What is mil-spec accuracy?

[Model12Win]

Honestly in today's marketing world "mil-spec" doesn't mean a whole lot.

If you're interested in how a particular model shoots, I would do my homework and look up reviews etc. where the rifle is grouped. That will tell you more than "mil-spec"!

[kraigwy]

I often jokingly refer to Mil Spec as the Lowest bidder.

But lets look at reality vs. Mil Spec

This is from an post above and I have no reason to doubt it.

1. acceptance accuracy for 1903 Springfield was 3" at 100 yards.
2. acceptance accuracy for M1 Garand was 5" at 100 yards.
3. acceptance accuracy for M14 was 5.5" at 100 yards and was waivered continually as it could not meet that.
4. acceptance accuracy for M16 series is 4.5" at 100 yards.

I dealt with enough military rifles since I started my military career 47 years ago to believe the above numbers are pretty close (for arms room guns, not match rifles).

I also have seen enough military shooters to know the limiting factor IS NOT the rifle, but the shooter. Most soldiers and yes I'll add marines (there I said it) cant shoot.

Lets look at the E-Silhouette target. Its suppose to represent the average soldier, shoulder with 19 inches.

Lets take #4, the M16 at 4.5 moa and round it up to 5 MOA. A 5 MOA rifle should be able to keep all the hits on the E Target up to 380 yards or better.

If you look at the ranges of sniper confirmed hits in Vietnam, you find the average shot is just north of 400 yards. Iraq (urban warfare) is less, Afghan? Haven't been there but I would assume it might be a bit farther. Sure we read about shots a lot further, but not with the service rifle.

That's with sniper rifles. Few fire fights are beyond 400 yards. So the 5 MOA Service Rifle is more the adequate for the average infantryman.

The problem is not better ammo or better rifles, the problem that needs to be addressed is better marksmanship so the soldier/marine can take advantage of the 5 MOA accuracy of the service rifle.

Having said this I do take exception to the 5 MOA for the Garand. In my old age my interest has moved to the Vintage Military Rifles used in the CMP GSM Matches. As a CMP Master Instructor I conduct several GSM Clinics and Matches with the "as is" service rifles. I found that there are few M1's and Springfield's that aren't capable of 3.5 MOA. 3.5 MOA should clean the GSM Matches. The rifle is capable, but you seldom find a shooter who can do it.

In short, don't worry about the gun, worry about your shooting. Unless you can keep ALL your shots inside a 20 inch circle at 400 yards the current (and past) service rifles and ammo will out shoot the soldier/marine.

[Jimro]

Having said this I do take exception to the 5 MOA for the Garand. In my old age my interest has moved to the Vintage Military Rifles used in the CMP GSM Matches. As a CMP Master Instructor I conduct several GSM Clinics and Matches with the "as is" service rifles. I found that there are few M1's and Springfield's that aren't capable of 3.5 MOA. 3.5 MOA should clean the GSM Matches. The rifle is capable, but you seldom find a shooter who can do it.

That is my experience as well, with M16A2/4 and M4s. The "acceptance standards" are an outer limit of accuracy. A rifle can shoot MOA and meet acceptance standards, or a rifle can shoot 3.9 MOA and meet acceptance standards. Most rifles I've handled shoot better than the acceptance standard.

Jimro

[SR420]

acceptance accuracy for M14 was 4.0" at 100 yards.
acceptance accuracy for M16 series is 5.0" at 100 yards.

Quote:
That would be the ARMY M14EBR-RI. These are rack grade M14s taken from storage and bolted into SAGE EBR stocks, the rifles themselves are NOT reworked. The acceptance criteria was a maximum of 1.5 MOA with the result averaging 0.89 MOA for the first 5,000 built.

Jimro
Shooting what? M80 ball or M118LR?

M118LR

[Bart B.]

MIL SPEC for match ammo (M72 .30-06 and M118/M852 7.62 NATO) was an average mean radius of 3.5 inches at 600 yards. .30-06 M2 ball service ammo specs were 7.5 inch average mean radius at 600 yards; match M72 ammo was same as 7.62 match ammo. 7.62 NATO M80 ball ammo's MIL SPEC is 5 inches average mean radius at 600 yards. Linked machine gun ammo specs for both are about 50% bigger.

Many dozens of shots fired and groups typically had 250 to 300 shots in them. That was from a barreled M1903 action with a match grade test barrel laying in the V-block of a Mann rest. Match ammo's groups with that many shots were typically 10 to 15 inches extreme spread shot from the Mann rest. Ball ammo's groups were typically 20 to 30 inches at 600 yards as shot from service grade M1's and M14's.

[kraigwy]

The Mann Device is a interesting project, been around for a long time and is still being used.

I have one in 5.56 made on a Remington 700 Action. It's fun to see what you're ammo is capable of.




I modified a stock to be able to shoot the Mann from the bench.

