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Random chance? The rifle did it. Nothing random about that.
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sure there is some chance to it. I'm not saying this group is all chance, and skill ALWAYS plays a part, but an anomalously small group is a chance happening, here's how:
first, imagine your rifle is in a perfectly rigid vise, shooting at a target using a theoretical load. Many factors determine the average group size that rifle will shoot including imperfect charge weight, neck tension, case thickness, case hardness, seating depth, bullet weight, bullet concentricity, primer, flash hole, barrel rigidity, stock rigidity, the symmetry of barrel and stock rigidity, bore imperfections, etc...
Lets say a rifle under these circumstances will shoot a group like this:
Next, imagine a shooter is shooting a theoretically perfect version of this gun with a perfect load that would always go through the same hole if shot from the vise. the shooter's skill, habits, physical condition, eyesight, etc... as well as atmospheric conditions will determine the shooters average group size.
lets say this shooter would shoot groups like this:
now if we combine the guns inherent grouping with the shooters effect on the grouping, the average will tend to increase the overall group size because, half the time, the shooters input will be drawing the guns point of impact away from center. Occasionally, however, a shooter's input will counteract the guns point of impact for a specific shot in just the right amount and direction to put a shot dead center. This becomes exponentially less likely with each shot added to a group.
Lets say it happens with 3 shots, like this. purple is the gun's deviation. green is the shooters deviation. red is the combination of those 2 inputs and shows the resultant group (approximately), which is anomalously smaller than the gun's average theoretical grouping with the ammo being used.
this group size cannot be directly attributed to the shooters skill because there is no possible way for a shooter to know, on any given shot, where a shot would fall within a gun's average grouping, and thus, cannot knowingly compensate to bring a given shot closer to center.
So if a group is only 3 shots, and is significantly smaller than average for the gun/shooter, it is chance... skill plays a part... but chance is what causes the significant deviation from average.