Hunting Rifle MOA Rant

I would like to see in person (not pictures) outside in the weather Someone set up and shoot A regular 4 1/2 inch clay target at 600 yards and break it first shot. Bring your gambling money! I think there are more that think they can.. Than can?
The problem with that is you can poke holes with a rifle through those **** things without them breaking...
 
Some shooters have different opinions on how much accuracy is enough. and some shooters are never satisfied and want the perfect shot if possible. they can limit the distance or seek the accuracy needed for longer distances.

I would have to say that I fall into the never satisfied category, even realizing that perfection is not necessary it is fun when you not only make a good shot, you hit exactly where you wanted to.

Before long range hunted elevated the need for more accuracy, a 5 or 600 yard shot was considered very long. I remember making a 500+ yard shot that everyone in camp was very impressed with because conditions were not great, except me. being a bow hunter for 25+years, I learned to pick a spot to aim at instead of just the center of the chest area and never lost another deer due to marginal hits.

After calculating wind drift and elevation needed, I took a good position hold and looked for "the spot". Right behind the shoulder blade in the crease was a little tuft of hair that stood out, so that was my aim point. (Aim small, Miss small had not been coined yet).

After the shot, I had hit about 1/2" to the right and high of the tuft of hair (A deer tick was the cause of the hair standing up) As strange as it sounds, I was trying to hit the tick/tuft and had missed. Although happy with the shot, I would have realy enjoyed hitting the tick.

There is a certain gratification in making the perfect shot, probably because it happens so rarely under hunting conditions. but it adds more fun to good hits if they are exactly where you want them.

So no rifle is to accurate and no shot is realy "Good Enough" in some
minds.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM
 
KyCarl
Checking my log..In the last 3 years I have killed 32 deer with 33 shots?
I can live with that.

What is "good enough"? For me it's when the first shot out my rifle out of a cold barrel hits the game I am aiming at where I am aiming. Guess that makes me a realistic minimalist.
 
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The best first shot cold barrel shot I've ever made was also the longest shot I've ever made; a marmot at 1402 yards. I was doing a lot of shooting at those kind of ranges... I had a 1360 yard range set up at the ranch, so I was confident it was a doable shot. Still, everything had to be perfect and it was dead calm.
 
i find that all of the 1/2moa rifles and shooters have taken the day off when its time to put up or shut up! there is always something unexplainably "wrong" when those 1/2" clusters fail to form at the other end.....

On another forum a thread was started where the price of admission was 5, 5 shot groups all under .500" on the same target with nothing else to hide holes and no excuses. Put up or shut-up. The list of successful shooters isn't all that long, and the gun list sure has a lot of 6 BRs and PPCs on it. Bench-guns and dedicated F-Class guns ruled, there isn't a factory or light barrel in the bunch.

Granted, there are plenty of people who aren't interested in shooting 25 shot strings for strangers; others that believe correctly that short range shooting may not be be much of an indicator of long range groups or ability to hit small targets a long ways away and some that just found it too easy. Some found it impossible, and a few did it by accident. My own entry was one of those; just a quick run through the pressure sequence with a couple different bullets and 4 different charges to find maximum and velocity and see if there was any potential at all. Accidently ended up with 9 five shot groups under 1/2" on the same target; though I'm definitely in the group that feels that shooting short range groups with 18.2 pound rifles is sort of pointless.

Something else that might fit in here: we have a 1/2 MOA V bull and a 1 MOA 5 ring on our F-Class targets. There's two convertible sighters per distance. The guy that converts 2 sighters is a pretty rare cat having a good day. Taking the second happens somewhat more, and most people would take a 5 if they got the chance. So, long story shortened; the guy shooting 2 shots at a 1 MOA target at 8-9-1000 with the best of everything and range flags probably isn't going to hit it, never mind the V bull.
 
The best first shot cold barrel shot I've ever made was also the longest shot I've ever made; a marmot at 1402 yards.

Awesome! Good enough! That's one of the times you put your index finger to your lips, blow the smoke out, and put it back in the holster.
 
KyCarl I can live with that.

What is "good enough"? For me it's when the first shot out my rifle out of a cold barrel hits the game I am aiming at where I am aiming. Guess that makes me a realistic minimalist.
We should all do our best to make a clean, quick kill every time. We owe it to the game we seek.

There is great satisfaction in striking a match head at 100 yards, a golf ball or egg at 2,3,400 yards, a prairie dog at 600 or a coyote at 800 and getting a clean kill.

A half inch, inch, six inches or even ten inches though on a medium game animal will still produce a clean, quick, humane kill every time though if we aim for the right spot and put the right bullet in it.

We're an interesting bunch here more obsessed with precision accuracy than 1:1,1000 hunters you'll find anywhere else and we spend more time, money and effort than most could ever believe trying to ensure we get it right every time we pull the trigger but once in a while we need to remind ourselves and each other just what it is we're really doing and what the real world priorities and parameters are.

We hunters, not target shooters.
 
On another forum a thread was started where the price of admission was 5, 5 shot groups all under .500" on the same target with nothing else to hide holes and no excuses. Put up or shut-up. The list of successful shooters isn't all that long, and the gun list sure has a lot of 6 BRs and PPCs on it. Bench-guns and dedicated F-Class guns ruled, there isn't a factory or light barrel in the bunch.

Granted, there are plenty of people who aren't interested in shooting 25 shot strings for strangers; others that believe correctly that short range shooting may not be be much of an indicator of long range groups or ability to hit small targets a long ways away and some that just found it too easy. Some found it impossible, and a few did it by accident. My own entry was one of those; just a quick run through the pressure sequence with a couple different bullets and 4 different charges to find maximum and velocity and see if there was any potential at all. Accidently ended up with 9 five shot groups under 1/2" on the same target; though I'm definitely in the group that feels that shooting short range groups with 18.2 pound rifles is sort of pointless.

Something else that might fit in here: we have a 1/2 MOA V bull and a 1 MOA 5 ring on our F-Class targets. There's two convertible sighters per distance. The guy that converts 2 sighters is a pretty rare cat having a good day. Taking the second happens somewhat more, and most people would take a 5 if they got the chance. So, long story shortened; the guy shooting 2 shots at a 1 MOA target at 8-9-1000 with the best of everything and range flags probably isn't going to hit it, never mind the V bull.
Well since they set the entry criteria up basically such that only F Class and BR guns could qualify they pretty well stacked the deck against everyone else.

There's no good reason to shoot more than 3 shot groups from a hunting rifle.
 
Well since they set the entry criteria up basically such that only F Class and BR guns could qualify they pretty well stacked the deck against everyone else.

There's no good reason to shoot more than 3 shot groups from a hunting rifle.


Groups tend to be smaller when you are only looking at half of it.

They did another for factory sporters, 5 three shot groups with all under .75". There were considerably less people who were successful. Most of those were with .223s.
 
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