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

[Clem Bronkoski]

I'm not sure I agree, hence my OP.

A good shooter should be able to see the shot break. I'm nowhere near competitive level, and I can, every time. I also know pretty much exactly how tight I can hold (1/8-1/4 MOA with my bipod/bag). Add another 1/8-1/4 MOA in for not being great at perfectly consistent recoil, and I should be able to shoot a little less than 0.5 MOA plus what the rifle is "capable of". I've never owned, borrowed, or ever shot ANY rifle that would consistently give me anywhere near 1/2 MOA, best is probably my 300WM, which averages pretty close to 7/8 MOA currently.
The thing is, I think people misinterpret random chance as "what's possible". Bullets randomly land, and with enough of a sample size, they will randomly land close together.This is not "what the rifle is capable of". Apply that logic to lottery tickets and you see how silly it is. "Just bought a scratch ticket and I won a $1000! That means I'm capable of winning the lottery, when I do my part!"
The aforementioned 300WM has printed 7 four shot groups below 0.6 MOA, 5 below 0.5 MOA, and 3 below 0.4 MOA. Problem is, I've recorded about 70 groups with it. 3-5 times, it's shot groups that are smaller than I can physically hold...See what I mean about random chance?

Well I just have to disagree with you on a couple points. First the analogy of shooting with buying a lottery ticket is really grabbing at straws. And bullets do not fly or land "at random". There is occasionally a faulty bullet which will but that is not the rule. A properly tuned rifle, a good uniform bore, well developed handloads, good solid scope mounts, quality glass, etc all lead to a rifle that for the most part will shoot incredibly accurate. But there is always the human factor. I have shot competition and could hold my own. Not an expert by any means but good enough to know that even the slightest change could mean the difference between a 10 ring and an X. Maybe a little difference in cheek pressure or whatever. And whoever says that they fire each and every shot exactly the same is stating an untruth.

 

[entoptics]

...First the analogy of shooting with buying a lottery ticket is really grabbing at straws. And bullets do not fly or land "at random"...

I meant "random" within the parameters of a good rifle, not completely random obviously. Sure would be a dangerous sport if those puppies just ended up wherever! Sometimes downrange, sometimes behind you!

The whole point of using angular measurements such as MOA and MILs to assess precision and accuracy in rifles, is because they indeed do have a "random" nature, or if you prefer, extremely difficult to predict or model. A 1 MOA rifle will randomly toss bullets into a 1 MOA area. Sometimes, those hits may all be clustered well inside 1 MOA, sometimes they'll all be right at the edges, and most likely, some combination of the two scenarios.

My point is that statistical significance is important when assessing precision and accuracy, exactly because of the unpredictable nature. For me, I would consider ~2 sigma (about 9 out of 10) a good limit for describing a hunting rifle's precision. Perhaps 1 sigma (about 6 out of 10) is appropriate for a competition rifle?

Though this is a long range hunting forum, I suppose I never explicitly stated anywhere in the thread that I was specifically referring to practical/portable weapons, used at distances greater than a couple hundred yards, with a first shot hit as the primary objective.

 

[Clem Bronkoski]

Though this is a long range hunting forum, I suppose I never explicitly stated anywhere in the thread that I was specifically referring to practical/portable weapons, used at distances greater than a couple hundred yards, with a first shot hit as the primary objective.

And herein lies the problem. A practical/ portable weapon which will be at the mercy of human error. This is what makes the sport so challenging. Sort of like golf. Its a game you can't win (with yourself) but can only be played. I can take a rifle and go out and shoot a 1/4" group at 100 yards one day then take that same rifle ammo, everything exactly the same sans maybe temperature, natural lighting etc and shoot a 1" group. Some days you got it and some days you don't. Maybe you're not completely focused or whatever. But you can't fault the weapon, only the person behind it.

 

[greenejc]

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

All of what you have said just shows good sense.

 

[entoptics]

...I can take a rifle and go out and shoot a 1/4" group at 100 yards one day then take that same rifle ammo, everything exactly the same sans maybe temperature, natural lighting etc and shoot a 1" group...But you can't fault the weapon, only the person behind it.

I'll try one more time...

It's not about 1 day good 1 day bad. It's about statistics. Any rifle/load will have some inherent precision. Lets take the idea to the extreme...

