Rethink on Accuracy and Rifles

[Heym SR20]

There have been quite a number of posts about accuracy and or perceived accuracy on Rifles and the expectation that just about any rifle should produce a group of three or five rounds touching no matter what. And if it doesn't there is something wrong.

I started my interest in Rifles 30 years ago reading lots of guns and ammo from the 1960's, and shooting no8 and no4 rifles and then started stalking seriously in the mid 90's, and one of my mentors was serious rifle builder and benchrest shooter, as well as a stalker. In the 1960's most rifles shot two or three inch groups at 100 yards and were perfectly good big game rifles. Carefully tuned varmint and benchrest would hold an honest inch. If you found a rifle that shot well it was a keeper.

Fast forward to the mid 1990's and we had the likes of the Tikka 595s, Sako 75s, sauer 202 and Mannlichers mod m. 6x42 scope was the norm. 2" group perfectly acceptable, but most would do better than that. A 595 at that point was c£600, a 75 about £800 and 202 a bit more than £1k. Sniper rifles were still Enfield, Mauser or R.E.M. 700 based. AWs were just coming in. If you wanted serious accuracy then you needed to spend good money with the likes of Precision Rifkez.

Fast forward to today. The basic rifles haven't changed, although in real terms they are quite a bit cheaper. Take the T3 - majority are sold in the US for $5 or 600, so there is not a lot of time in there for lots of precision engineering.

But we expect sub 1" groups. Now most will do that with factory some of the time. But can't help feeling take a box of 20!rounds and they won't all be on 1" - 2 or 2 1/2 perhaps.

And then factor in average rifleman and a bit of wind and heat shimmer.

I got got really upset last year when my Heym started shooting all over the place. Looking at the group again just now it was ten rounds into two or so inches. And it was a hot gusty day with lots of cleggs. Could I shoot well ... not a hope, but it was the rifle.

I missed a stag a couple of weeks ago. It was a longer shot. Subsequently I checked my rifle and it was shooting 3" high - it must have taken a knock. But does that really mean I missed. Not sure if it does - plenty of buck fever and a bit of wind and I pulled it.

A good couple of hours checking, with a dog and no sign of any hit.

So so are we really expecting too much from ourselves and our kit. Yes snipers are shooting long ways, but they are using 14lb rifles costing several thousand and are shooting thousands of rounds a year at tax payers expense. Most of us are spending two or three grand on kit and shoot a couple of hundred rounds a year if that.

 

[JTO]

In the early 60s we had a college science lecturer who was an ex engineer and had spent time in America. He was heavily into shooting of all kinds and reckoned any rifle barrel was/should be capable of 1 MOA.

 

[Heym SR20]

In the early 60s we had a college science lecturer who was an ex engineer and had spent time in America. He was heavily into shooting of all kinds and reckoned any rifle barrel was/should be capable of 1 MOA.

agreed, but add in an action, and bolt and then a bedding system that relies on two 6mm screws. Add on a sighting device that is a min of five main components (2 bases, 2 rings and a scope) and the whole lot put together quickly, on a budget, and usually set up by an amateur it's surprising how many do shoot 1 moa.

 

[Shootgun]

I expect a 2.5k rifle, topped with a 2k scope to shoot under MOA or less, in bench rest conditions. If not, that means is something wrong with it and I'll take it back to the shop

 

[Muir]

Such melancholy!

I think the current situation is this: Most people can't shoot as well as their rifles are capable of. They DO spend thousands on their shooting rigs and then hardly shoot them. When their gun doesn't live up their hopes they look for another bolt on trinket to make them shoot better. A new reloading tool that is 'guaranteed' to shrink the very occasional and often singular group they shoot. Some people seem to indicate that practice is 'unnecessary' shooting: a waste of components. They fire one good group and call it done. No sense in wearing out the barrel!

No. We don't expect too much from our weapons, we simply don't expend the effort to master them. JMO ~Muir

 

[takbok]

Plenty precision engineering in my Tikka T3 for sub MOA accuracy - mass production makes costs low.

