Let’s talk about how accurate a gun is…

[BBerguson]

This is something that has bothered me for awhile and really got on my nerves after watching a video from that idiot wtw. I’m not going to put his name down, just his initials. And I could go on and on about him but I’m not going to here…

Anyways, how accurate is a gun. Every month I read about new guns in American Rifleman, I see posts online, I talk to buddies. The discussion always leads to group size and the smallest, largest and average are listed with various ammo. My argument is that the smallest and the average group size is irrelevant. The largest group is what matters. You can’t decide when you are going to shoot that small group So ultimately, the small and average are not dependable. Now of course if there is a known reason for the large group such as a pulled shot or odd wind then that (to me) is understandable as it wasn’t the fault of the gun or ammo and that group could be thrown out.

When I’m testing a new cartridge/load I usually load 9 rounds for 3 groups. If they are within my expectations, I‘ll load another 15 for 3 5 shot groups or 5 3 shot groups depending on how the groups start out and my mood. Sometimes a load may group so poorly that I’ll bring the ammo home and pull the bullets to save components. Did that a couple of times with the 450BM and a 265gr Lee cast…

When all is said and done, I like shooting small groups but ultimately the gun with a particular load is only as accurate as the largest group.

Let the arguments begin….

 

[oscarflytyer]

Forget who said only an accurate gun is fun, the reneged on that! Barsness maybe?!? I used to be very hung up on accuracy. If a rifle wouldn't put 3 inside an inch, I had no use for it. Came from my smallbore competition days I think. I am proud and will say, I had a Win M70 300 Mag from my Dad, after some work/restocking/bedding and reloading, I had two diff loads with hunting bullets that were well inside an inch at 100 meters.

Nowadays, I could almost care less about accuracy. Funny, I am more particular about handgun accuracy, and that is more about tuning the cast bullet and load to the gun.

When it comes to rifles, I am way more into older stuff and bringing back/getting older stuff shooting - like Trapdoors/Rolling Blocks, etc. Will admit tho, I am prob going to obsess a little over modern gun/caliber accuracy as I start to reload and shoot the new to me 222 Rem and 257 Roberts.

 

[Outpost75]

Three-shot groups are almost meaningless in determining accuracy, although it will establish point of impact relative to the sights.

A series of not less than three, and better five consecutive 5-shot groups provides a meaningful assessment of accuracy to compare loads. To get the most info from the least number of rounds fire a ten-shot group, measure the x,y coordinates and calculate the radial standard deviation.

 

[RicinYakima]

After shooting CBA matches for over twenty years, the minimum is a ten shot group. My analysis is that one 25 shot group is worth ten five shot groups. I have shot a .505" group at a national match with a rifle that is a 1.25" grouper over 1000 rounds. Does that make it a 1/2 MOA rifle? NOT!

 

[Mitty38]

I am not by any means a competitor. So my outlook is way different then others.
Been to a few pistol and multi gun matches and if the gun can shoot a five shot 2 inch group, at 25 yards. Good enough for most of those.
As for my rifles. Outside of my .22lrs.
I only have one rifle currently. A 450 Bush master AR15. Gets good enough for any hunting I would do in Ohio, with my loads at 2 moa. I have got 3/4 MOA with it. But that don't count. As most 5 shot groups come in slightly under or right at Two.
Besides that, if I would not mind another 30ish caliber that got close to 1 moa.Just I. Case I were to get into Bench Rest competition.

 

[Tom]

I have a target I'm proud of that measures .178. I have no idea who did the work, but it's a nicely bedded 788 with a hart bbl in 223ai. Not cast, berger 52gr bullets. While conditions weren't "Houston warehouse", it was close, dead calm. I suck at reading the wind, and am not consistent in my shooting. I know it's me, as I can tell before sitting at the bench if I'm going to do well or not. I've shot over an inch with the same loads and knew what the results would be before arriving at the range. I guess that's what separates me from folks like Speedy and Tony Boyer.
I never shot competively, but used to shoot a lot of gophers out to 400 yards. Past 400, things fell apart for me with that rifle. Back then, I figured a 40% kill rate to be a good day, if I excluded the close shots.
As far as the YouTube stars, well, edit the videos and only show your best moments.