Lets assume we have a test rifle in a near perfect mechanical rest, and fire 1000 shots, in an underground temp/humidity/pressure/wind controlled environment. That rifle will produce a bell curve of hits, centered around some point in space. A very precise rifle will have a very narrow bell curve with most of the hits near each other. A less precise rifle will have a broader curve. Let's say our test rifle has 95% (2 sigma) of it's shots in a 1 MOA circle, with the total group contained in a 2 MOA circle.

Give that rifle to a very good shooter in the same tunnel, and perhaps they can get 95% of their shots into 1.1 MOA after 1000 shots.

Give that rifle to many of the folks on this forum, youtube, or your local range. They shoot 20 groups that average 1.5 MOA, but one of them is 0.5 MOA, and suddenly the rifle is "capable of 1/2 MOA, when I do my part".

It's not. As established in our tunnel, the best shooter in the world, in great conditions, concentrating like Lebron James at the free-throw line, should reasonably expect the rifle to group at ~1 MOA for any particular group. Instead, by random chance, 3 bullets in a row all landed close together. It's statistically meaningless, the same as if that particular group had been 2 MOA, due to the same random chance.

If you're still not sure, ask yourself how a manufacturer like Howa decides what it takes to guarantee their rifles shoot Sub MOA. Applying statistics to lots of groups from lots of rifles, or do they just shoot till they get a good group and declare "it's capable of sub MOA, when we do our part!"?

Does that clear it up?

 

[greenejc]

If you look up short range Benchrest results you will see most are won with a high .1 to low .2 moa aggregate. For a Benchrest rifle to be competitive it does in fact need to be a .1 moa rifle. Long range Benchrest will have a lot more "conditions" in the group sizes, but they are still .1 moa rifles in ideal conditions.

Thank you. I did look them up. I went to https://internationalbenchrest.com/results. The national champions had aggregates of 0.2145 or so for 2018, and 0.1562 for 2017, in Heavy Bench. Light Bench or light gun must be under 17 lbs. Heavy Gun has no weight limit. Their accuracy is phenomenal. I don't think these rifles are very good hunting weapons. I'm too old to be carrying weapons that weigh 15 to 20 lbs. I did that enough in the army. But this discussion seems to have been about favorite hunting rifles and their accuracy. To me, a reasonably portable hunting rifle isn't going to weigh more than around 9 to 9 1/2 lbs, with scope and ammunition. That limits my rifle to a 26 inch barrel, and a heavy sporter contour, or lighter. Unless I have the rifle made, they don't make many of the sporter-weight rifles that will shoot inside 0.8 inches at 100 yards (5 shots) consistently. Some will, if you do a little work on them, and find a load that hits the 'sweet spot' for barrel vibration, but much tighter than that is hard to achieve with consistency(say, 7 out of 8 times). A tool that I think would help with this is the now almost never seen Browning Boss system. When browning brought that out, I really wanted to experiment with it on a 30-06 or .300 Winmag. Now, they seem to only offer it on the BAR. And maybe not even that anymore. Being able to tune the barrel vibrations to the load would be great.

 

[J E Custom]

Thank you. I did look them up. I went to https://internationalbenchrest.com/results. The national champions had aggregates of 0.2145 or so for 2018, and 0.1562 for 2017, in Heavy Bench. Light Bench or light gun must be under 17 lbs. Heavy Gun has no weight limit. Their accuracy is phenomenal. I don't think these rifles are very good hunting weapons. I'm too old to be carrying weapons that weigh 15 to 20 lbs. I did that enough in the army. But this discussion seems to have been about favorite hunting rifles and their accuracy. To me, a reasonably portable hunting rifle isn't going to weigh more than around 9 to 9 1/2 lbs, with scope and ammunition. That limits my rifle to a 26 inch barrel, and a heavy sporter contour, or lighter. Unless I have the rifle made, they don't make many of the sporter-weight rifles that will shoot inside 0.8 inches at 100 yards (5 shots) consistently. Some will, if you do a little work on them, and find a load that hits the 'sweet spot' for barrel vibration, but much tighter than that is hard to achieve with consistency(say, 7 out of 8 times). A tool that I think would help with this is the now almost never seen Browning Boss system. When browning brought that out, I really wanted to experiment with it on a 30-06 or .300 Winmag. Now, they seem to only offer it on the BAR. And maybe not even that anymore. Being able to tune the barrel vibrations to the load would be great.

Many competitions won't allow the use of muzzle brakes but do allow adjustable muzzle weights as long as the rifle meets weight requirements.

