After reading all of the posts on how well all of your rifles shoot I feel really inferior. Every rifle on this post seems to get better than a .75" group. One guy is even getting a 3/16" group with a .50 caliber rifle. I can't even get a 3/16" group with one bullet for cripes sake.

What is wrong with me? I know it isn't my rifles because I am all the time reading about guys who are getting sub-minute of angle groups with brand new, out of the box rifles and factory ammo.

Does anybody out there feel as inferior as I do about their shooting? Should we form a group of Shooters Anonymous? We could meet by email and tell each other it was all right to only get 1 1/4" groups most of the time.

[ 11-18-2002, 18:37: Message edited by: Gator1 ]

Mike,

X% of postings are bullshit.

However, it depends on your testing criteria.

For example, I have a benchrest background and my best shooting mate does not. We have a general agreement that he divides my accuracy reports by 3 and I multiply his by 3

To me an inch rifle means that we include the shots from a clean cold barrel and the shot or shots from a barrel with cold hard fouling a day or more old and the group is an inch. Very few rifles in calibers like 270 will achieve an inch when measured that way. A gun that will achieve an inch measuring that way will often shoot 3 shot groups from a warm fouled barrel that are not much more than an oval hole.

When you go to the range with bench guns in 270 or 300 Winchester, the accuracy of which you speak is no better than someone with a 270 or 300 Winchester M70 or Rem 700 that has been bedded. But it is the criteria that is different

An interesting test is to fire 10 shots at a target over a week.

Mike

Gator: People measure their groupings differently as well. Anyone that shoots a grouping under 1" has to shoot nothing but ragged holes. I've got a couple of rifles that will do that, but most consistently shoot 1 1/2 or so. As Mike375 says, to get the real accuracy of your rifle all shots have to be counted.

Gator 1,

I think most exagerate about there groups. I have an HS Precision gun that is very accurate and fully capable of 1/2 inch group. I have fire 1/2 inch groups before. But I guarantee you not everytime! It does not take much movement to be off 3/4 inch at 100. I think you are about the normal shooter.

I find most people exagerate on distance of animals taken. I think 1/2 because they are full of shit and 1/2 because I have found most people can not tell the differance.

My partner and I have this discussion quite often. We are on a lease and have a range marked off to 500 yards. We took a couple of the big talkers from the local range out to fire at long distance. These are experienced Hunters that have shot alot of game. The first thing we did was set them down at 300 yards. They both guessed we where at 450-500 yards, They both hit around 75% in a 10" Kill Zone. We moved back to 400 yards and the wind kicked up to 10-15 mph and they hit 10-20%. Needles to say they no longer talk about 500 yard shots! Next time I am going to challange some of these 1/2 inch group guys at the local range!

Good luck

To reiterate what the others have said...a lot of these people will take a rifle out and shoot a sub-moa group once...couldn't repeat the performance if they tried.
Don't sweat it...you can work on your technique. I'd bet the farm on a guy who could go out and shoot 2 MOA all day long in the game fields vs a supertight sub-moa custom bolt gun that's being used by a bozo who has more ego than ability.
Like Mike said....you have to take what you see on these BB's with a large grain of salt. I own more than a few rifles of various make and models that won't group 2"...

Shucks, I shot a group so small one time that I couldn't even find the hole!!!



[ 11-18-2002, 19:16: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]

I strongly "Second" all of the above, I like a wager and have found NO ONE that wants to back some of their, in my judgement, incredible claims up with hard money. For instance, the stock Sendero shooting 1 1/8 inch groups at 600 yards. Or the consistent groups in the .1s with non- benchrest equipment. And I could go on.

Not that much of what is claimed can't be done, it just isn't done as often or as well as many claim.

This is the net where Casper Milquetoast can leap small buildings with a single keystroke, keep that in mind.

Pecos45
LMAOROTF

There have been some similar threads on AR. From them, I've concluded that a lot of people honestly believe that groups are measured from the inside to the inside of the two widest holes, making a group fired with a .30 caliber rifle automatically about 3/8" smaller than a properly measured center-to-center group (because they measure to the outside crease of the paper, which is a bit larger than the bullet). Less honestly, some believe it is proper to only measure the best 3 of 5 shots, or some such, which would have the effects of improving my groups markedly.

Group "tightening" is like yardage stretching. Expect it, and discount accordingly. Any high-power sporter hunting rifle which can shoot 3-shot groups (three consecutive shots) into an inch (center-to-center) is a "keeper" and performs above average.

But more important in a hunting rifle is where it places that all-important first shot from a cold barrel (after all, a second or third shot is likely to be at a moving target and benchrest precision is irrelavent). I was overjoyed last week to bring my .270 and 7mm STW out of the closet for the annual site-checking and find that the first (and only) sighting shots landed 1/8" and 1/4", respectively, from center on the horizontal plane and 2.1" and 2.2" above center on the vertical plane. I used the .270 the next day to take a whitetail doe at a lasered 220 yards, the first shot from the cold barrel landing exactly where it was meant.

