The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Where do you guys draw the line on accuracy ??? what is "good enough"

pathdoc · June 2, 2014, 05:56 PM

For big game, I'll never take a shot beyond a range at which 1MOA is meaningful, possibly even 2MOA (all shots reliably within six inches at 300 yards is more than good enough for what I'll be doing). Your particular mileage may vary depending on what you're hunting (target kill area) and where (thick woods vs. open plains).

For vermin, IMO, 1 MOA is mandatory; 0.5MOA would be much better (from a centrefire) with the rider mentioned above.

For target shooting, well, that's when you need to chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The feeling I get from reading here and there is that here's where you need to look for a system (rifle, ammo, shooter) that will do 0.3 to 0.25MOA or better, and the further out you shoot, the better you need to be.

Even then, are you shooting for group or shooting for score? If you're shooting for score and all your bullets group in a circle the size of the centre bull, well, you've already reached your MOA goal and you need to start working on accuracy rather than precision. And that's less of a load-dependent variable and more a matter of practice. In which case you need those thousand cases LOADED. You will empty them again soon enough!

June 2, 2014, 05:56 PM	#23
pathdoc Senior Member Join Date: February 12, 2013 Posts: 669	For big game, I'll never take a shot beyond a range at which 1MOA is meaningful, possibly even 2MOA (all shots reliably within six inches at 300 yards is more than good enough for what I'll be doing). Your particular mileage may vary depending on what you're hunting (target kill area) and where (thick woods vs. open plains). For vermin, IMO, 1 MOA is mandatory; 0.5MOA would be much better (from a centrefire) with the rider mentioned above. For target shooting, well, that's when you need to chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The feeling I get from reading here and there is that here's where you need to look for a system (rifle, ammo, shooter) that will do 0.3 to 0.25MOA or better, and the further out you shoot, the better you need to be. Even then, are you shooting for group or shooting for score? If you're shooting for score and all your bullets group in a circle the size of the centre bull, well, you've already reached your MOA goal and you need to start working on accuracy rather than precision. And that's less of a load-dependent variable and more a matter of practice. In which case you need those thousand cases LOADED. You will empty them again soon enough!