So you bought a new “less than MOA” rifle
- Thread starter daniel craig
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Rail guns commonly get extra special care. Barrels are cleaned with more care than a princess' behind, everything is kept spotless at all times and so forth. Ultra-heavy barrels are very resistant to both heat and heat distortion and shooting in windy conditions boils down to waiting for the row of windbags to match their position at the time of previous shot.
So yes, basically, but benchrest is a strange combination of science, religion and ridiculous amounts of consistency, aimed to eliminate all variables between shots.
Personally I prefer shooting offhand nowadays, more often than not at moving targets. Most guns are accurate enough for anything short of shooting wings off a wasp at 100yd and the human factor and application of accumulated skill is what it's all about. At least for what my $.02 is worth, that is.
marksman13
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I guess I’ll have to agree to disagree with you as well. Shooter interface with the rifle is important. I don’t care how mechanically accurate a rifle may be, if the stock doesn’t fit and the trigger is not light and crisp, the shooter will not get the desired results. Optics, mounts and ammo matter as well. You can’t claim that the shooter is the single greatest factor without knowing exactly what gear is being used. I’ve watched too many shooters try to shoot their own rigs and not do so well, swap to one of my rifles, adjust it to fit them, and watch their groups tighten up. MOA will always be good enough for most people. I’m okay with a hunting rifle running MOA, but I’ve got rifles I expect much better accuracy out of and I can tell when something is slightly off, like forgetting to adjust the stock from one shooter to the next.
jmorris
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Nature Boy
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As the saying goes, "It's not the arrow, it's the indian"
In truth, it's the arrow, and the indian, AND the bow
How do you separate and place values on three mutually supporting elements of a system? I can't begin to even make a guess without more definition.
From a bench? Front rest and rear bag? 100 yards? 5 shot groups X 5?
I do know this, neither the rifle or the ammo are worth a damn at reading the wind
In truth, it's the arrow, and the indian, AND the bow
How do you separate and place values on three mutually supporting elements of a system? I can't begin to even make a guess without more definition.
From a bench? Front rest and rear bag? 100 yards? 5 shot groups X 5?
I do know this, neither the rifle or the ammo are worth a damn at reading the wind
mcb
Member
It also depends on what context. In most more practical applications with guns/ammo a moderate step above junk the Indian plays a much larger role than the arrow or the bow.
Hand Jerry Miculek a 929 revolver that only shoots a 6-inch group at 25 yards (from the bench) and give me one that will shoot a 1-inch group at 25 yards and I bet he still beats me at a USPSA match despite the lesser revolver.
Hand Robbie Johnson a 2 MOA rifle (again from the bench) and he will still beat me on a long range precision rifle match even if I am running a 1/2 MOA gun.
Within reason a good shooter can compensate (or at least adapt) to some degree to a bad gun/ammo. A bad shooter benefits very little from good gun/ammo in most practical settings. See this all the time at practical shooting matches.
Hand Jerry Miculek a 929 revolver that only shoots a 6-inch group at 25 yards (from the bench) and give me one that will shoot a 1-inch group at 25 yards and I bet he still beats me at a USPSA match despite the lesser revolver.
Hand Robbie Johnson a 2 MOA rifle (again from the bench) and he will still beat me on a long range precision rifle match even if I am running a 1/2 MOA gun.
Within reason a good shooter can compensate (or at least adapt) to some degree to a bad gun/ammo. A bad shooter benefits very little from good gun/ammo in most practical settings. See this all the time at practical shooting matches.
daniel craig
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mokin
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I think Nature Boy and mcb have some good points. I've been following this thread a while. It's made me think about a conversation I had with a gent at the range a couple weeks ago. He was getting set up for a high power match. His rifle probably cost as much as my truck. I asked him if he had any suggestions that would help me out. He asked what I was shooting and what was the best I had done. The particular rifle I was thinking about was an older model and built for hunting rather than precision. I said if I really did my part, with handloads, I could get it under 2 moa. He suggested recrowning and maybe some trigger work but thought I was already squeezing more out of that rifle than it was built for.
Jason_W
Member
Shotguns are my first love so I’m by nature not an accuracy nerd.
what I look for in a firearm are consistency and durability.
if a gun is consistently minute of kill zone out to the distances I need, I’m happy as long as it stays minute of kill zone after I put it through physical hell.
what drives me nuts are inconsistent guns. I’d much rather have a gun that always prints 2.5” groups at 100 yards over a gun that will sometimes print.5” groups, but only if the ammo type, barrel temp, barometric pressure, and time of day are just right.
what I look for in a firearm are consistency and durability.
if a gun is consistently minute of kill zone out to the distances I need, I’m happy as long as it stays minute of kill zone after I put it through physical hell.
what drives me nuts are inconsistent guns. I’d much rather have a gun that always prints 2.5” groups at 100 yards over a gun that will sometimes print.5” groups, but only if the ammo type, barrel temp, barometric pressure, and time of day are just right.
illinoisburt
Member
Context matters a great deal in this debate. If we are talking about little groups on paper targets or trying to hit small objects really far away, maybe you have a point. Those are great hobbies and have plenty of adherents. Heck I've done plenty of that myself and it is certainly cool to cut tiny cloverleafs, especially with my own handloaded rounds.
