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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

If I hunt with a slug gun I use a smoothbore Remington 870 that will hold a 2" group at 50 yards.

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www.rifleshooter.com

I agree that a 1 MOA rifle is what we want. It's really not needed for most hunting but we want it anyway.

Welcome to the forum.

I might get some flack from some of my friends here, but I will stick my neck out and say the "weakest link" in the field is the man behind the gun.

Having said that, there is nothing that can give a hunter more confidence than the knowledge that his rifle is a tack driver.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

Accuracy for some of us is also important because it means the gun is "right". That is, if a rifle is shooting 2 or 3 inch groups there is something wrong with the rifle or load etc.

In reality, if you are not a very good shot from field positions, you are better off with a rifle that "sprays" the bullets.

Known as compensating errors.

Mike

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Martin29:
Col. Whelan said "Only accurate rifles are interesting"

I agree that a 1 MOA rifle is what we want. It's really not needed for most hunting but we want it anyway.

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Agreed.

Confidence as Saeed said is the key. My mind wonders what happens if the 2MOA rifle is throws the shot 2 inches from POA in the same direction as the disregarded wind and the slight flinch/poor aim/other human error. Suddenly you're 4inches off target and on a small deer that's a lot.

Ability to hit a small post it note (1.5"x2" at 100m gives me the confidence that it's only ever going to be my fault.

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When in doubt, do a nuclear strike.

IMHO that translates to 1.5" or so at 100 yds.

John

What is more important to me then absolute accuracy, is consistancy, I want a gun that will put its shots to the same POI with a cold, warm, clean or dirty barrel. If a gun shoots 1/2", but has to be coddled to get that, and will throw shots by 2 or 3" when not happy, then its useless to me.

I'm hard pressed to shoot much better then 2 moa when in the field.

I have 3 rifles that will put 3 shots with the hunting loads into less than 1/2" at 100 yards.

I have absolute confidence in those rifles.

There is a downside though - if ya miss, ya can't blame it on the gun

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Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

For years I hunted with a .300WinMag that would shoot 1.5 to 2" groups with factory ammo. These would open up to 4 to 6" at 300 yards. That kind of accuracy was good enough and I was happy. I seldom missed anything I shot at.

After I got into re-loading and sub MOA groups became the norm, I noticed that my field marksmanship improved more than the incremental gain in bench accuracy.

Then I had my 6.5 Gibbs built and it turned out to be quite a tack driver. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in this rifle. It feels like a laser death ray in my hands! As a result, much of the nervousness associated with settling the crosshairs on my quarry no longer exists, and I think that has the greatest effect on field marksmanship.

JMHO,
Canuck

Actually, if a solid, well-built hunting rifle will keep five shots inside a one-inch circle at 100 yards and maintain a consistent point-of-impact (something that's more important than group size), I'll take it hunting anywhere in the world for big game.

AD

If a rifle would put 5 shots in an inch and including a shot from a clean barrel and a shot from a barrel with cold hard fouling and also do it with the shots spaced over a week, then that would be real top grade accuracy.

Mike

[This message has been edited by Mike375 (edited 12-04-2001).]

I think you are right. If you can hit a pie plate EVERY TIME with your rifle it is probably a good indicator of "accurate enough" for deer size game. It's probably a good method to access your maximum range too. The "every time" is key in that sentence. The probability of a wounded animal goes up significantly if you miss, even once, out of ten shots.

I'd not personally have trouble hunting with a rifle that was only capable of that accuracy but as Saeed noted... it's probably NOT the rifle that is the weak link.

Regards,

JohnTheGreek

Couldn't agree with you more.

Consider this.

If ya got a 5 MOA gun and a 5 MOA shooter, wouldn't ya now have a 25 MOA shot?

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Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ol' Sarge:

If ya got a 5 MOA gun and a 5 MOA shooter, wouldn't ya now have a 25 MOA shot?

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Exactly, which contradicts the idea that gun accuracy isn't that important. By the same math, if you have a 5 MOA shooter and a 1 MOA rifle, you would have a 5 MOA shot.

In other words, mechanical accuracy matters, even if the shooter isn't up to snuff. The question is whether it matters enough to ... matter. IMO that depends on the size of the game. If a deer has an 8" vital zone, then theoretically if you have a 2 MOA rifle, and a shooter who can shoot into 4 MOA with a 1 MOA rifle, the shooter can hit the deer in the vitals at 100 yards. Give the same guy a 3 MOA rifle and his odds drop.

John

The biggest question in this whole equation is the shooter, as Saeed said. How does a 5 MOA shooter even tell if he has a 1 MOA rifle?

We have had several Postal Matches at 24hourcampfire just to test this theory and have a little fun. Each time the people volunteering to score have decided the course of fire, but it usually replicates some kind of hunting situation. A bit of each discipline is usually involved, sitting, offhand, standing with a rest and kneeling, etc... Also, we shoot different shots at different ranges, sometimes with time limit.
These friendly little shooting matches have really opened some eyes, including mine when I scored the last match we had. Shooting at pie plates for targets during this particular match was much more difficult than most guys realized ahead of time. IMHO, I think this size target is just about right to test your skills, since it represents about the logical size of most "average" game animals' kill zones.
If you try some of these courses of fire, or make up your own, but try to duplicate hunting situations instead of doing everything from a nice comfortable bench, you will immediately change your definition of "hunting accuracy". - Sheister

I put up a 8" paper plate and shot it several hundred times over the course of 3 years. Used 4 different rifles and many different loads and many different field positions and ranges from 50 to 350 yards.

What I found out is that my .5 MOA from the bench turned into 5 MOA shots under field conditions.

I did hit it every time, but some shots were TOUGH!

Accurate rifle + accurate shooter = dead animal.

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Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

[This message has been edited by Ol' Sarge (edited 12-05-2001).]

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"Certified Rifle Crank!"