2 off M6 Screws can provide a lot of clamping force - the bedding area takes care of the recoil, not the screws.

I think you're getting the accuracy of your average shooter confused with rifle accuracy.

 

[tarponhead]

Minute of deer/fox/rabbit does it for me. My problem has been my scope set up (by me) and poor technique, as a shotgun shooter that took up stalking. Following instruction from those that know what they are doing, on technique and scope set up, the more I practice, the luckier I get.....

That said I do have a one hole Sako P94S in .22LR at 50 yards, a cloverleaf capable Anschutz 1417 in .17HMR at 100yards, plus my sako A7 shoots touching holes with Ballistic Silvertips at 100 yards, which is a delight.

So whilst its great when it happens, I'm happy with a one shot kill.

 

[ChesterP]

I remember starting my shooting in the 1970's with air rifles and using those to hone my rifle shooting skills. By the time I made the army and was shooting the, then, service rifle (the SLR) we reckoned 3 inches with that at 100 yards was about all you could expect of that particular rifle with the ammo supplied and open sights. Few people, incidentally, managed under 3 inches with open sights (or the SUSAT) at 100 yards. However, the sniper guys using the Lee Enfields were regularly shooting into an inch. Fast forward a decade or so, and even some of the .22's I shot would put up a good group at 75 yards (perhaps into 2 inches). My first foray into CF for sporting purposes was with a CZ. That was probably a late 1980's rifle, and it would hold moa with some factory loads. Today, using another CZ and a T3, I would be disappointed not to put up one inch groups or under. A good rifle in the 1980's with good ammunition, could shoot about moa.


Off the bipod, the T3 is capable of half that, regularly and consistently. Muir has a point. Most factory rifles these days have benefited enormously from advances in precision engineering and improvements in design, and can probably shoot better than their owners.

I know that on a bad day, it's not the rifle at fault, it's 100% always myself.

 

[Rowey]

Did hear a comment once that said something along the lines of........... Beware the one gun man...............He's usually very good with it

 

[caorach]

When their gun doesn't live up their hopes they look for another bolt on trinket to make them shoot better. A new reloading tool that is 'guaranteed' to shrink the very occasional and often singular group they shoot.

This is the root of the problem - many people are obsessed with tinkering and "custom" this and "measuring" that when what they are actually buying into is more variables and, therefore, more variability.

The Black Dot of Doom (tens of thousands of reads, probably less than 200 rounds fired at the actual target!) and various other bits of messing about indicate that most people shoot something around 3 inches from a stalking rig, and that most of us can't hit a 1 inch dot at 100 yards with any reliability. However, the internet gives the impression that everyone shoots half inch groups at six hundred yards all day every day and this is also a factor both in expectations and also in the accuracy people claim. I remember an accuracy thread some years back where, with a quick application of Google, I found that the groups people were shooting off a bipod on the bonnet of their car in horizontal sleet were quite literally world beating - there was no one on the thread who was shooting groups that wouldn't have put them in the top ten in the world at benchrest at that distance. A beginner seeing all these tiny groups is then lead to believe that their rifle needs some gadget, or they need to measure something else when reloading using some gadget, and this spirals out of control with the beginner adding more and more variability to their shooting through gadgets. They then end up in a situation where they've no idea how to identify the problem, because they've added so many variables, and this covers up for the fact that 3 inches worth of the problem is the person trying to measure the bullet seating depth to a level way beyond that which it is actually possible to do with the gear and components they own.

It is the case that if you've bought a faulty or badly engineered rifle then you will need to repair it but that is completely different to the "fiddling" that many people are doing. In truth there is no actual direction behind this fiddling in the sense that if you ask someone what impact their latest reloading fetish has upon point of impact the answer is always that they have to shoot it to see - they can never tell you that if they make adjustment X to the variable on the reloading bench then this will result in their impact point changing by 1.2mm to the left on the target. If you can't predict the outcome of your actions then you are acting randomly and so the only significance in your actions is in adding more randomness to the outcome.