Real world uses beyond that for the vast majority of civilian and military rifle users that is not the case. Until maybe 25 years ago, finding an out-of-the-box MOA standard production gun was more fantasy than reality. Sure a few existed but most required a bunch tuning, loading, and tinkering to achieve that level of accuracy. The fact is all those animals and soldiers who befell a rifle bullet in the past century were likely hit by a gun only capable of 2 to 5 moa on an average day. Most of them were likely aimed fire and for practical purposes hitting within a inch or two of point of aim out to a few hundred yards is more than sufficient to accomplish the intended purpose of a rifle bullet.
Actually, I got me several of them guaranteed sub-MOA rifles. One of them came with a target proving it. I never knew what a horrible shot I must be until now that I have no excuses or the rifle to blame it on. Well, I can always blame it on gravitational disturbances, earth spin and wobble or boring and mundane things like the wind. I know, it has gotta be the scope, that is what it is!
Ha Ha, shooters are a funny bunch, and we have a litany of excuses to blame our poor results on. We've even invented a term called the "flyer" which is a shot that did n't land where it was supposed to. They are generally blamed on everything but the shooter.
Ha Ha, shooters are a funny bunch, and we have a litany of excuses to blame our poor results on. We've even invented a term called the "flyer" which is a shot that did n't land where it was supposed to. They are generally blamed on everything but the shooter.
Hey, I am just trying to justify a new scope! I must need one or even a few new Leupolds----
I have shot long enough when I call a flier its not me. Ill own up to a screwup though.
Thats the problem w reloading, and tweaking......where do you stop?
Me personally, just hunting.....will take a half incher at 100 as a chuck rifle.
Have had some do a little better. Repeatably
But still not good enough for the BR games.
Did shoot a half inch group at 225 yds when a guy let me try his BR rig. Honked him off LOL
Thats the problem w reloading, and tweaking......where do you stop?
Me personally, just hunting.....will take a half incher at 100 as a chuck rifle.
Have had some do a little better. Repeatably
But still not good enough for the BR games.
Did shoot a half inch group at 225 yds when a guy let me try his BR rig. Honked him off LOL
Coal Dragger
member
Gotta agree with Taliv on this one. Equipment makes a huge difference.
I’m going to condition the above statement with more clarification:
1.) I discount and frankly don’t care about dumb dumbs. Aside from the dim witted bottom 3% not creating safety violations at the range or hurting others, I could care less if they hit anything. I don’t even try to help them anymore. If a shooter is too dumb to understand basics like pressing the trigger without disturbing the sights, natural point of aim, or other basics and doesn’t want to learn and just wants to engage in ballistic self pleasure they can have at it. Their opinions one way or the other on firearms are invalid. Please note this only applies to willful morons who have no desire to learn, new shooters that want to learn and will take coaching are different.
2.) Bearing in mind point #1, even reasonably skilled shooters all too often buy into marketing hype, and have unrealistic expectations for how mechanically accurate/precise their action, barrel, ammunition, and optic are even if all other variables could be eliminated. Most of the sub MOA guarantees are for 3 shot groups. Yeah, OK that is not a statistically significant number of data points. You know why almost no one makes a guarantee like that for 10 shot groups? Because even from a machine rest that is exponentially more difficult to achieve at a high rate in a production gun with factory ammo.
3.) Most shooters cherry pick their data, and ignore all the 3 shot groups that don’t achieve 1/2 MOA as if they didn’t happen and claim they have a 1/2 MOA rig and ammo. Uh huh. Sure. Run a 10 shot group and get back with me, you’re probably going to find you will be lucky to hold under 1 MOA for those 10 shots. If you do though, you have a much more solid claim to a no BS sub MOA rig.
4.) Most average factory rifles aren’t particularly shooter friendly when it comes to easy repeatable results even if the mechanical components and ammo are up to the task. One size fits all stocks basically sort of fit everyone just good enough to be acceptable, some don’t even manage to do that.
Factory triggers leave a lot to be desired on a lot of rifles.