 

[L Ross]

Beats me. I'll sit my butt down and a pretty solid bench, with a pretty good scope, a very good trigger, and what I think is decent cast bullet ammo or good .22 rimfire ammo. I will put a clean target on a 100 yard target frame and try to duplicate groups I read about on Rimfire Central or even on here. Some times I'll get a pretty small 3 shot or 5 shot cluster and start feeling all cocky, but I never can put 20 rounds in an inch or less at 100 yards measured center to center as best I can with a caliper, never. I end up with a big ol' raggedy hole that's somewhere around an inch and an eighth to an inch and a quarter. And those big raggedy holes are with my "target" guns. Mil-Surps, lever guns, old single shots, muzzle loaders, etc. So nope, no one inch rifles for me.
I still cherish the memories of those instances when the stars align and I fired 8 BPCR rounds into just under 2" at 200 yards from cross sticks with a Soule sight and cross hair front aperture. Or that picture I posted where the last three shots from my cast bullet load in a Remington 700 .308 made a 3" cluster at 440 yards when I was sighting it in. We all have those kind of memories to enjoy.
I don't care about jacketed loads because all I need there is to confirm a zero for hunting at whatever distance I set as a max and for whatever size game I am after.

 

[BBerguson]

Forget who said only an accurate gun is fun, the reneged on that! Barsness maybe?!? I used to be very hung up on accuracy. If a rifle wouldn't put 3 inside an inch, I had no use for it. Came from my smallbore competition days I think. I am proud and will say, I had a Win M70 300 Mag from my Dad, after some work/restocking/bedding and reloading, I had two diff loads with hunting bullets that were well inside an inch at 100 meters.

Nowadays, I could almost care less about accuracy. Funny, I am more particular about handgun accuracy, and that is more about tuning the cast bullet and load to the gun.

When it comes to rifles, I am way more into older stuff and bringing back/getting older stuff shooting - like Trapdoors/Rolling Blocks, etc. Will admit tho, I am prob going to obsess a little over modern gun/caliber accuracy as I start to reload and shoot the new to me 222 Rem and 257 Roberts.

Townsend Whelen said that and I agree with it for some guns. Some are just plain fun to shoot!

I’ve transitioned from pistols to rifles since I started pc’ing my cast bullets, I’ll blame this site for that…. Loading cast in a rifle is like owning a second rifle as the variables change so much. And buying a new mold can almost do the same thing!

For me, it comes down to my abilities as a caster and reloader for what accuracy I get out of a rifle. My eyes and desire to shoot a pistol really well just aren’t there. I like lots of magnification in my scopes shooting mostly 50 or 100 yards. Shooting slow cast bullets makes this ideal for my likes, so, I do what I like. Once in awhile I’ll hang a full size silhouette at 300 yards to see if I can ring it for fun. But with a limited lead supply I don’t like wasting my lead…

I was playing with cast for my 222 (REM 788) and 223 (AR-15) but grew tired of the inconsistency. Maybe I’ll get back to it someday but it will be with a more modern bullet mold designed for powder coat.

 

[BBerguson]

Three-shot groups are almost meaningless in determining accuracy, although it will establish point of impact relative to the sights.

A series of not less than three, and better five consecutive 5-shot groups provides a meaningful assessment of accuracy to compare loads. To get the most info from the least number of rounds fire a ten-shot group, measure the x,y coordinates and calculate the radial standard deviation.

I don’t use 3 shot groups to determine accuracy, I use them to determine inaccuracy. If I can’t get one 3s group that’s respectable out of three I’ll move on to another load. I move on to 5 (or more) shot groups if there a load shows it is worth it. And this is my point to my original post. Everyone wants to brag about the great group(s) their gun will shoot but they are meaningless as far as how accurate the gun is.

I look at it from a hostage situation. If a terrorist was holding someone I love and I had to take a shot to save that someone, what rifle do I want?

 

[BBerguson]

I am not by any means a competitor. So my outlook is way different then others.
Been to a few pistol and multi gun matches and if the gun can shoot a five shot 2 inch group, at 25 yards. Good enough for most of those.
As for my rifles. Outside of my .22lrs.
I only have one rifle currently. A 450 Bush master AR15. Gets good enough for any hunting I would do in Ohio, with my loads at 2 moa. I have got 3/4 MOA with it. But that don't count. As most 5 shot groups come in slightly under or right at Two.
Besides that, if I would not mind another 30ish caliber that got close to 1 moa.Just I. Case I were to get into Bench Rest competition.

I’m not a competitor either Mitty, I shoot for my enjoyment and the pleasure of developing a load that will shoot within my reasonable expectations. My 450BM CVA Cascade Is the first rifle I started casting for so it’s kind of a sweet spot for me. I have a new mold for it and I’m hopeful it‘s the one I’ve been looking for. I’d really like to kill a deer with this gun and a cast bullet and maybe, just maybe, this will be the one…

 

[BBerguson]

I have a target I'm proud of that measures .178. I have no idea who did the work, but it's a nicely bedded 788 with a hart bbl in 223ai. Not cast, berger 52gr bullets. While conditions weren't "Houston warehouse", it was close, dead calm. I suck at reading the wind, and am not consistent in my shooting. I know it's me, as I can tell before sitting at the bench if I'm going to do well or not. I've shot over an inch with the same loads and knew what the results would be before arriving at the range. I guess that's what separates me from folks like Speedy and Tony Boyer.
I never shot competively, but used to shoot a lot of gophers out to 400 yards. Past 400, things fell apart for me with that rifle. Back then, I figured a 40% kill rate to be a good day, if I excluded the close shots.
As far as the YouTube stars, well, edit the videos and only show your best moments.

