Xs (1.0 MOA), but there's always a 9 waiting to come up and keep me honest. At 300 yards I can do a little better, closer to 1.0 - 1.1 MOA; I even had a run of sixteen 10s and Xs running at the last match and I dropped one out the side a 3 o'clock. The last 2 were back in the 10-ring. The 300 yard 10-ring is a little smaller than 1.0 MOA, 2.85 inches to be exact.
Cleans are a little more frequent at 300 yards, but they certainly are not the norm in F-class. The sling shooters get great results on their SR-1 targets with the 2 MOA 10-ring and I have seen some of the High Masters get close to a clean. So you can understand my awe at your performance. I hope to shoot alongside you one of these days; I'm always looking to learn more.