Take those two issues and multiply them if we’re talking about a semiautomatic carbine like an M4 with a telescoping stock and GI trigger. Gas guns are considerably more difficult for most shooters to do precision work with than a bolt gun for a variety of reasons,
Now if you give that willing to learn new shooter, or competent trained shooter a well made rifle with all the details attended to they are going to build skill faster, and achieve better results than on some random “as good as” substitute. I guarantee if you take that individual and put them behind a custom bolt gun with a carefully constructed action, with a great trigger, in a good stock adjusted to them, with a top quality barrel, good glass, and good ammo they will easily perform better than handing them a stock Remington 700 with a Tasco on top.
I’m going to condition the above statement with more clarification:
1.) I discount and frankly don’t care about dumb dumbs. Aside from the dim witted bottom 3% not creating safety violations at the range or hurting others, I could care less if they hit anything. I don’t even try to help them anymore. If a shooter is too dumb to understand basics like pressing the trigger without disturbing the sights, natural point of aim, or other basics and doesn’t want to learn and just wants to engage in ballistic self pleasure they can have at it. Their opinions one way or the other on firearms are invalid. Please note this only applies to willful morons who have no desire to learn, new shooters that want to learn and will take coaching are different.
2.) Bearing in mind point #1, even reasonably skilled shooters all too often buy into marketing hype, and have unrealistic expectations for how mechanically accurate/precise their action, barrel, ammunition, and optic are even if all other variables could be eliminated. Most of the sub MOA guarantees are for 3 shot groups. Yeah, OK that is not a statistically significant number of data points. You know why almost no one makes a guarantee like that for 10 shot groups? Because even from a machine rest that is exponentially more difficult to achieve at a high rate in a production gun with factory ammo.
3.) Most shooters cherry pick their data, and ignore all the 3 shot groups that don’t achieve 1/2 MOA as if they didn’t happen and claim they have a 1/2 MOA rig and ammo. Uh huh. Sure. Run a 10 shot group and get back with me, you’re probably going to find you will be lucky to hold under 1 MOA for those 10 shots. If you do though, you have a much more solid claim to a no BS sub MOA rig.
4.) Most average factory rifles aren’t particularly shooter friendly when it comes to easy repeatable results even if the mechanical components and ammo are up to the task. One size fits all stocks basically sort of fit everyone just good enough to be acceptable, some don’t even manage to do that.
Factory triggers leave a lot to be desired on a lot of rifles.
Take those two issues and multiply them if we’re talking about a semiautomatic carbine like an M4 with a telescoping stock and GI trigger. Gas guns are considerably more difficult for most shooters to do precision work with than a bolt gun for a variety of reasons,
Now if you give that willing to learn new shooter, or competent trained shooter a well made rifle with all the details attended to they are going to build skill faster, and achieve better results than on some random “as good as” substitute. I guarantee if you take that individual and put them behind a custom bolt gun with a carefully constructed action, with a great trigger, in a good stock adjusted to them, with a top quality barrel, good glass, and good ammo they will easily perform better than handing them a stock Remington 700 with a Tasco on top.
mcb
Member
I got to disagree. If like your point 1) we throw out the dumb dumb equivalent of the equipment like Rem 770 with "Chinesium" glass then any decent quality rifle with decent quality glass and good factory ammunition is more than adequate for a shooter to learn on. Going from decent quality factor to high dollar custom will have very little impact on a new shooters ability to learn the fundamentals IMHO. For that mater the best thing to learn the fundamentals on IMHO is a 22LR at relatively close range. You can learn the fundamentals of sight picture, trigger control, and all the various shooting positions and do with with minimal investment in hardware.
I agree with you point 2) if you are not shooting 5-shot groups at a minimum then your just fooling yourself. Best would be to average several consecutive 5-shot groups. 10 shot group are great but few shooters can stay focused that long (especially new) and few hunting rifles can sustain that much heat without a thermal issue moving the point of impact. That said most military acceptance criteria uses 10 shot groups. IIRC the ASR program that ultimately selected the Barrette MRAD required average max group size on 10 shot groups at 100 meters to be MOA, averaged over 10 groups, both with and without suppressor installed. A 200rd evaluation.
Your point three has been going on as long as we human have been comparing anything. Show me the data/pictures or it didn't happen.
I have to disagree with the gas gun comment too. The less the shooter has to do but focus on shooting the better in my experience. They don't have to break position and just focus on the target and trigger control. Now getting a gas gun to shoot as well as a bolt gun may or may not be a valid point but when I teach a new shooter to shoot I grab my 10/22. Semi-auto lets the new shooter simply focus on their shooting and shoot. The gun takes carry of the cycling for them. Manually operate guns come later if they are interested.