Conversations you never hear:

"That new Forth Crossing Bridge thing, do you think the bits will meet in the middle?"
"No idea mate, we read on the internet that painting the handrails blue reduces the distance it is likely to be out so we've done that."
"Right, how does that work then?"
"No idea, but we've given it a try."
"And does that mean it will meet in the middle?"
"Oh we still can't say until we put it up."
"Does the blue paint move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know, it just makes things better. There's a bloke on the internet and his bridge was exactly aligned once he'd done it."
"Did he do anything else?"
"Yeah, he got an engineer in who did some calculations and survey work and made some adjustments to the construction. Plus he makes his dog wear a special collar and his wife only drives black cars, these things all helped but he says the blue paint was the key."
"So do cars now cross his bridge now?"
"Oh no, not cars. Because of harmonics he only allows a special type of truck to cross. The blue paint makes the bridge very sensitive to the type of vehicle on it."
"Right, how does that work?"
"We don't know."
"So, is it safe?"
"He's no idea. He sawed a bit out of some of the beams as a bloke on the internet said that helps with the harmonics but the design engineer is a bit worried it might not be a good idea."
"So are you going to do that on the Forth Crossing?"
"Yeah, we've already started."
"Why?"
"Because it says on the internet."
"And does that move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know that, we just have to keep sawing until it meets up."

 

[TOMMO.B]

I would say over reliance on shiny kit. Any rifle made after 1890 will out shoot the human using it.
And i would say bench rest shooting does nothing to aid stalking. One target lives and moves the other does not.
Any kill shot only requires a three inch target to be hit, so no need for clover leafs to be shot on to paper.

 

[jcampbellsmith]

Such melancholy!

I think the current situation is this: Most people can't shoot as well as their rifles are capable of. They DO spend thousands on their shooting rigs and then hardly shoot them. When their gun doesn't live up their hopes they look for another bolt on trinket to make them shoot better. A new reloading tool that is 'guaranteed' to shrink the very occasional and often singular group they shoot. Some people seem to indicate that practice is 'unnecessary' shooting: a waste of components. They fire one good group and call it done. No sense in wearing out the barrel!

No. We don't expect too much from our weapons, we simply don't expend the effort to master them. JMO ~Muir

Spot on. I observe few folk practising and even fewer folk competing with their stalking rifles. I do note that at least two Forum members are competing and doing well at this competition.

2017 F-Class World Championships

Regards

JCS

 

[Heym SR20]

This is the root of the problem - many people are obsessed with tinkering and "custom" this and "measuring" that when what they are actually buying into is more variables and, therefore, more variability.

The Black Dot of Doom (tens of thousands of reads, probably less than 200 rounds fired at the actual target!) and various other bits of messing about indicate that most people shoot something around 3 inches from a stalking rig, and that most of us can't hit a 1 inch dot at 100 yards with any reliability. However, the internet gives the impression that everyone shoots half inch groups at six hundred yards all day every day and this is also a factor both in expectations and also in the accuracy people claim. I remember an accuracy thread some years back where, with a quick application of Google, I found that the groups people were shooting off a bipod on the bonnet of their car in horizontal sleet were quite literally world beating - there was no one on the thread who was shooting groups that wouldn't have put them in the top ten in the world at benchrest at that distance. A beginner seeing all these tiny groups is then lead to believe that their rifle needs some gadget, or they need to measure something else when reloading using some gadget, and this spirals out of control with the beginner adding more and more variability to their shooting through gadgets. They then end up in a situation where they've no idea how to identify the problem, because they've added so many variables, and this covers up for the fact that 3 inches worth of the problem is the person trying to measure the bullet seating depth to a level way beyond that which it is actually possible to do with the gear and components they own.