When running boar competitions were very popular, I had such a setup and it had a threaded barrel and a weight about the diameter of a redial brake that You could screw back and forth on the barrel to tune it. These worked very well for this competition because it added weight on the end of the barrel that also helped you follow through. The running target was at 500 meters and the weight also helped steady the rifle while reloading. (Rifles had to be bolt actions and hold no more than 5 shots like most hunting rifles).

We didn't have many ammo choices so it was easier to tune a rifle for the ammo at hand. Now we do the same tuning with our loads/ammo so the weight is not necessary. The boss system was ok for this function but was not a very effective muzzle brake.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Clem Bronkoski]

Entoptics: I've used statistics in my career too. But like a lot of statisticians you seem to be using them correctly but then reporting the results incorrectly. In the hypothetical instance you mentioned that rifle would be a 2 MOA rifle - period. Your entire post is full of assumptions and has no merit. Also, an experienced rifleman does not go and shoot one group of 5 shots and shoot .5 MOA and call the rifle a ".5 MOA rifle when I do my part". (Well some do just to boast) In my lifetime of shooting which encompasses over 50 years and I can't remember how many rifles I have and have gone through I've only had 2 rifles that were truly .5 MOA shooters. I've also had a few that were 2+ MOA shooters.

 

[Mikecr]

You couldn't credibly use statistics to discount guns that do in fact shoot at or better than 1/2moa to XXX distance. There are plenty of shooting systems that perform this well.
For those guns that only occasionally shoot at that level, again, it doesn't take statistics to see that. It doesn't take 20 shots, or 100, or 1,000 to know it, better or worse.

I've read it suggested that you have to shoot at least 20shot groups to see what a system is capable of. Well a lot happens in 20 shots that may not with 1 or 3 or 5 shots at a time. So suggested is really a different standard,, such as: 20 shot 1/2moa to XXX distance.
Then when someone implies their gun shoots 3 shot 1/2moa at 300yds 'when I do my part', they just might be correct. Hell they may be truthful with a boast of 5 shot 1/4moa at 100yds, with their worst effort.

Just prior to a local hunting accuracy contest, some older than dirt BR shooter drops down a 6PPC(made of dirt I think) on bags and fired 5 shots touching at 200yds -while not even behind the gun with each shot.. He stood to the side, loading single shot, cycling the bolt, touching the trigger, 5 times. I gave him light hearted crap about missing the bullseye, and thinking to myself; 'No chance against him'.
But on the 9th round of cold bore single shot accuracy (into a 3/4" bull at 200), he knocked himself out of the competition. Threw a shot somehow, or maybe he had a little too much to drink by then, or maybe he was just being nice. No tellin really.
He was lending the gun to 2 other hunters, and I finally beat the last one of them at round 14(getting dark by then). This was easier, because they were not shooting free recoil, and they didn't have my better scope.
I don't shoot that contest anymore, as it's now dominated by 30BRs instead of hunting guns.

My point in all this: I didn't beat the gun. I beat the shooters.
And anyone with that gun could actually brag that it would shoot 1/2moa if they did their part,, all day long.
They're out there, it's just not all that common

 

[Clem Bronkoski]

You couldn't credibly use statistics to discount guns that do in fact shoot at or better than 1/2moa to XXX distance. There are plenty of shooting systems that perform this well.
For those guns that only occasionally shoot at that level, again, it doesn't take statistics to see that. It doesn't take 20 shots, or 100, or 1,000 to know it, better or worse.

I've read it suggested that you have to shoot at least 20shot groups to see what a system is capable of. Well a lot happens in 20 shots that may not with 1 or 3 or 5 shots at a time. So suggested is really a different standard,, such as: 20 shot 1/2moa to XXX distance.
Then when someone implies their gun shoots 3 shot 1/2moa at 300yds 'when I do my part', they just might be correct. Hell they may be truthful with a boast of 5 shot 1/4moa at 100yds, with their worst effort.

Just prior to a local hunting accuracy contest, some older than dirt BR shooter drops down a 6PPC(made of dirt I think) on bags and fired 5 shots touching at 200yds -while not even behind the gun with each shot.. He stood to the side, loading single shot, cycling the bolt, touching the trigger, 5 times. I gave him light hearted crap about missing the bullseye, and thinking to myself; 'No chance against him'.
But on the 9th round of cold bore single shot accuracy (into a 3/4 bull at 200), he knocked himself out of the competition. Threw a shot somehow, or maybe he had a little too much to drink by then, or maybe he was just being nice. No tellin really.
He was lending the gun to 2 other hunters, and I finally beat the last one of them at round 14(getting dark by then). This was easier, because they were not shooting free recoil, and they didn't have my better scope.
I don't shoot that contest anymore, as it's now dominated by 30BRs instead of hunting guns.