Tom,

I have those targets too! My absolute favorite target I ever shot wasn’t a group at all. It was the target at 60 yards using my Kimber 22HS shooting SK Standard. A fly landed on the target and I splattered it. Within a minute, a spider came out to explore the fly splatter and I center punched it too. Yes, this is an accurate rifle shooting accurate ammunition.

 

[Rushcreek]

My brother used to hit flies and tacks on the 100 yard targets with his 6mm Mohawk 600 with a K4 Weaver.
He had better eyes back then(50 years ago).

 

[JWinAZ]

In the category of over thinking things:

One purpose for evaluating accuracy is the development of designs; firearm, bullet, cartridge, etc. Given the variation in accuracy (from group to group) how do you compare two or more alternatives? For example version 1 has a group of 1.5" and version 2 has a group of 1.35". The question is (given a limited sample size) what is the likelihood that the difference is just due to the inherent random variation? If the likelihood is not small the conclusion that version 1 is better may not be right.

In the simplest case, comparing two versions, the analysis is done by using a t-test. This requires calculating the radius mean and standard deviation for each shot in the group. If multiple versions are being evaluated the Analysis of Variance method is used. A full blown approach is to use Designed Experiments method which allows multiple variables to be changed. For example this might answer the question of the effect of primer and powder interaction.

All of this is quite involved and not really justified for avocation pursuits (unless severe OCD is present).

The t-test, full name Student's t-test, was developed by an employee of the Guinness brewery. Used to evaluate changes in process given small sample sizes. The employee used the pseudonym Student to publish his work.

 

[PGPKY2014]

This is something that has bothered me for awhile and really got on my nerves after watching a video from that idiot wtw. I’m not going to put his name down, just his initials. And I could go on and on about him but I’m not going to here…

Anyways, how accurate is a gun. Every month I read about new guns in American Rifleman, I see posts online, I talk to buddies. The discussion always leads to group size and the smallest, largest and average are listed with various ammo. My argument is that the smallest and the average group size is irrelevant. The largest group is what matters. You can’t decide when you are going to shoot that small group So ultimately, the small and average are not dependable. Now of course if there is a known reason for the large group such as a pulled shot or odd wind then that (to me) is understandable as it wasn’t the fault of the gun or ammo and that group could be thrown out.

When I’m testing a new cartridge/load I usually load 9 rounds for 3 groups. If they are within my expectations, I‘ll load another 15 for 3 5 shot groups or 5 3 shot groups depending on how the groups start out and my mood. Sometimes a load may group so poorly that I’ll bring the ammo home and pull the bullets to save components. Did that a couple of times with the 450BM and a 265gr Lee cast…

When all is said and done, I like shooting small groups but ultimately the gun with a particular load is only as accurate as the largest group.

Let the arguments begin….

This is something that has bothered me for awhile and really got on my nerves after watching a video from that idiot wtw. I’m not going to put his name down, just his initials. And I could go on and on about him but I’m not going to here…

Anyways, how accurate is a gun. Every month I read about new guns in American Rifleman, I see posts online, I talk to buddies. The discussion always leads to group size and the smallest, largest and average are listed with various ammo. My argument is that the smallest and the average group size is irrelevant. The largest group is what matters. You can’t decide when you are going to shoot that small group So ultimately, the small and average are not dependable. Now of course if there is a known reason for the large group such as a pulled shot or odd wind then that (to me) is understandable as it wasn’t the fault of the gun or ammo and that group could be thrown out.

When I’m testing a new cartridge/load I usually load 9 rounds for 3 groups. If they are within my expectations, I‘ll load another 15 for 3 5 shot groups or 5 3 shot groups depending on how the groups start out and my mood. Sometimes a load may group so poorly that I’ll bring the ammo home and pull the bullets to save components. Did that a couple of times with the 450BM and a 265gr Lee cast…

When all is said and done, I like shooting small groups but ultimately the gun with a particular load is only as accurate as the largest group.

Let the arguments begin….

I have only(2) rifles that I use seriously. I have taken both out to the range and shot once for 5 days in row for all four seasons here in eastern Ky. Oh,using the same target. It was time consuming ,but worth it .Real eye opener.