If their rifles will do what they claim, so what? You can't use all that accuracy in the field anyway. In Virginia, the average deer is killed at about 30 yards.

I'm better with a shotgun or a pistol than I am with a rifle, relatively speaking.

Real tight groups don't mean that much to me. I can get 2" at 200 yards, from a rest, out of any of my rifles. I'm O.K. with that.

I'm not a target shooter. I don't have the interest. I like to hunt. The heart/lung area of everything I hunt is bigger than 2".

I measure my shooting on whether the game I hit is recovered, be it a bird or an animal. I've never wounded, and failed to recover anything bigger than a jackrabbit. That's my measure of success.

I would imagine that more than half the people out there could out-shoot me from a bench.

I think many people tend to offer their best group as opposed to an average and do so, regardless of whether their rifle shoots that sort of group from a cold barrel or if it requires 2, 6 or 10 fouling shots before tightening up. I agree with Mike375 in that few hunting rifles shoot < 1" across a wide spectrum of barrel temperature or degree of fouling.

The best one can do is go afield in the "preferred" state of a particular rifle, whether that is with a freshy cleaned barrel or one with the proven number of fouling shots through hit.

I'll take your bet, Pecos!

Tongues at 50 meters!

Waaa! YOU WIN SCOTT!!

There comes a time in every man's life when he either puts up or shuts up and I think my time has done come!

Gator1, when you measure your groups, you have to allow for "forum accuracy" as opposed to "actual accuracy".

For instance, I always mount my targets on 1/4" plywood, so therefore, all my groups measure 1/4"!

And you'd be surprised at how consistent I am...

Rick.

We have an ongoing MOA shooting pool at our club (1,000+ members). The rules are simple - you pay $20 to play. To win you must shoot two 5 shot groups back to back (ten shots total). You are allowed 15 minutes from the time of your first shot. You can use any caliber but no full blown bench rest guns allowed. The group must measure better than 1 MOA at any yardage longer than 100 yards. You can use your mechanical rests but no sighter rounds and no mulligans.

I checked yesterday and the pot was up to $540! That means that 27 folks thought that their �tack-driver-bench-competition-hunter-wonder-gun� wasn�t exactly as accurate as the owner claimed. I have played 6 times and I won three times - unfortunately low pots each time. But I could sure use $540. Time to load the 6.5-284....

The bottom line - Most folks seem to ignore the 95% of their targets that are over a MOA. But get lucky with one target and their gun suddenly becomes a tack-driver-bench-competition-hunter-wonder-gun.

Yes.

Aha! just as I thought, now everyone is confessing to the truth, I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SHOOT A QUARTER INCH GROUP EVERYTIME!!!!

I don't know or care what I can do off the bench. Almost every rifle I own now is capable of hitting a ground hog consistently at 200 yards. What more could you ask?

I always chuckle to myself when I see a "group" posted on a thread, and the target has been trimmed around the group to near the size of a postage stamp......

MM

I am pretty confident that off a rest at 100 meters I can shoot a one inch group most of the time with my 300.

BUT in the field I have no hope in hell of telling how far away I am from what I want to shoot. Its god damn embarassing. At the range is easy. First board 50 meters. Second board 100 meters. Third board 200 meters. and so on and so on. I steal my dads range finder regularly now.

Gator1,

Here are some of our groups.


17 Mack IV



223 Remington



416 Hoffman



30/404



416 Rigby Improved, total of six shots, 3 Bear Claws and 3 Solids.



375/404

[ 11-19-2002, 00:26: Message edited by: Saeed ]

Like most of the posters have said IT DON"T MATTER. What matters is the ethical killing of game that is shot at. If it drops and is a good quick clean kill it is the best shot ever. I don't think paper tastes too good no matter how you cook it, even WITH garlic.
I used to play around with handloading and trying to get the tightest group I could. I still think you need to know your rifle in all circumstances. If you don't know where the bullet will go you should not shoot. You owe it to the game if nothing else. Other than an occasional tree or rock how much time do you have to align your sights, get your stance, etc. before you squeeze off the shot? Try PPC shooting or some other timed event, before you get crazy with some other stuff, just to prove to yourself how long you get to squeeze that trigger, and hit what you are shooting at.

I take most of the claimed group sizes with a grain of salt.
It is more important to me to hit a popcan at 100 yards offhand on the first shot after hiking around for an hour. Or muliple targets set apart at different distances. Anything to try and improve my skills. Bench shooting is boring after awhile, and there are no benches in the forest.

That being said, I always shoot perfect one-shot .277 groups!....but that one hole is not always where I want it.

ZM

Saeed - Great groups, now move the targets back pass the 25 meter line - the powder burns all over thoses targets are a dead giveaway....

How did you get Walter to hold thoses targets so still?

The sign of a serious shooter is wind flags.

I don't know of any equipment and/or shooter that can consistently shoot sub-moa groups past 200 yards or so without them....unless the wind isn't blowing.