Many manufacturers claim or infer MOA accuracy from their hunting rifles including Kimber, Tikka, Savage and several others. And I think these are not bogus claims. And when I read the OP I had in mind he was talking hunting weapons, bolt or semi, with sporter/lightweight barrels and typical hunting stocks as opposed to bench rest rifles with heavy barrels, specialty purpose stocks and high end ammo and glass. My old .270 Ruger M77 will darn sure shoot MOA with good (home loads) ammo but it will not do it sustained, five shots would be pushing it. Why, because it has a light barrel and it is not free floated and I am not going to change it because it is a superbly accurate rifle for the intended purpose for that ONE cold shot on a deer in that clearing several hundreds of yards out. And it can be counted on to deliver that shot and has many times. If the deer evolve due to some virus gone loose such that they begin to shoot back then deer hunting will be a different sport wherein sustained engagements might be required to pacify the rebel deer and I will need a different rifle for that. When Savage says one shot, one kill or Kimber (or whoever) says guaranteed MOA and I am holding the rifle and it weights 5.5 pounds, well, I think it evident a three to five round group is all anyone could expect before the rifle heats up and Kimber (or whoever) is not saying any different. If it ain't dead in three shots I should quit because that is unethical for one thing and clearly I have some sort of incorrect weapon choice going on for the intended game.
My old Ruger has taken every deer with one single shot, dead on the spot. The only time it did not was up close at about 25 yards, the deer bolted as I pulled the trigger and a gut shot resulted. The deer somersaulted into a bayou from the steep bank and drowned. It was such a horrifying experience, up close and personal, I did not hunt again for several years and even now, decades later, usually do not take an animal, I just like being in the woods with my rifle choice.
My old Ruger has taken every deer with one single shot, dead on the spot. The only time it did not was up close at about 25 yards, the deer bolted as I pulled the trigger and a gut shot resulted. The deer somersaulted into a bayou from the steep bank and drowned. It was such a horrifying experience, up close and personal, I did not hunt again for several years and even now, decades later, usually do not take an animal, I just like being in the woods with my rifle choice.
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...as great long range cartridge .270 is, several hundred of yards is borderline indirect fire in my book.
illinoisburt
Member
With a good rest and a point blank zero 300 yards should be a-okay without holdovers or scope fiddling so long as the shooter has practiced at that distance before. If all previous range time is 100 yards, I 100% agree with your sentiment!
...as great long range cartridge .270 is, several hundred of yards is borderline indirect fire in my book.
300yd is a walk in the park in calm weather and good support (even sticks do just fine if the grass is too tall for prone), I've taken deer with .308 beyond that with relative ease. On the other hand the meaning of "several" may be open to interpretation; I'd perceive it being 6 or 7, and in any case no less than five. That's quite a bit of flight time, bullet drop and wind drift.
Spare Parts
Member
As an engineer (retired), I agree that system tolerances are additive. Further, the bell-curve of all those tolerances can simultaneously conspire against us. We may call it a "flier". Lose your concentration, forget your trigger discipline, and - congratulations! - you're on the far end of the bell curve with the rest of us noobs.
I'm relatively new (4 yrs) to shooting. Bought a cheap Ruger American in .308 as a learning tool and for deer hunting later. As a system (me, the rifle, and the ammo), we were pretty bad - 2-3 MOA. The key is to try different things, find the factor causing the biggest system problem, and fix it. Lead sleds were good for proving that I am the problem.
You can also give the rifle to an experienced shooter - my nephew bagged two bucks with two shots last fall, having never fired the rifle before.Early on, my biggest problems were trigger discipline, then breath control, then a good bipod and rifle butt beanie bag. Later, it was a lighter trigger spring, custom reloaded ammo, heartbeat control, and letting that lightweight barrel cool off between rounds. I still only get about .8 MOA - with the occasional "flier" that tells me to work the fundamentals every time.
It's a waste of time to work on a 0.2MOA improvement with custom ammo when your breath control is 0.6MOA (as measured one day, looking through the scope.) Identify and fix the biggest problems first.
Kudos to the poster who suggested dry-firing at a target at 100 yards. If the reticle jumps, happy day! You'll know how many MOA you can take off your groups.
Poper
Member
Me, too.
However I still test my loads off the bench with a solid rest. If the load proofs out to consistent 2" groups or less at 200 meters, it is good to go for the deer hunt. I then practice with that load until I can hit an 8.5x11 sheet of paper at 200 meters from a kneeling position at will.
Chuck R.
Member
That's my approach as well; get a load within 1 MOA and practice with it.
Luckily I've got a home range with TGTs out to 760yds, with 400 & 547 off my back deck. I'm routinely humbled trying to get 1st round hits within a whitetail kill zone off shooting from field positions (tripod sitting & backpack prone) at those distances. Doesn't take much of a missed wind call at all to put one outside 8" at those distances.
mcb
Member
You guys in flat country get to shoot that far. I don't think I have every shot a deer at more than about 120 yards. The property I hunt back in Ohio and now in Tennessee rarely offer opportunities to shoot much more than that. 2-MOA is a dead deer all day long around here.
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