My point in all this: I didn't beat the gun. I beat the shooters.
And anyone with that gun could actually brag that it would shoot 1/2moa if they did their part,, all day long.
They're out there, it's just not all that common

That my friend is exactly what I was trying to say. The human factor is the biggest variation in the shooting process.

 

[greenejc]

Many competitions won't allow the use of muzzle brakes but do allow adjustable muzzle weights as long as the rifle meets weight requirements.

When running boar competitions were very popular, I had such a setup and it had a threaded barrel and a weight about the diameter of a redial brake that You could screw back and forth on the barrel to tune it. These worked very well for this competition because it added weight on the end of the barrel that also helped you follow through. The running target was at 500 meters and the weight also helped steady the rifle while reloading. (Rifles had to be bolt actions and hold no more than 5 shots like most hunting rifles).

We didn't have many ammo choices so it was easier to tune a rifle for the ammo at hand. Now we do the same tuning with our loads/ammo so the weight is not necessary. The boss system was ok for this function but was not a very effective muzzle brake.

J E CUSTOM

I didn't think it was a good muzzle brake, but it seemed to tune the barrel pretty well. They even came out with one that was solid, and didn't operate as a muzzle brake at all; just as a barrel tuning device. For a while, you could get them factory installed on Winchester model 70's, too.

 

[J E Custom]

I didn't think it was a good muzzle brake, but it seemed to tune the barrel pretty well. They even came out with one that was solid, and didn't operate as a muzzle brake at all; just as a barrel tuning device. For a while, you could get them factory installed on Winchester model 70's, too.

Yes it did pretty well but was not heavy enough to really squeeze out all of the potential accuracy. I replaced the one that I had with the heavier weight and accuracy improved even more. It was definitely an improvement with some ammo but made very little change in others.

I never tried the one without the brake on it, so I don;t know how well that one worked.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Mikecr]

Boss was more than just weight on the end of the barrel. It was a more comprehensive tuning system that also required special bedding. They knew what they were doing -with their barrels.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Thank you. I did look them up. I went to https://internationalbenchrest.com/results. The national champions had aggregates of 0.2145 or so for 2018, and 0.1562 for 2017, in Heavy Bench. Light Bench or light gun must be under 17 lbs. Heavy Gun has no weight limit. Their accuracy is phenomenal. I don't think these rifles are very good hunting weapons. I'm too old to be carrying weapons that weigh 15 to 20 lbs. I did that enough in the army. But this discussion seems to have been about favorite hunting rifles and their accuracy. To me, a reasonably portable hunting rifle isn't going to weigh more than around 9 to 9 1/2 lbs, with scope and ammunition. That limits my rifle to a 26 inch barrel, and a heavy sporter contour, or lighter. Unless I have the rifle made, they don't make many of the sporter-weight rifles that will shoot inside 0.8 inches at 100 yards (5 shots) consistently. Some will, if you do a little work on them, and find a load that hits the 'sweet spot' for barrel vibration, but much tighter than that is hard to achieve with consistency(say, 7 out of 8 times). A tool that I think would help with this is the now almost never seen Browning Boss system. When browning brought that out, I really wanted to experiment with it on a 30-06 or .300 Winmag. Now, they seem to only offer it on the BAR. And maybe not even that anymore. Being able to tune the barrel vibrations to the load would be great.

In short range, light gun is 10.5lb max. Its not the weight of the rifle, its the work that goes into every component that makes a .1 moa rifle and the skill of the man tuning and shooting it. Its not the Indian, you can never shoot smaller than the rifle is capable and most are not capable of .25 let alone .1 moa consistently. We had a "club gun" at our local range. The deal was you could come shoot a 1000yd Benchrest match free, if you had never shot a match of any kind before. The rifle was well built, and a good tuner kept it tuned well. Shooters that had never shot a match in their lives came out with hardly any experience and were not only competitive, also won relays. These are guys that had never shot a 1000 yard match, and they shot 2-3" groups. A really well built rifle and a good tune will do that. A bipod rifle is no different, they shoot 3" at 1k well tuned as well. Now if we are talking sling shooting like NRA high power, it all the Indian, but supported rifles do most of the work.