Satellite flyers, soooo frustrating!

[Heym SR20]

Pants grouping but deer still fell over!
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And that’s the point. Most deer actually have a pretty large killzone. Assuming the black dot is 1” dot, a consistent sub 3” is more than adequate for most deer stalking activities. Yes smaller is better on paper. And if shooting long distances then better accuracy is needed, but for 95% if you can keep your shots within a 3” group then you will efficiently and humanely kill deer.

 

[Mungo]

And that’s the point. Most deer actually have a pretty large killzone. Assuming the black dot is 1” dot, a consistent sub 3” is more than adequate for most deer stalking activities. Yes smaller is better on paper. And if shooting long distances then better accuracy is needed, but for 95% if you can keep your shots within a 3” group then you will efficiently and humanely kill deer.

I’m increasingly not sure that’s entirely true.

The problem with a 3MOA gun is that it’s really hard to tell where your mean point of impact is with small sample sizes. A 3 shot zero could be a very long way off.

You’re picturing a cloud 3” across, but centred on a deer’s chest. That assumes you know where your zero is. But if your zero is 3 inches away from where you thought it was, then even at 100m, you’re going to be gut shooting a lot of deer.

 

[ejg]

Best to get the rifle as accurate as possible, enough other factors pushing us off aim when hunting.
edi

 

[Heym SR20]

I’m increasingly not sure that’s entirely true.

The problem with a 3MOA gun is that it’s really hard to tell where your mean point of impact is with small sample sizes. A 3 shot zero could be a very long way off.

You’re picturing a cloud 3” across, but centred on a deer’s chest. That assumes you know where your zero is. But if your zero is 3 inches away from where you thought it was, then even at 100m, you’re going to be gut shooting a lot of deer.

I was not talking about a 3MoA rifle, i was meaning a stalker being to keep all his shots within 3 moa from a variety of different field positions - ie real world stalking.

 

[Utectok]

Then you get thinking how much does the stock matter??

@ejg

 

[Mungo]

Then you get thinking how much does the stock matter??

@ejg

Stock fit certainly matters.

Loose action or poor fit to stock matters.

Interference between barrel and stock matters.

These can all be detected very easily with small samples because the effects are so enormous.

 

[Mungo]

Then you get thinking how much does the stock matter??

@ejg

Here’s a lovely example. A 17 HMR belonging to a friend. He was having accuracy problems, and said he kept missing easy shots, especially when leaning on walls and tree trunks.

I looked at it. No barrel clearance at all, on a cheap plastic stock.

I did a test: 3 shots off a bipod, no forward or downward pressure at all. 3 shots off a fence post, leaning heavily on it:

 

[HonestJohn]

I think there’s some severe overthinking happening here on this thread

 

[Mungo]

I think there’s some severe overthinking happening here on this thread

Maybe. But isn’t that what forums are for?

And if by overthinking the stats it saves people wasting enormous amounts of time and money they really don’t need to spend, then surely there’s some value to it?

Arguably ALL progress comes because someone somewhere starts overthinking received wisdom.

 

[caorach]

I think there’s some severe overthinking happening here on this thread

Actually I think this thread is a bit of a relief from overthinking in the sense that the normal distribution is pretty well understood and fairly simple to apply to shooting. Where the overthinking comes in is with people who engage in all sorts of weird reloading routines etc. and spend their time thinking about ways to justify this on the basis of "evidence" that simply doesn't exist.

I did it all myself when I started reloading - I read about a lot of stuff that it was necessary to do and initially I just went with it until I realised that things were very complex. After some further thinking, and examining a lot of claims being made, I concluded that there was pretty much no evidence for any of the various processes I was carrying out and my testing was producing lots of data but no actual information. I also noticed that many of the experts weren't even using the right words for some of the physics they were claiming to have improved upon and that for the most part they were just generating data as well, there was no actual information contained in this data. They were then spending time making this data fit whatever theory they'd come up with and because their testing was so flawed it usually wasn't too hard to do this.

Falling back on the fundamentals of how the universe works I stopped thinking about it and started just stuffing a primer, powder, and a bullet into the case and shooting it. I'd become overthinking free.

 

[hw101]

Absolutely. The shooter is always the largest source of error, and the size of that error completely dwarfs everything else.

I think there’s some severe overthinking happening here on this thread

I think there’s some severe overthinking happening here on this thread

I’d politely disagree with you - he’s providing expert analysis to answer the OPs original question.

 

[HonestJohn]

I’d politely disagree with you - he’s providing expert analysis to answer the OPs original question.

Meant more in line with people’s obsession with extreme deep-diving on subject such as accuracy etc.

 

[Utectok]

Meant more in line with people’s obsession with extreme deep-diving on subject such as accuracy etc.

That’s normal for rifle shooters due to myths we all learnt about rifles. I was pleased with a 2” group at 300m but a local gamekeeper said he can hold a thumbnail group at 300m… sort of sums it up, many think the impossible is possible with our lazer to 2 miles rifles then are dissatisfied when we can’t achieve it and start probing why?

(Btw I suppose a thumbnail group at 300m is possible eventually but I also think the gamekeeper is a total sh1tter)

 

[hw101]

Meant more in line with people’s obsession with extreme deep-diving on subject such as accuracy etc.

Ah yes - but this isn’t an obsession with accuracy- it’s an explanation as to why extreme degrees of accuracy are much more difficult to achieve than we realise.
You can apply the theory to many everyday scenarios. Probability, statistics and the ‘music of chance’ are the fabric of our everyday lives - but listening to and understanding the music my life is improved.