It is the case that if you've bought a faulty or badly engineered rifle then you will need to repair it but that is completely different to the "fiddling" that many people are doing. In truth there is no actual direction behind this fiddling in the sense that if you ask someone what impact their latest reloading fetish has upon point of impact the answer is always that they have to shoot it to see - they can never tell you that if they make adjustment X to the variable on the reloading bench then this will result in their impact point changing by 1.2mm to the left on the target. If you can't predict the outcome of your actions then you are acting randomly and so the only significance in your actions is in adding more randomness to the outcome.

Conversations you never hear:

"That new Forth Crossing Bridge thing, do you think the bits will meet in the middle?"
"No idea mate, we read on the internet that painting the handrails blue reduces the distance it is likely to be out so we've done that."
"Right, how does that work then?"
"No idea, but we've given it a try."
"And does that mean it will meet in the middle?"
"Oh we still can't say until we put it up."
"Does the blue paint move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know, it just makes things better. There's a bloke on the internet and his bridge was exactly aligned once he'd done it."
"Did he do anything else?"
"Yeah, he got an engineer in who did some calculations and survey work and made some adjustments to the construction. Plus he makes his dog wear a special collar and his wife only drives black cars, these things all helped but he says the blue paint was the key."
"So do cars now cross his bridge now?"
"Oh no, not cars. Because of harmonics he only allows a special type of truck to cross. The blue paint makes the bridge very sensitive to the type of vehicle on it."
"Right, how does that work?"
"We don't know."
"So, is it safe?"
"He's no idea. He sawed a bit out of some of the beams as a bloke on the internet said that helps with the harmonics but the design engineer is a bit worried it might not be a good idea."
"So are you going to do that on the Forth Crossing?"
"Yeah, we've already started."
"Why?"
"Because it says on the internet."
"And does that move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know that, we just have to keep sawing until it meets up."

Trouble is that new Forth River Crossing didn't quite meet in the middle - It took them an awful long time to join up the bits on the South End and it involved hanging heavy weights on it by the looks of it. The chat from those working on the job is that some of the piers at the South end are in mud rather than rock and so sinking a bit. Don't worry none of the contractors had ever built a bridge like this before so what could possibly go wrong!!!

 

[mchughcb]

Fast forward to today. The basic rifles haven't changed, although in real terms they are quite a bit cheaper. Take the T3 - majority are sold in the US for $5 or 600, so there is not a lot of time in there for lots of precision engineering.

But we expect sub 1" groups. Now most will do that with factory some of the time. But can't help feeling take a box of 20!rounds and they won't all be on 1" - 2 or 2 1/2 perhaps.

My mate is the general manager for Beretta and out of the several thousand tikka T3 he has sold which come with the 5 shot MoA guarantee using quality factory ammo and of the hundreds that have come back for further testing because the customer couldn't get them to group he said he's only replaced a handful. So yes, I'd expect 1" groups at 100 yards with a Tikka T3 using quality factory ammo otherwise they will replace your rifle if they can't get it to shoot as per the promise.

 

[Essexsussex]

This is the root of the problem - many people are obsessed with tinkering and "custom" this and "measuring" that when what they are actually buying into is more variables and, therefore, more variability.

The Black Dot of Doom (tens of thousands of reads, probably less than 200 rounds fired at the actual target!) and various other bits of messing about indicate that most people shoot something around 3 inches from a stalking rig, and that most of us can't hit a 1 inch dot at 100 yards with any reliability. However, the internet gives the impression that everyone shoots half inch groups at six hundred yards all day every day and this is also a factor both in expectations and also in the accuracy people claim. I remember an accuracy thread some years back where, with a quick application of Google, I found that the groups people were shooting off a bipod on the bonnet of their car in horizontal sleet were quite literally world beating - there was no one on the thread who was shooting groups that wouldn't have put them in the top ten in the world at benchrest at that distance. A beginner seeing all these tiny groups is then lead to believe that their rifle needs some gadget, or they need to measure something else when reloading using some gadget, and this spirals out of control with the beginner adding more and more variability to their shooting through gadgets. They then end up in a situation where they've no idea how to identify the problem, because they've added so many variables, and this covers up for the fact that 3 inches worth of the problem is the person trying to measure the bullet seating depth to a level way beyond that which it is actually possible to do with the gear and components they own.