[MoGas1341]

I also have seen enough military shooters to know the limiting factor IS NOT the rifle, but the shooter. Most soldiers and yes I'll add marines (there I said it) cant shoot. kraigwy

That's about the truth!

To be honest, I have observed the ones who shoot best on the range are the guys that never shot a rifle before they joined, so they don't have any horrible habits to shake off...

I'm gonna have to agree with kraigwy 100% on this

[Jimro]

That would be the ARMY M14EBR-RI. These are rack grade M14s taken from storage and bolted into SAGE EBR stocks, the rifles themselves are NOT reworked. The acceptance criteria was a maximum of 1.5 MOA with the result averaging 0.89 MOA for the first 5,000 built.


Quote:
Jimro
Shooting what? M80 ball or M118LR?

M118LR

If a 308 won't shoot M118LR, odds are it just won't shoot. There are exceptions to this, such as the Palma rifles with too slow a twist built around 155gr bullets, those will shoot like a house on fire with their preferred ammo.

On the flip side, if you ever find a lot of M80 ball that holds 2 minutes at 100, buy all of it you can I've never been able to find any milsurp ball that shot less than 2.5 minutes at 100, although Radway Green and DAG were supposedly able to make sniper grade lots for issue using ball components.

Jimro

[SR420]

Jimro

... if you ever find a lot of M80 ball that holds 2 minutes at 100, buy all of it you can...

146 gr Portuguese NATO ball @ 100 yards from a 16.25" barrel
using a 2 MOA red dot. 3 shot group can covered with a Nickel.

I bought cases of it, and I've been shooting groups like this with it for years

[Bart B.]

I wouldn't buy one box of ammo based on a single 3-shot group of any size.

[Slamfire]

Kraigwy

Good post.

I also have seen enough military shooters to know the limiting factor IS NOT the rifle, but the shooter. Most soldiers and yes I'll add marines (there I said it) cant shoot.

Absolutely true, and, if you have attended any action pistol matches, law enforcement are not exactly stellar shots.

The problem is not better ammo or better rifles, the problem that needs to be addressed is better marksmanship so the soldier/marine can take advantage of the 5 MOA accuracy of the service rifle.

True, but because this is so low on the funding priorities, it will never happen.

Having said this I do take exception to the 5 MOA for the Garand. In my old age my interest has moved to the Vintage Military Rifles used in the CMP GSM Matches. As a CMP Master Instructor I conduct several GSM Clinics and Matches with the "as is" service rifles. I found that there are few M1's and Springfield's that aren't capable of 3.5 MOA. 3.5 MOA should clean the GSM Matches. The rifle is capable, but you seldom find a shooter who can do it.

Understand acceptance criteria means that the rifles that were bought shot 5MOA or less. You would expect that given a 5MOA reject criteria the vast majority of rifles would shoot less. A College kid who remembers statistics could provide what the mean accuracy would be so that 3 sigma rifles pass, but not the five or six sigma rifles.

Now as an interesting data point, I have a publication, which I purchased from William Ricca, titled “Rifle U.S. Cal 30, M1, National Match 1957”. I think this was handed out at the National Matches because it was written as an informational brochure on the NM rifles of the year.

Section 5. Accuracy Firing

a. With the rifle supported in a rifle rest three ten shot groups are fired at 1000 yards for accuracy using match ammunition. The average extreme spread of these groups cannot exceed 4.2 inches. Any one ten-shot group making this average cannot exceed 5.7 inches extreme spread. If these requirements are not met the rifle is rejected.

b. Figure 24 illustrates the distribution of averages of three ten-shot groups for 655 National Match Rifles targeted in this fashion. It is to be noted that all rifles to the right of the 4.2 inch line were screened out; the average of those accepted was a 3.4 inch average group size and eighty-eight rifles averaged three inches and under for three ten shot groups.

I looked at figure 24 and the average three shot group size starts under two inches, 59.7% have the average group size of 3.4”, and there were 20 rifles that shot 6.4”, 16 that shot 6.6”, 14 that shot 6.8”, 10 that shot 7 inches, … yada, yada, yada, and there are NM M1’s that shot 9.5” three shot groups.

And remember, these were newly made NM rifles!!

The acceptance accuracy of the NM rifles were set primarily by the ability to shoot a perfect score. The accuracy of rack grade rifles were set to an entirely different set of standards. Monetary issues are set by people whose concerns are quite different from the user. As an example, on travel, at the rental car counter, the business traveler expects the company to pay for a Lamborghini, or at least a Ferrari. When the business traveler finds that anything above a sub compact will come out of his/her pocket, the traveler is always disappointed. So while the Soldier wants a target grade rifle, the people who over see the budget, are not interested in rejecting vast quantities of material, which will be correspondently vastly expensive, to make that wish come true. Early in the decision process statistical techniques are used to predict type one and type two errors, which are the risk of accepting bad material, and the risk of rejecting good material. Then if too much material is rejected, on Government contracts, the distance between goal posts is shortened and the width of the goal posts is widened. As it turns out the Government is ever accommodating to Defense contractors and it has been shown, time after time, the Government will bend itself into a pretzel to keep a major Defense Contractor happy.

