How much accuracy do you NEED?

[Llama Bob]

I do believe Varminterror got the point from the get go.

Nah, he's still confused.

 

[wally]

A half MOA rifle, plus my 2.0 MOA heart attack only add up to 2.5 moa.

I understand your sentiment but your understanding of error propagation isn't quite right
Its sqrt(2^2 + 0.5^2) = 2.06 MOA

With an accurate rifle the misses are all on you

 

[Varminterror]

Nah, Llama, I just know it only takes a few hours and $30 in compound and cups/swivels to fix any of the issues you think need to be "squared away."

Takes a lot more to turn a 1.5moa bench rifle into a 1/2moa bench rifle than it does to get a sporting rifle which runs 1/2moa on the bench what you consider "field ready." Stiffening forends and adding sling mounts isn't a challenge - it's a given in the real world in which I live.

But keep throwing up straw men just to watch them burn.

 

[RPZ]

2+ MOA is fine for minute of man - and deer for that matter. Mil spec ARs have a wider acceptance criteria than that. If I want to make headshots on rabbits or squirrels I might want something sub MOA. To me, outside the practical world, you only need more if you shoot competition, are a civilian police marksman or military sniper.

 

[armoredman]

I heard it described as "minute of felon" and "minute of bad guy", but it's about the best I can do with anything.

 

[jmorris]

Enough to hit the intended target + how imperfect I may be at taking the shot.

Now that's a moving target so to speak, if I said 1 MOA all the time no matter what was a minimum, that would be silly because sometimes I don't need that at all and will accept much less.

If I told you 76 MOA was perfectly acceptable accuracy for me often, you might think I was nuts. Sometimes I require even less. Like shooting action pistol or steel for example, say I need to hit an 8" target at 10 yards as fast as I can. I might give away a lot of my "perfection" input in the name of speed, because I can have accuracy inside 76 MOA and still hit my target.

is accurate enough for the distances (and target) i actually need to shoot.

Is really what it comes down to, sometimes .25 MOA won't cut it but most times a lot less will do the job.

 

[Llama Bob]

Nah, Llama, I just know it only takes a few hours and $30 in compound and cups/swivels to fix any of the issues you think need to be "squared away."

Takes a lot more to turn a 1.5moa bench rifle into a 1/2moa bench rifle than it does to get a sporting rifle which runs 1/2moa on the bench what you consider "field ready." Stiffening forends and adding sling mounts isn't a challenge - it's a given in the real world in which I live.

And yet, almost no rifles are correctly set up. I would say less than 1 rifle in 100 I see has all of the items I mentioned correctly dealt with. Be honest with yourself - are all yours? Or have you just made excuses about how it's easy, but not done it?

Also, you should go back and re-read wally's post, because you'll learn something. Suppose you've got a shooter who in a given position could hold 2 MOA on 95% of shots with a theoretical perfect rifle. Now you've got wind which is gusting and will add within 1 MOA of random horizontal dispersion on 95% of shots (greater on the other 5%). And you pair this with two rifles - one that shoots 1.5 MOA (95%) and one that shoots 0.5 MOA (95%). How much difference do you think all that benchrest nonsense in the "better" rifle will make? The answer is:

rifle1 = sqrt(2^2 + 1^2 + 1.5^2) = 95% of shots within 2.69 MOA horizontal dispersion
rifle2 = sqrt(2^2 + 1^2 + 0.5^2) = 95% of shots within 2.29 MOA horizontal dispersion

In other words, when it gets to the real world your supposed benchrest optimization shrinks almost to nothing. You'd be better off making sure your scope had a good sun shade - it would do you more good. You supposedly "tripled" the accuracy of your rifle in the absurd benchrest way of thinking, and yet your groups on target only shrank by 15%. Hmmm...

 

[hdwhit]

Mosin Bubba wrote:
Minute of 2-liter.

I just wish I had thought of that.

 

[Varminterror]

Right... I forgot no benchrest shooting is done in the wind, so that never factors into those subMOA groups all of these rifles shoot...

Yes. All of my bolt rifles which will see field shooting are (for MY shooting style) optimized for such - it's not difficult. Buy the rifle, fix the stock or replace it - both for LOP, eye position, trigger reach, and stiffness - add the sling points where I want them. I will admit, I do currently own three bolt rifles meant for field shooting which are NOT free floated and stiffened and do not have sling mounts yet, but only because they currently are not yet in stocks - don't even have the barrel yet for one of them. Hard to optimize a stock you don't yet own.

 

[hdwhit]

Varmintterror wrote:
These silly traps of considering only "field position groups," or off hand groups are exactly that; nobody should be measuring the precision inherent to their rifle from a position where the shooter alone makes the race. If a guy is delivering 2MOA offhand, I can say with certainty the rifle is capable of considerably better precision than 2MOA.

I didn't take the question as having to do with the "inherent precision" of the rifle, rather what precision that I could obtain with the rifle that was acceptable to me. And that's how I answered the question - as did many others who responded.

And, I did run the computations that I mentioned in another post and what I'm achieving is approximately 4 moa, so I'm definitely in the 2+ crowd on the survey.

 

[Llama Bob]

Incidentally, for those wondering how accuracy on target is affected by raw rifle accuracy, this describes the scenario I outlined above. Note how at about 1.5 MOA the curve really starts flattening out. A true case of diminishing returns.

 

[JO JO]

I try for the best I can get that is what makes reloading and working up a load for my rifle fun , this is for the most part paper punching with a front rest

 

[Jason_W]

Being a fan of pistol Cal leverguns and shotguns, precision accuracy isn't a big concern on mine.

I've never locked such a gun into a lead sled and pulled the trigger remotely on a windless day to assign an accuracy number.

I guess inherent accuracy isn't that important to me, up to a point. If a rifle patterns rather than groups, then it's too inaccurate even for me.

Mostly, I'm interested in what I can do with a gun rather than what a gun can do under lab-like conditions.

 

[taliv]

if you're concerned about field positions being the limiting factor, know that with tripods, the accuracy possible with essentially high kneeling to standing shots is way way better than it used to be https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/cant-go-prone-try-a-tripod.810158/

keep in mind, every sniper deploys with a tripod

 

[Sniper66]

Nearly everyone who shoots deer out of a blind uses a shooting rest of some sort. I use a bi-pod. For prairie dogs I shoot using sand bags. Squirrels, I carry a shooting/walking stick. Coyote calling I use a bi-pod. I very rarely shoot free-hand. But, before I take that rifle into the field, I go to the range to be sure my rifle is zeroed as tightly as I can make it. And speaking of "need", I need to know that the rifle is capable of making any shot I attempt.

 

[Clark]

To shoot prairie dogs or ground squirrels at 250 yards I need at least 1.0" 5 shots at 100 yards, but want 0.5" 5 shots at 100 yards.
To shoot deer or antelope at 400 yards I need at least 1.5" 3 shots at 100 yards, but I want 1" 5 shots at 100 yards.

I have already built a 22LR, 223, and 257 Roberts this year.
By October I will also build a 243, 250Sav, 260, and 308.

I have already shot a raccoon at 10 feet this year.
I will probably also shoot a mule deer buck at 250 yards this year.

I want to shoot a lot more animals... waiting on drawings for tags now.

 

[JohnKSa]

A half MOA rifle, plus my 2.0 MOA heart attack only add up to 2.5 moa.

wally has it right.

It's not quite that simple because the two errors are random not only in magnitude but also in direction so you can't just add them up as if they will always be in the same direction and maximum size. The "error" of the rifle for any given shot might increase the error made by the shooter, cancel the error made by the shooter, or combine with the error made by the shooter in such a way that the group size is not affected significantly.

Three very simple examples:
Example 1. Rifle error on a shot is maximum deflection in a particular direction. Shooter error is maximum deflection in exactly the opposite direction. In this case the bullet actually hits closer to the aim point than it would if the rifle had no error at all. This exact situation is pretty unlikely because it requires that out of all the directions both errors could have taken, they end up in exactly the opposite direction and both are at maximum deflection.

Example 2. Rifle error on a shot is maximum deflection in the up direction. Shooter error is maximum deflection in the up direction. If you get another shot in this group where both errors change their directions exactly, the group would be 2.5MOA but it requires two shots where both error contributions are maximum and in exactly the same direction for one shot and which both reverse exactly for another shot in the group. It should be obvious that this situation is also very unlikely.

Example 3. Rifle error on a shot is something less than maximum deflection in some random direction away from the aiming point. Shooter error is something less than maximum in some other random direction away from the aiming point. This is the most likely case and it's not hard to see that a number of shots like this will produce a group size that is much closer to the shooter's capability than the combined error of the rifle and shooter.

 

[Danoobie]

As a hunter, " accurate enough to take down game". What that means is not only @ 1.5 MOA, when shooting
out to 300 yards, but also minimal POI impact change from @25 yards to max hunting range.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

consistency is what I look for first. A gun that will shoot moa one day and then the next day or next group shoot 2 isn't as good to me as one that will shoot 1 1/4 or so every stinking time and shoot nice round 5 shot groups with never a flyer. Ive just seen to many times when working up loads that a gun shot a nice looking 3/4 inch 5 shot group and I went home and loaded a bunch of ammo and came back and found that that group was just a lucky one. To me if it shoots 10 5shot groups into an average of 1 1/8-1 1/\4 its a darned good deer rifle for any sane distance and I do by the way shoot deer out at 500 yards doing crop damage deer culling. Now a varmint rifle needs to shoot 3/4 of an inch or I keep searching.

 

[Nature Boy]

Nearly everyone who shoots deer out of a blind uses a shooting rest of some sort.

Yep, I do as well. I also hunt with rifles you'd consider "target rifles". So I go from shooting from a bench to practical field positions as a matter of course.

Ditto my M1A

 

[someguy2800]

I like a hunting rifle to be extremely accurate. This helps making up for heavy breathing and a strong pulse rate while slogging about in the bush. A half MOA rifle, plus my 2.0 MOA heart attack only add up to 2.5 moa. But if I started with a bad rifle, Lord only knows where the shot would go. Sometimes there is only a small part of a big critter showing itself. View attachment 236031

This is exactly the point I always argue to people that say a deer rifle only needs to be able to hit a pie plate or other such nonsense. You have to have some fudge factor for your own human error. Deer don't have bullseyes on them telling you were to shoot. When going for a vitals shot we are just guessing based on the angle where the heart and lungs are in there. If I'm shooting a gun that shoots a 6" group and my hold is a bit off due to the animal moving or whatever and my point of aim is an inch from the back edge of the lung when I pull the trigger, then I only have about a 50\50 chance of hitting the lung. With my Tikka that shoots 3/4 groups off a bipod day in and day out I am guaranteed that lung hit if my hold is anywhere inside the lungs.

 

[Walkalong]

Nature Boy, you're in the WRONG place to find a 12 step program.

Amen brother!

 

[Jason_W]

I wonder how people ever managed to successfully hunt big game prior to the advent of the "precision" rifle and optics through which you can count the stars on the American flag on the moon.

 

[Llama Bob]

This is exactly the point I always argue to people that say a deer rifle only needs to be able to hit a pie plate or other such nonsense. You have to have some fudge factor for your own human error. Deer don't have bullseyes on them telling you were to shoot. When going for a vitals shot we are just guessing based on the angle where the heart and lungs are in there. If I'm shooting a gun that shoots a 6" group and my hold is a bit off due to the animal moving or whatever and my point of aim is an inch from the back edge of the lung when I pull the trigger, then I only have about a 50\50 chance of hitting the lung. With my Tikka that shoots 3/4 groups off a bipod day in and day out I am guaranteed that lung hit if my hold is anywhere inside the lungs.

Well, we've got another person who doesn't understand how inaccuracies from hold vs. wind vs. gun combine to produce accuracy on target...

It's not really hard math or anything, but I suppose the Monte Carlo sims have the advantage that they show people what it looks like.

 

[Llama Bob]

I wonder how people ever managed to successfully hunt big game prior to the advent of the "precision" rifle and optics through which you can count the stars on the American flag on the moon.

They didn't. The first whitetail was successfully taken in 1986 when Nightforce scopes came out.