It is the case that if you've bought a faulty or badly engineered rifle then you will need to repair it but that is completely different to the "fiddling" that many people are doing. In truth there is no actual direction behind this fiddling in the sense that if you ask someone what impact their latest reloading fetish has upon point of impact the answer is always that they have to shoot it to see - they can never tell you that if they make adjustment X to the variable on the reloading bench then this will result in their impact point changing by 1.2mm to the left on the target. If you can't predict the outcome of your actions then you are acting randomly and so the only significance in your actions is in adding more randomness to the outcome.

Conversations you never hear:

"That new Forth Crossing Bridge thing, do you think the bits will meet in the middle?"
"No idea mate, we read on the internet that painting the handrails blue reduces the distance it is likely to be out so we've done that."
"Right, how does that work then?"
"No idea, but we've given it a try."
"And does that mean it will meet in the middle?"
"Oh we still can't say until we put it up."
"Does the blue paint move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know, it just makes things better. There's a bloke on the internet and his bridge was exactly aligned once he'd done it."
"Did he do anything else?"
"Yeah, he got an engineer in who did some calculations and survey work and made some adjustments to the construction. Plus he makes his dog wear a special collar and his wife only drives black cars, these things all helped but he says the blue paint was the key."
"So do cars now cross his bridge now?"
"Oh no, not cars. Because of harmonics he only allows a special type of truck to cross. The blue paint makes the bridge very sensitive to the type of vehicle on it."
"Right, how does that work?"
"We don't know."
"So, is it safe?"
"He's no idea. He sawed a bit out of some of the beams as a bloke on the internet said that helps with the harmonics but the design engineer is a bit worried it might not be a good idea."
"So are you going to do that on the Forth Crossing?"
"Yeah, we've already started."
"Why?"
"Because it says on the internet."
"And does that move it left or right?"
"Oh, we don't know that, we just have to keep sawing until it meets up."

I really enjoyed this. it completely supports my principle of buying 30 year old good quality rifles that don't seem to be heavily used, and expecting them to work without any fannying about, rather than using the money I could probably find to rebarrel, fettle etc etc and create a "new" rifle.

Mind you, some people do just enjoy painting handrails blue, no matter what the outcome, just to see what happens. each to their own...

 

[Heym SR20]

My mate is the general manager for Beretta and out of the several thousand tikka T3 he has sold which come with the 5 shot MoA guarantee using quality factory ammo and of the hundreds that have come back for further testing because the customer couldn't get them to group he said he's only replaced a handful. So yes, I'd expect 1" groups at 100 yards with a Tikka T3 using quality factory ammo otherwise they will replace your rifle if they can't get it to shoot as per the promise.

Won't disagree with you here. But there are many brands and loads of quality ammunition, and whilst there is the 1 MoA or 1" guarantee, the question is which load is being used, and how many different loads need to be tested prior to getting that level of group. Note that they don't guarantee with a specific load or even a specific bullet weight.

I would be more impressed with a guarantee along the lines - "will shoot all good quality factory into 2 MoA and select loads into sub 1 MoA".Thats a dead fox or deer all day long.

Or even better - "we guarantee this 243 T3 rifle to shoot 1 MoA or better with Sako 243 100gn ammunition"

Would save a huge amount of em-buggerance and cost.