As an historical example, the Ichord Report found that the Army knew that M16’s would jam, and jam at a very high rate with ball powder ammunition. This ball powder ammunition was standard issue in Vietnam because the manufacturer of the stick IMR powder was no longer producing ammunition for the Army. However, there were stores of 5.56 loaded with IMR powder and that ammunition was used in accepting Colt M16’s at the factory. Neither the Army nor Colt wanted to reject large numbers of M16’s, which would happen if the acceptance tests were run with issue ball powder ammunition.

The fact that these rifles would jam in combat with the issue ammunition and get good American’s killed was not an problem. I have run into Vietnam vets, one last week, who told me a lot of good Soldiers died because their M16 jammed in combat.

So, if function is of lesser importance than maximizing the Contractor’s profits, just where do accuracy considerations fall in the big scheme of things?

[Jimro]

So, if function is of lesser importance than maximizing the Contractor’s profits, just where do accuracy considerations fall in the big scheme of things?

The Army has a three tiered approach to accuracy.

Basic Training and Unit training. Soldiers are expected to get a battlesight zero (also known as a point blank range zero) and engage torso size targets out to 300 meters. The use of iron sights and red dot sights is the norm for basic training. The use of ACOGs is usually trained at the unit level.

Squad Designated Marksmen training. Soldiers are expected to be familiar with factors affecting external ballistics to include altitude/air pressure, wind, and gravity and engage targets out to 600 meters. Qualification can take place at 500 meters, 600 yards, or 600 meters depending on maximum range length available. The use of ACOGs is required for the course, but units can choose to arm the SDM with any solution.

Sniper training. Soldiers are expected to master range estimation, wind compensation, moving target compensation, and engage targets to 800 meters. The M110 and Leupold Mk4 are the tools the schoolhouse has gone to.

It is a dual pipeline from the base level training to SDM or Sniper, you don't have to go up through the ranks so to speak but a lot of our Snipers at BN level get groomed from the SDM ranks as the best shots tend to work their way towards Sniper qualification.

The sad part is that every unit I've been in the Joe's want a unit marksmanship team, but the leadership with authority to make it happen have other priorities and seem to be risk averse.

Jimro

[Genemarine]

Originally Posted by Wyosmith

Mil-Spec means military specification.
So that begs the question …………….what military? And when?

What is acceptable to the Armenians may not be acceptable to the Swiss.

What is “Mil-Spec” for the Union army of 1870 is not the same as what is acceptable to the US Army today.
“Mil-Spec” can even be radically different from one decade to another. Look at the minimum specs acceptable for the M-16 and it's ammo compared to the M-16A2 and it's ammo.

The phrase “mil-Spec” is often used as a marketing ploy. It doesn’t really mean much when you start to understand how broad a term it can be.

What is within Mil-Spec for a rack grade M-1 Garand is not within Mil-Spec for an M1-D Sniper rifle,,,, and so on.

MIL- spec does not mean military specifications. It mean milliradian. MILS is the plural form of MIL which is short for Milliradian. A Milliradian is 1/1000th of a Radian. This is a way of measuring a circle.
Similar to MOA - Minute of angle it is consistent at any range. Remember your trig here, and angle remains constant at every range, therefore specifying range is extraneous information. 1 MOA IS 1" @100yrds 2" @200yrds and so on.

[Genemarine]

Originally Posted by BumbleBug

I've been reading up on AR's & I came across this term used in a sentence similar to this: "This barrel is capable of mil-spec accuracy."

Is that really a spec & if so what accuracy is that?

TIA...

...bug

MILS is the plural form of MIL which is short for Milliradian. A Milliradian is 1/1000th of a Radian. This is a way of measuring a circle. A Milliradian is always 1/1000th of a Radian. Clear as mud right? Look at it this way, the total distance is your Radian. So if 100 yards is my radian, than a MIL at 100 yards will be 1/1000th of the total. There are 3600 inches in 100 yards, so a MIL will subtend to 3.6 inches at 100 yards.

[Genemarine]

Originally Posted by Slamfire

Here is an interesting post, from Hummer70, on military rifles and their expected accuracy:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/show....php?p=5424409




A concept that should be understood is that today’s battle rifles are not target rifles nor is there any expectation that they will ever be target grade. A century ago the British Army and the American Army trained the soldier to a high level of rifle marksmanship. The service rifles of the period were much more powerful and accurate than what is in inventory today. What changed was a combination of a change in tactics, different equipment, and the needs of the military industrial complex. