Capable of...When I do my part...?

[crkckr]

"When I do my part" usually means the shooter fired one good shot, then the next 4 sorta "missed" and hit close to the first one. Whenever someone pulls that .5" or better target out of their wallet, I usually 'make friends and influence people' when I say something like, "Show me 5 more like that and I'll admit you have a half inch gun. Otherwise, on this particular occasion, you just missed 'em all into the same area!" Usually, it's akin to pouring cold water down someones back. Opps, sorry about that!
Cheers,
crkckr

 

[nicholasjohn]

I think this quote above sums it up.

I have had many customers tell stories of dads 30-06 using old factory ammunition shooting 1/4 inch at 300 yards (not 1/4 MOA but 1/4 inch) and with the words "All day long" added on as well. If I wasn't in the customer service business I would reply more honestly that if they have a rig like that they would have won a lot of competitions at the local rod and gun clubs but then, they may not always be able to "do their part" - "all day long".

I think those guys with the 300-yard, quarter-inch grouping rifles may have been drinking beer "all day long." Most of the conversations I've been involved in where there was a lot of that kind of terminology being thrown around occurred while playing cards and having a few cold ones with my old buddies. Sometimes we played euchre "all day long ……..."

 

[TRG65]

I wish more people would shoot PRS/NRL or other local matches. It gives a very good feel for what the shooter is capable of when stressed, or even just when they miss the mirage changing directions. I think more folks would be wary of taking long shots on game for the risk of wounding. Personally, I can hit targets at 1100,1200,1300 yards, but it might not be the first shot and it might not be every time. In fact I usually hit about 60-65% of the shots at local PRS matches, which are usually about 2MOA targets (on average), this hit % still usually puts me in the top 1/3d to 1/4 for the match standings. My match rifle can usually average about .4" for 3 shot groups when testing, some smaller and some larger, but hitting one MOA targets under match conditions are my absolute nemesis. The longest shot I've taken on game was a hog at 420. I missed because I didn't do the right prep, ranging and checking data, etc. The longest shot on game I've made was 350 on an antelope. I personally don't think I'd attempt over 600yds on game and even then only when I was pretty sure of the conditions and had someone I trusted on a spotting scope.

 

[crkckr]

The longest shot I've ever taken on game was 750 yards... but it was on a previously wounded 'goat' that the other hunter was more than willing to forget about, some that absolutely disgusted me (he had blown the poor things lower jaw off!). That 150 gr. Partition out of my Win .270 worked perfectly.

The longest shot I've ever taken on game that hadn't been wounded was 450 yards. I was laying down with a bipod and conditions were perfect. The muley was calm & feeding, there was no wind and i had a solid rest. I shot a button buck across a small canyon & dropped him DRT. Even so, I felt relieved after the shot. I was confident in my ability & and my equipment but it was the first time and I am all to aware of how things can go horribly wrong in an instant! Most of my hunting shots have been as close as I could get... as my Uncle Ivan told me, get into their bed with them! Closest about 30 yards, average around 75 - 100. Yet I still want the ability to take the longer shots because I know how quickly our plans can go wrong!
Cheers,
crkckr

 

[skipglo]

Below is last year's hunting practice plotted on a generic deer picture.View attachment 148075

Might be hard to see, but there's a green dot at the center of the vitals, and I measured the distance from the center of the target for each shot, and scaled the image to a real deer, and plotted those hit locations. The numbers are kinda hard to see, but they vary from 300 to 573 yds. All shots were recorded over a month's time, and were true cold bore shots, "hurried" (1 minute to unsling, setup, range, and fire), but from an "excellent field position" on a bipod and rear rest (backpack, little shooting bag, binos case, etc).

1) Precision - Hard to quantify since the distance varies from shot to shot, but the group measures just under 10" across, so at max distance of 573 that's 1.6 MOA, and minus the one nasty flier in red, it's 1.2 MOA.

2) Accuracy Pt 1 - For some reason, my overall group was ~1 radius low, despite what I thought was a near perfect zero, and well established ballistic profile for the load. 13/16 shots would also have been clean kills, with 1 marginal and 2 misses (likely fatal, but still not clean).

3) Accuracy Pt 2 - Where I shoot, the wind almost always blows roughly west to east. You can see my group is barely favoring to the right, and all three marginal/misses were far right, so I clearly was underestimating windage in several cases.

I highly recommend this type of exercise. It was good practice, and gave me some eye opening results, which truly helped me make adjustments for better odds against real game in real conditions.

IMO, for most hunters with limited time and/or budget, this sort of thing is far more important than fiddling around trying to shave a 1/4 MOA off of precision by finding a "node" or tweaking action screw torque. In my case, my accuracy was a factor of two worse than my precision

Very nicely done Sir!

