What is acceptable accuracy.?

[native hunter]

G"day All
Wondering what everyones thoughts were on acceptable accuracy levels of different outfits for a given purpose should be.
If your hunting gun shoots.750 to 1 inch groups at 100 is that OK.
your varmint gun .300 to .700.
bench gun .000 to .250
this would be 100mtrs of course.
I think that alot more can be squeezed out of a rifle if you are prepared to spend the time and money on different load developments such as powders primers projectiles and seating depth.this all takes time and money, this is without tweakin the gun.
Then if your like me and cant shoot for shit, none of it matters.
What got me thinking was I load tested my xr-100 yesterday and got it to shoot .240 for a three shot group and then blew it with the next 2 shots out to .800, now i know this gun is capable of fine accuracy but am I, should I just settle on that load or go for finer accuracy.
Maybe i need some coaching.
Regards
Damien Webb.

[Kenny]

Native,

IMO if your gun is shooting that well and is just a varminter/hunting rifle save your $ and enjot it. You may not get better results anyway so why wear it out trying to prove it

Perhaps shooting a few 8 shot groups might show you something more about your chosen load, as we all pull shots or miss a change in condition occasionally It really takes a good rest and either a dead calm or wind flags (and know how to read them) to shoot tiny groups. Try measuring the best 5 out of 8 and take an average

I reckon you are spot on with your acceptable levels btw but for a general hunting rifle, maybe not even that accurate would be ok....perhaps "minute of pig" would be good enough Jeez how many pigs/roos etc have been shot with the old .303 that groups 1.5"@100yds.....heaps I am guessing.

Cheers
KY

[lowndsie]

For a pig / goat rifle, I'd be more than happy with 1.5moa.

For any varmint rifle I have, I'd be expecting to get consistantly less than 1moa. Thats about as good as I can shoot and when a rifle does .5moa, then it's all a bonus. I think alot of shooters fluke a one off tiny group and then forever brand their rifle as a sub .5moa shooter.... For me it's alot less frustrating to have a slighty larger group size more often, than hoping for that magical tiny group to happen again.

[shane]

You guys are right.

Damien your group estimates are what we should all expect from our firearms. Not this 1.5 moa factory target crap that they are trying to push on to us.

Kenny your right, you must have the right ability and gear to shoot small groups. A lot of people however blame themselves for there poor shooting when often it is the quality of their firearms.

I have often seen average shooters given a good bench gun and shoot good groups but struggle to do any good with their factory varmint rifle.

Lowndsie a lot of people shoot one small group and call this the accuracy of their firearm. Cats arse it is.

Shoot 5-10 five shot groups, the average of these will show the accuracy of your gun.
My 2 cents,
Cheers,
Shane

[GriMo]

shane i expect .5 out of mine all day everyday

[shane]

GriMo,
Mate we all should, it should be what factories try to achieve with their rifles.
cheers,
Shane

[glenn asher]

The practical limit of my abilities seem to be about .6". Some of my rifles will, I suspect, do better, they all have, at one time or another, but my average for most rifles seems to be about .6" Even my deer rifles will shoot .6", but that's usually about as good as I can shoot.

[bushchook]

I'm happy with sub MOA for my 7mm WSM .
Like sub .75 MOA for my sporter weight varmint rifles and sub 0.5 MOA for my heavy barrelled .243 Ackley .