Zero Drift,

The second target is actually of Walter's rifle.

He called one day and asked if I wanted to do a trade with him. He said he has a brand new BRNO CZ527 rifle in 223 Remington, which he was willing to swap for something else.

He forgot that I know him so well.

I told him I was not interested in swapping anything with him.

In the afternoon, he came over with this new rifle which someone had given him. It was shooting so bad, he was getting about an inch group at 25 yards!?

I felt sorry for him, so offered to try to improve his rifle.

I took the barrel off, bedded the lugs, and installed a new Lilja barrel on for him.

I have found that 27 grains of Reloader 7 generally shoots very well in many 223s. I loaded 3 rounds and fired them, and got a very good group - I cannot remember off hand the measurements on that one.

I then thought of going 1 grain less, and fired those 3 shots you see on that target.

Walter did not waste any time from "rescuing" his rifle from my hands, as he put it.
He demanded that I load him a few rounds, and that is the last I saw of that rifle.

Apparently he had a fight with his wife that evening, as he took the rifle to bed with him. He did not want it to be far from him.

I find that if you shoot all your groups at a target 1 inch from the muzzle, they will always be in one ragged hole. Saves a lot of time and money on load development and tinkering, an added benifit is not having to walk very far to check the target.

AKJD - Your method will work, assuming one does not set fire to one's target. However, a method we developed in the army for improving target accuracy was just to use our .30 caliber ball point pens. Saves on ammunition too!

Speaking of army, a soldier vet I know told me that to practice with an M9, they would insert a pencil butted up to the firing pin. They would then hold the pistol as close to the target as half the length of the sharpened pencil. You then practiced dry-firing and holding a steady sight by measuring the "group" of pencil-dots you made on the target.

Any comments? I have been playing with this with the wheelgun, and it is too long a barrel. I need to try the CZ.

There might be some merit to this technique, Scott...but you would get some "jump" simply do to the snap of the firing mechanism if I am understanding the process correctly.

I used to parctice with my heavy barrel Model 10 by "shooting" at the book titles in my library. At least until that fateful day I forgot to unload the thing and ruined a good book...not to mention embarrassed the living hell out of my self.

Can we take this once and for all, since so many seem to fail to comprehend:

Group size is a c-c measurement on the most adjacent bullet holes. Any single bullet, regardless of diameter, is a "0.0000000" group. Measurement is most easily taken when you still have paper between the holes, simply measure inside-outside of the most adjacent holes.

Please note that with ordinary rifle bullets, what you see as a hole - the grey/black smudge - is normally a lot smaller than actual bullet diameter because of paper 'springback' (if you look at the paper with a hi-X loupe you'll se that the paper is cracked outside of that coloured ring, normally to the full diameter). Thusly measuring outside-outside and subtracting one full bullet dia. gives a false reading. In BR we use a special device that is centered over the parts of holes, or over the holes for those who didn't fare well, and it gives a very good reading.

Outside-outside minus actual bullet hole gives a correct reading. As an example, the black holes left by my 6.5 (.264" diameter) in my normal targets on a dry day measure .21"-.24" depending on bullet and velocity. Thus, subtracting a full .264" from outside-outside could mean a false reading of more than .05". Add some moisture to the targets and the black rings get even smaller, thusly goes the deviation from true up, if the wrong measurement technique is used.

-- Mats

[ 11-19-2002, 16:08: Message edited by: Mats ]

Here's a couple of targets from my .375H&H.





Regards,

Terry

I only shoot paper when setting up a new or modified setup. I have >20 6" steel gongs setup at ranges of 75 - 450 yds. The shots range from horizontal to 70+ degrees up and down. All are spread out kind of like a 3D bow range over about 800 acres.

I also have a 1000 yd. play target, made from 2 sheets of ply wood, so its 8'x8'. You want to get humility lessons? try your huntin' iron on the 3' square painted on that target. I've seen buddies fire 40-50 rounds from a 1000yds. with zero hits, even on the backstop.

On my best days I can get my best rifles to group under 1" at 100 yds. On the rest of the days they are under 2". It's amazing how many holes can be made inside of an inch square when shooting the mid size calibers (.264 to .284).

I measure my groups in coin terms, and sometimes with playing cards. I do most of my shooting at objects in the field from field positions. Never been a benchrest shooter, never will.

Zero Drift
Where is your club? I'll take that bet! If your with a couple hundred miles show me on the road Let me get this straight -no limitation on ammo-standard hunting rifle only right?

Saeed
Nice groups! Especial with that big thumper(416)!! Was that locked down when they were shot or standard benchrest?

Gator1

If you have a 200 yard zero and could aim absolutely dead centre on the heart of a white tail buck at 200 yards the bullet will allways hit somewhere in the heart. If you are able to do this consistantly you are the best shot on this forum.

Grouping is like masturbation - it's fun (so I'm told) if it's all you've got but bears little relation to the real thing. In fact those who concentrate on it rarely do well on the real thing either qualitatively or quantitavely.