 

[skipglo]

Pardon my ignorance here...but I'm sure there is a point to the engineers here debating. I'm not sure what relevance an Analytically Chemistry degree bares on trajectory, propulsion or what a Chemical Engineering degree does either. If The points being argued are relevant. The point being my NAME HAS MORE LETTERS infront and behind it....are also irrelevant. I don't care how many letters or degrees a person has...I only care about practical on hands, in the trenches EXPERIENCE A PERSON HAS. 10,000 ROUNDS...okay.... I started shooting at 6... I discount the 100,000 BB s I shot getting to 16. So 16-26 I shot easily 10,000 rounds...and have never stopped shooting since...I just turned 63 and fired 800 rounds between May 10 and August 01..2 new 6.5s...had to drink the Kool Ade everyone was selling here! So do the math...or the Chemical Analysis....we don't need letters to make a point
..

 

[degreen]

If when I take my hunting rifle out, and my first shot hits within an inch of poa 90% of the time is this precision or accuracy?

 

[entoptics]

If when I take my hunting rifle out, and my first shot hits within an inch of poa 90% of the time is this precision or accuracy?

Yes

 

[greenejc]

I'm a scientist with some extra letters in front of my name on my email signatures to customers, so I feel I can address some of this (in reverse order).

1) There is no such thing as exact science, but reloading/shooting ideally should be pursued with every bit of rigor as biochemistry (as should financial decisions, food choices, socioeconomic policies, etc.). Science is a methodology and philosophy that works better at predicting events than any other in the history of mankind. It is not magic, nor does it claim to be. It does not require "belief" or "faith", and in fact requires the exact opposite. Science requires testable, repeatable, and verifiable results, which result in the ability to reliably predict outcomes for future events. The problem with all that, is that "laymen", and even "experts", often don't have the tools to rigorously evaluate results. BUT...We all should strive to do so, to the best of our abilities...

2A) If test guns or a high end bench rest apparatus can't reproduce 1/10th MOA (or even 1/4 MOA), then it's unlikely a rifle with a human behind it can either. If one looks up bench rest shooting results, they'll note that most of the matches are won with averages in the half MOA neighborhood. If you've really got a "half MOA all day long" gun, then you could probably make living at shooting.

2B) If test rigs can't do it, off the shelf ammo/guns probably can't either. I'd consider myself pretty handy with any gun, and have perhaps 10,000 rounds of experience trying to "aim small, miss small" with magnified optics and good rests. The best I've ever been able to hold and break the trigger, with lead sled type rests and high powered optics, is about 1/8 MOA. Bipod and bags, maybe 1/4 MOA. I've never seen a 1/4 MOA rifle in person. EVER. So I don't think there's many rifles that are "capable of" outshooting a decent shooter.

In summary, after a lot of data crunching from my own results and published match results, I'd maintain that an EXCELLENT shooter, with EXCELLENT equipment would be world class, sponsored, and I-make-a-living-shooting, if they average 1/3 MOA precision, and 1/2 MOA accuracy.

FINALLY, someone who actually knows what he's talking about. I get tired of the 'I can shoot 1/4moa groups with my whatever caliber Whisbang all the time.' It is very hard to get a group under .8 inches at 100 yards with anything other than a benchrest or target rifle. World class shooters don't post consistent groups under .5moa. And they have the very best in ammunition, rifles and sighting systems to give them the edge. Group size is affected by too many variables, from environment to shooter, to pressure differences to get a 'perfect' group. This is especially true when shooting strings of 10 rounds, which is what match shooters do.

 

[nicholasjohn]

The longest shot I've ever taken on game was 750 yards... but it was on a previously wounded 'goat' that the other hunter was more than willing to forget about, some that absolutely disgusted me (he had blown the poor things lower jaw off!). That 150 gr. Partition out of my Win .270 worked perfectly.

The longest shot I've ever taken on game that hadn't been wounded was 450 yards. I was laying down with a bipod and conditions were perfect. The muley was calm & feeding, there was no wind and i had a solid rest. I shot a button buck across a small canyon & dropped him DRT. Even so, I felt relieved after the shot. I was confident in my ability & and my equipment but it was the first time and I am all to aware of how things can go horribly wrong in an instant! Most of my hunting shots have been as close as I could get... as my Uncle Ivan told me, get into their bed with them! Closest about 30 yards, average around 75 - 100. Yet I still want the ability to take the longer shots because I know how quickly our plans can go wrong!
Cheers,
crkckr

I've read a lot of your threads, and you seem to be a very practical thinker. ( Using the 150-grain Partition in your 270 is clear evidence of that.) Like you, most of my shots on game animals ( primarily deer ) have been under 100 yards. I have shot a handful of animals out around the 400 yard mark, and none beyond that. A lot have been between 200 & 300, but not nearly as many as were shot between 50 and 100 yards from the gun.

