grape creek......7 pound 458.......!! You must eat a really big bowl of Wheaties every morning........Grant.

Sam Lilja has an interesting article about accuracy and barrel rigidity (and associated attributes: contour and length) on his website.
- mike

No, man. That thing hurts. And I only weigh 200 pounds. Before I put the decelorator on it, i had a ruger red rubber pad on it. Shot it once without a leather pad and you could see the circle and almost make out the griffon (in the bruise). About as bad as a 870 pump with 3 inch remington magnum slugs with 1& 1/2 ounce slugs. Some things in life you don't wanna do twice.

Actually putting shots close to one another is only the primary goal in BR "group" shooting. There is a whole large community of benchrest shooters who shoot either "Hunter BR" or "Varmint for Score" BR, where the sole goal is to put each and every shot exactly where you want it...fifty shots at 50 targets (25 @ 100 yards and 25 @ 200 yards), so the commonly heard differentiation between accuracy and precision is a non-starter for many benchresters.



And, the question as I read it was not about whether the shooter could read the wind or not, but on average which BARREL was likely to be the most accurate (by any margin, large or small), given equal quality of shooter, loads, etc....everything else being equal, in other words.



It IS, of course, true that the very great majority of shooters are practical enough humans to settle for "accurate enough to reliably get the job done" (me included in that group). And for hunting, the difference is not great enough to worry about...other things like balance, enough velocity for adequately flat trajectory, etc., all come into play. BUT, for BEST inherent accuracy, short barrels have the edge when it comes to the physics of making them work to deliver pure accuracy (OR precision)...everything else being equal <G>.



Best wishes,



Alberta Canuck

It is generally accepted that a short stiff barrel will out perform a long thin barrel...for whatever thats worth from a hunting stand point..Doesn't mean much to me...