Varminterror, what's the logic of shooting round robin? I'd think you'd shoot your best groups if you stayed in position and locked on one target. Very nice shooting, regardless!
A long answer for a simple question:
A few reasons, none of which are really conducive to the test itself, but rather productive for me as the individual shooter.
I’ll start by calling out - I stole this rifle from my wife and restocked it to fit me this winter, she’s had it for about 9yrs, and I’ve maybe shot it a handful of times until now. She got a new 10/22 about 6years ago, and hasn’t shot this one - I wanted a bolt gun for NRL-22 games and envied the spiral fluted barrel, so I took it over. I have never shot a group with this rifle until now. I knew it shot well, having seen her shoot it, so I bore sighted at 25yrds, took one shot, then moved to 50, then 100. I keep it zeroed at 50. I use it almost exclusively for positional shooting practice, and transition practice, so shooting groups would be out of the ordinary for my normal method of shooting - especially with this rifle.
One other excuse I would use - I was shooting on a pretty “hoppy” bench, with a cheap bipod and a rear bag, so I was effectively rebuilding my natural point of aim no matter what. The range I use is best shot with a machine rest or front sandbag, but I wanted to keep my bipod in place for practice. So I was rebuilding NPOA at least a little whether I shifted targets or not.
Taking advantage of that excuse, since I shoot more dynamic long range steel games than paper games the last ~8yrs or so (time flies!), I need a lot of practice building position and transitioning between targets, reestablishing NPOA quickly on the clock. So this little game was an opportunity to practice building position and transitions. So by shooting round robin, I built position at least 4 times (I came out of the rifle a few times in the middle of the strings), and was able to pull in somewhere around 36 transition reps, plus about 20 shots to confirm zero and practice a bit on other targets. I pushed these to be somewhere on the order of 30-45sec per string to keep myself moving. One of the 116 targets was even faster - it just clicked on every lap. I have a PRS type match next weekend, gone all week for work, and it rained all weekend - I wanted SOME kind of practice while I had an hour to spare.
This is also a “shoot for score” game, where the group doesn’t have to be good, the score has to be great. Note on one of my bulls, I punched a .17” group, but it was only a 29. I had 30’s which were groups twice as large. By NOT shooting groups, I kept myself from shooting to my bullet holes, and kept my focus better on the 10ring. Just part of how I tried to manage my own mind for the test.
I also justified the decision for myself that I would have fewer reloads to shoot strings of 4 instead of groups of 3. I could have loaded 10rnds in each mag and carried on until a 2 shot reload, but I’ve never liked loading mags with more than my string/group when shooting for score.
And finally, another individual self-management idiosyncrasy - one reason I quit playing paper games and favor precision steel games (among many reasons) is the fact I have WAY less target panic if I’m not shooting with my focus on building a group. In a round robin fashion, somewhat pushing the clock, I can distract myself from the crests and caverns of spotting my impacts while building a group, and focus on the next shot.
So yes, if I had a heavy bag out front and a little more self-control, I may have cleaned the targets if I’d have tracked on the bags and built groups. But knowing myself after ~25yrs playing different shooting sport games, round robin is the easiest way for me to drop in without any prep and deliver nearest my peak ability - which sure ain’t what it used to be.