I have also taken a fair number of deer at stone-throwing range, but they were usually animals that came to me, rather than me going to them. Being on stand for a deer drive sometimes offers really close-in shooting, and those shots are easy to screw up. How can a guy screw up a thirty foot shot ???? When a deer comes popping out of the thick stuff that close, its motion relative to the shooter is far different than if it was running at the same speed a hundred yards out. That means that you have to swing the gun through a larger arc to shoot it, and when you're in thick brush ( or a tree-stand ) you often don't have the room to make it work. This is why so many ruffed grouse get away from a bird hunter. Same principal. The other thing is that there is a tendency to hurry the shot, because the animal can get away in just a few hops when the brush is really thick.

Another thing I have found out with the ultra-close shooting at running animals is that the swing-through method works a lot better than sustained lead - again, just like grouse shooting. I've done a lot of this with slug guns, and a 1-1/4 ounce slug is a whole different animal than a cloud of #6 shot of the same weight. With the shot you have to figure it pretty close, but with the slug you need to be exactly right.

The only good thing about it is that there usually isn't enough time to screw it up by "over-thinking" it. When they're right in your shirt pocket, though, it is possible to lead them too much by swinging too fast. If the trigger doesn't break exactly when you think it will you just screwed up the shot. Often people don't think that any lead is necessary at close range, but they are mistaken. It just takes less than when they are further out. I like it best when the required lead is ZERO, as in the deer is standing still.

 

[greenejc]

I'm not talking about an average anything. I'm talking about a consistent group with the same thousandths of an inch dimension. In other words if he shoots a .010 group and can duplicate it every time then I would be impressed, But it won't happen.

I have 4 different hunting rifles that have shot under .100 thousandths and many that will shoot under 1/4 moa. Can I do it every time ? absolutely not. I do occasionally get within .010 to .015 thousandths of the best that the rifle has ever done, But rarely have I came much closer. But I keep trying anyway.

Accuracy, precision and consistency all mean the same to me because it is the total package. Without any one, the others suffer. All rifles have their potential and if you are lucky enough to find it, you then have a bench mark for how well a rifle can be expected to do, Not how well it will do every time.

I expect better than a 1/2 MOA when I build a rifle and most of the time I end up with less than 1/4 MOA. I am never happy even with a 1/4 MOA but sometimes it just wont happen. Other times with hard work and experimentation I can drop below 1/10th MOA Because I never settle for "IT"S OK" until I have exhausted every possibility of improving it.

Accuracy one time is not the same as consistent accuracy that is repeatable. time after time. So I still feel that if a shooter can get the best out of his rifle time after time he is blessed. If he shoots one great group he knows what the rifle is capable of if he does his part, even though he may never duplicate that accuracy it should give him confidence that at least the rifle is accurate If he is. And somewhere in between the best and the worst is what he can depend on most of the time. Having the confidence also allows him to make better decisions as to whether he should/could make a shot that other wise with a 1 MOA rifle it would be next to impossible and he would know not to take the shot.

I'm not sure how much accuracy I am capable of because I have never had a .000 group and the best I have ever shot with one of my rifles has Been a .031 Thousandths group with a hunting rifle, And I'm pretty sure I can't do any better than that.

J E CUSTOM

Again, someone who knows what he's talking about.

 

[Deleted member 48126]

Again, someone who knows what he's talking about.

Glad you're the authority on determining that.

 

[nicholasjohn]

Pardon my ignorance here...but I'm sure there is a point to the engineers here debating. I'm not sure what relevance an Analytically Chemistry degree bares on trajectory, propulsion or what a Chemical Engineering degree does either. If The points being argued are relevant. The point being my NAME HAS MORE LETTERS infront and behind it....are also irrelevant. I don't care how many letters or degrees a person has...I only care about practical on hands, in the trenches EXPERIENCE A PERSON HAS. 10,000 ROUNDS...okay.... I started shooting at 6... I discount the 100,000 BB s I shot getting to 16. So 16-26 I shot easily 10,000 rounds...and have never stopped shooting since...I just turned 63 and fired 800 rounds between May 10 and August 01..2 new 6.5s...had to drink the Kool Ade everyone was selling here! So do the math...or the Chemical Analysis....we don't need letters to make a point
..

A shooter who is well accomplished in another technical field may bring something helpful from that endeavor to his shooting. That would be called a "transfer of useful knowledge." Experience and application is what makes that occur. The guy with the long list of degrees behind is name may also be a very good hand behind the gun. Then again, he may not. It would most likely depend on how much shooting he has done, and how much recent practice he has had. The same applies for the guy who barely squeaked through high school. He might also be pretty handy ( or not so handy ) with a rifle. In either case, though, lots of practice - done recently and correctly, is what makes the difference. 10,000 rounds down-range is a considerable amount of shooting - I probably haven't shot that many rounds in my lifetime, so I'll sit up and listen to anybody who has, and maybe even take a few notes.

 

[Mikecr]

If when I take my hunting rifle out, and my first shot hits within an inch of poa 90% of the time is this precision or accuracy?

It's 90% of your accuracy at unstated range. Now you need to accept the true capability represented by your other 10%.

To the PRS guy, walking 1-2moa shooting 'at' targets with the aid of spotting: you should never take any of that hunting...