For awhile it was cool to state a rifle shot 1 MOA. Now it seems the cool kids must have rifles better than 1 MOA.

But how do we judge if a rifle is accurate? They don't aim and fire themselves. Humans are part of the equation. With the possible exception of some heavy-gun benchrest games -- uber solid front & rear rests, gear driven aiming systems, trigger pull weights measured in the ounces, shot free recoil.

Although it's hard to do, IMO we should judge a rifle's accuracy by how well it works in its intended environment. The dangerous game hunter, large caliber side-by-side rifle, lots of recoil, shooting in the bush, extended walking/stalking, longest shot of 100 yards -- has a different definition than the guy punching holes in paper at 100 yards with a 6BR.

Shooting's version of "the check's in the mail...." is "my rifle shoots sub-MOA, all day long, if I do my part". Translation -- the rifle owner shot a refrigerator-trophy target a few years ago, and would certainly do so again, any time, if it weren't for those doggone flyers.

Accuracy means hitting the target at the intended point of aim. Repeatedly. Shooting a trophy bull elk in the ass doesn't work, regardless if it's once or three times. Tiny groups in the C zone of an IPSC target doesn't work. Purdy groups in the 7 ring in F-Class doesn't work. A bughole group on the wall behind the bad guy doesn't work. Crushing the pop can to the right of the intended can doesn't count.

As noted previously, dot drills are a good judge of shooting skills. Size the dots to the firearm, environmental conditions, and distance to target. Every shot, every dot becomes its own group. Brutally honest feedback. If a person states their rifle has "XXX" MOA accuracy, then put 10 dots that size at 100 yards. Or dots three times that size at 300 yards, or whatever on the angular scale. If the results are, say, a bunch of misses in consistent locations at, say, 2 o'clock from the dots -- then accuracy ain't so great. Not all day long, and the shooter didn't do his part.

Dot drills are hard. I hate them. They tell me I suck.

Nine hits on nine one liter bottles at 200 feet in under 45 seconds.
in May, just after a good lunch.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
Dot drills are hard. I hate them. They tell me I suck.

That is so fucking true. Totally relate.

1 MOA is a good number.

The Army tests for acceptance using a TEN shot group at 100m and requires 2MOA for combat rifles. That delivers all the shots in a 2" group, and the actual target would be the 18" center of mass radius of an enemy combatant. A 2" group at 100m is a 10" group at 500m and that is still decent against elk at that range. Most of us would try to do better but a trophy might incite you to try. A 1MOA gun would reduce it to a 5" group at that (extreme) range.

The fun is when some post miniscule groups to demonstrate the ability of their gun, and nothing is "wrong" about it at face value. But there is this pernicious desire to make oneself look good, so the distance shortens, and the scope power increases (fair chase if you have one), and the number of groups shot go up until the best is cherry picked as the example delivered. Which makes the guys being honest look either poorly accomplished or less than truthful, which is sad.

This has been going on now since before the internet - but public exposure has certainly upped the game. Now we need .5MOA results to gain any standing in the social ranks, rather than "heres my pic of the downed game, they have to wait for the rack to dry to score it."

We've moved the goal posts, and the suppliers of precision have been just as guilty at bumping them along. Its what we do.

Then as the CCW users are learning, the precision target shooting environment bleeds into their domain and some choose to follow along, which is where the short barreled full race 1911 as a carry gun pops up. Extended controls, tall square race sights, and bump plates on a IWB gun for the office . . .

Now, I'm all for taking a Mossberg Shockwave to the range to shoot clays, it's great practice but my conservation agency won't allow hunting with it - and our demand to make precision the idol of the shooting industry is much the same. It's not always needed or the right application. We have to be careful what we ask for, and sort out what is showboat, and what is the useful.

With 16 million new gun owners I would recommend we need to be a bit less competitive and more honest about what we need. Most of those folks bought self defense firearms - and that only needs 2MOA, military standard. It does the job in the streets or the field.

Here's 45 consecutive shots averaging sub-MOA



That came from this beauty...


The same rifle a year later averaged 0.8 MOA at 200 yards with three different loads over a 52-shot string.


I consider that a vetted, accurate rifle. I have shot this one out to 900 yards.

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
Here's 45 consecutive shots averaging sub-MOA


I consider that a vetted, accurate rifle.

I consider it a precise rifle, but not accurate results. Of the 45 shots, maybe 9 or 10 hit the point of aim.

POI varies quite a bit from group to group.
- upper left group is high and left
- upper right group is left
- middle group his high and a little left
- both lower groups are left and low

I'm guessing you shot each group of 5 or 10 in single strings, without breaking position. I suspect you broke position between groups. Assuming you didn't change your scope settings between strings, this target shows variations of how you set up behind the rifle when you break position. As offgrid has noted in performing dot drills with one shot per dot, breaking position between each shot reveals our consistency in getting behind the rifle, then breaking the shot consistently.

So on that day, I shot the center group first with the gas off, single feed. I then used up the last five of that batch on the upper left dot, semi-auto.

I made a scope adjustment and moved to a new batch of hand loads with different brass weight/water volume. The upper right is group 3, lower left group 4 and lower right, group 5. All shot in semi-auto.

Notice how the center group, hand-fed is perfectly round. Some of the other groups actually display two separate groups depending on what side of the magazine the round was fed from.

I have actually seen this a few times in some of the rifles I build.

I broke position for every shot and timed each shot by about 60 to 90 seconds. I shoot, safety on, start the timer on my phone, and wait for 60 seconds to pass, then get back on the rifle and get a well-placed shot.

So for consistency, upper right, lower left and lower right should be overlaid to true measure of precise.

Here's a group I shot recently from a customer rifle I built. It displays 2 separate groups while still maintaining 1/2 MOA group size.


Tony.

I consider a sub-MOA as accurate.

I had a Colt AR-15 with a stainless 24" bull match barrel. I shot a target at 100 yards and the spotter marked it in the small diamond in the center of the target. I shot again and he said it was off target. I shot again and he said it was off target. I told the spotter I was moving to the small diamond on the lower left of the target. He marked my shot at the same spot on the new target. He looked at me and said, "You just put three rounds in the same hole."

If i can take down my deer or elk with one shot from 250 yds - it’s considered accurate in my book.

Oh, i have also found the load for my son’s Remington ADL 700 in .270 which can place rounds within 1.5" of POA @ 200 yds.

I have Marlin .45-70 lever action with a 16" barrel and a 2x scout scope that gives me dang near (an a number of actual) 1/2" hundred yard groups. Based on a lot of things, it really shouldn't do that! To my mind that's an extremely accurate rifle. I have scoped bolt actions that will do that same thing, no problem, but so what?

Similar wrinkles I factor in, I have a short Barret Fieldcraft in 6CM. It's the most difficult rifle to shoot well that I've ever messed with. That's due to it's very light weight and pretty awful scope I have on it (an ultralight to help keep the rifle that way). I think if you theoretically bolted the rifle down, it would be very accurate by most standards. Factor in those two crutches to actually shooting it well in real life, and I view it as extremely accurate.

The answer is (like many things) it's relative.


As for targets, traditionally, for the most part, I only save the bad ones. Not truly bad, but the ones that would have been amazing had I not screwed up. I guess I keep them to torment myself.