 

[Snakeoil]

Because I compete every Sunday with both .22 and centerfire (albeit vintage centerfire) rifles, having a rifle that will group as small as possible is a key feature for me. If I know that the gun is capable to shoot MOA or sub-MOA groups, then when I am firing for score and a shot does not place where I think it should, that shot is giving me info on what the conditions are doing that I cannot see. That's useful info. And I'll use that info for subsequent shots. If the rifle shoots all over the place, I'll never know if a errant shot was due to me, the conditions or the gun.

I have a very nice original .22 Low Wall that had a shot out barrel. I had it relined by someone recommended to me and who really did not do great work. His work was all about looking original and not about shooting well. I have fed this rifle all kinds of ammo and cannot get it to shoot worth a damn. I love this rifle because I love old guns and especially Low and High Walls. But it sits in the rack because it is useless to me. I'll probably rebarrel it, although it's not a high priority right now.

If they don't shoot, I don't want them. And I don't care what famous writer or shooter said about some guns are just fun to shoot. If I can't hit anything with them, they are just a firecracker with a handle and I outgrew that stuff years ago. Besides, I have a big bronze cannon if I want to go BOOM for fun. If accuracy is not important to you, buy a shotgun.

I guess if you don't compete, top accuracy is not that important. But you should at least be able to hit a tin can at 100 yds with any rifle and at 25 yds with any pistol.

 

[popper]

Real accuracy is defined as 'went where it was supposed to'. Our definition is 'went where I wanted it to go'. Eliminate variation of fps, barrel harmonics, recoil effect, shooter skill. IIRC Larry Gibson talked about 'cone of fire'. That is what more shots produce. Statistical average. Got reamed on another site when using ES and SD for accuracy.
edit: years ago I was involved with ordinance, the miss-distance of an unguided was measured in MANY yds. Watched a movie of a guided munitions (BOLT/Paveway) - hit the jeep tire where the laser spot was. Redefined miss-distance.
From ~10 yrs ago, LR308 carbine, 4# trigger,168gr GC PC 2400 fps, shot prone, caldwell bi-pod, my hand and an empty mag on the stock. 30F, about 60yds. Jeans and sweatshirt - freezing my rear. What would the 'cone of fire' be? Would 3 shots make a difference on a live target? C is ones I know I pulled.

 

[garrisonjoe]

who said only an accurate gun is fun,

Umm, the quote from Col Townsend Whelen was, accurately:

"Only accurate rifles are interesting."

I really agree with the statement. Only an accurate rifle lets you get to the real point of target shooting, to let you measure your ability to adapt to current conditions and to self-correct your mistakes in shooting technique. Lesser guns make all that SO much harder to do.

And Whelen was not "just a famous writer or shooter"

An NRA Shooting Sports Journal | Col. Townsend Whelen: America's Top 20th Century Shooter (Arguably)

Col. Townsend Whelen was perhaps the single most influential figure in U.S. 20th century competitive shooting.

www.ssusa.org

good luck, garrisonjoe

 

[Bret4207]

I believe in 10 shot groups, several of them, at a measured distance. I don't own any real "tack drivers", as in 6PPC type stuff in a heavyweight benchrest setup. But I do have rifles that I can expect to shoot into an inch or maybe less at 100 for 10 shots on a good day and to hold pretty darn close to an inch for 10 at 100 95% of the time. I should say they used to since my current physical condition is a shadow or what it was 15-20 years ago!!! I was a chubby boy, but I was a chubby boy that could shoot decent.

But when I read the Rifleman evaluating a new scoped rifle, at 25 YARDS, and they're getting 5 shot groups of way over an inch?!!! There's something wrong in the mix somewhere.

 

[CZ93X62]

^^^THIS!!!^^^

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Three-shot groups are almost meaningless in determining accuracy, although it will establish point of impact relative to the sights.

A series of not less than three, and better five consecutive 5-shot groups provides a meaningful assessment of accuracy to compare loads. To get the most info from the least number of rounds fire a ten-shot group, measure the x,y coordinates and calculate the radial standard deviation.

I respectfully DISAGREE!

Not all firearms are heavy barreled bench guns.

I have a few VERY LIGHT bolt rifles built for hunting. They will never have a need for 5 consecutive shots!!! With them, If I can make consistent acceptable ONE to THREE shot groups to my POA, Im elated and consider them useful accurate.
Remember these are hunting rifles and with these rifles, I want a COLD bore shot dead on my POA every time. I don't care much for what the 5th shots impact is, cause I simply will never send it.

By 3 shots, the light barrel in some calibers, can be quite warm. Warmer then Im comfortable continuing shooting.

"Your in the know" we all know this. But I read of too many, who are know use this "5 shots or its useless" as a put down, to shooters. Many times because they read of knowledgeable fellows, such as your self, making such blanket statement's.

CW