 

[Mungo]

I think there are 3 related problems:

1. There are a lot of variables that affect rifle accuracy, and very few people have the knowledge or time to really work out which are affecting their particular rifle. So they take a 'cargo cult' approach (which is what Caorach perfectly describes): they slavishly copy things that other people have done (or say they've done), in the hope that by doing the same thing, they get the same outcome - without ever understanding why you might do that in the first place. The phrase, by the way, comes from the aftermath of WWII in the Pacific Islands. Remote islanders saw the US military arrive, build airfields and control towers, and talk into microphones. Apparently miraculously, planes started arriving and disgorging hitherto unimaginable quantities of food and goods ('cargo'). At the end of the war, the military packed up and left, and planes stopped coming. So the islanders decided to try to make them come again: they built copies of control towers, and bamboo microphones, and spoke into the microphones, hoping to induce the planes to return. So they were copying the actions associated with making planes appear out of the sky, without understanding anything about why it had once worked. I think a VAST amount of what shooters do fits this description.

2. Many people cannot shoot as well as their rifles, but blame the rifle rather than themselves.

3. Many rifles (for all sorts of reasons) do not shoot as well as their owners think they do, but their owners are unaware of this because they never shoot statistically relevant groups, and you can get away with 3 inch groups most of the time at normal stalking ranges).

I think I am guilty, in one way of another, of all three. A case in point: I have a .308 that I thought for a long time shot very well. But I never shot more than 1-2 shots to test it. I started getting misses or bad shots. So I blamed the gun. I fiddled with it, but never really systematically tested it. Eventually, I set about shooting a series of groups, and found an accuracy issue: groups started out like this, which seems just about acceptable (if you only shoot to 150 yards or so):

View attachment 86449

But ended up like this:

View attachment 86450

Which is not acceptable.

So I sent it away to be bedded.

It came back, and shot touching holes. I was ecstatic. Until it didn't, instead shooting like this:

View attachment 86451

I was furious. But had just enough self awareness to think that maybe this was something to do with me, shooting off a long bipod on a windy day with a bruised shoulder after a day at clays. So I got someone who I knew to be a good and reliable shot (the inestimable Mr. Bewsher of this parish), and he promptly returned the following with 3 different factory loads:

View attachment 86452

View attachment 86453

View attachment 86454

(This last, by the way, are lead free Fox bullets, which I can very strongly recommend).

Anyway: the take home is that:

1. There had been something wrong with the rifle, and it lead to a number of poor shots - but it took me a long time to recognise this, and even longer to properly diagnose and fix it.
2. Once fixed, it is perfectly possible to shoot atrocious groups anyway.
3. Equally, once properly set up, a modern rifle shot by someone competent SHOULD return sub-MOA groups with most ammo.

 

[Shootist]

I know a lot of people who can guarantee a one inch group from their rifles every time. Of course, each one inch group isn't in quite the same place as the previous one. A three round group is no proof of accuracy either and a five round group isn't much better. Try a 20 or 30 round group, it doesn't have to be in one go. That will sort out the men from the boys. The internet has a lot to answer for.

 

[Erik Hamburger]

Some good points in all these posts.

For some the quest for accuracy on the range seems to be more important than the thrill of the hunt - which includes the skill of getting close to your deer. It sometimes seem the achievement of a small sub 1" group over the longest possible distance is what satisfies many stalkers more than a clean kill or a lovely piece of meat on your plate. Each to their own....

I myself am quite happy with a 2-3" group at 100 yards - it seems to kill the deer cleanly. And most deer (at least here in lowland/woodland scenario's) is shot at 30-60 Yards. A basic rifle and a simple fixed power scope does the job just fine in 99% of UK deer hunting scenario's - to those quite new to stalking I would say focus on the enjoyment of being outdoors and finding some deer rather than the quest for ever-increasing accuracy on a piece of paper on a range.

 

[75]

For me, reloading an enjoyable process. I enjoy testing different loads and finding what is most accurate in my rifle. I like the confidence that shooting consistently tight groups brings. I also see it as practice, as noted by Muir earlier.

However, I am under no illusions that my rifle will always out-shoot me and tight groups under benchrest conditions generally bear little resemblance to shots taken in the field!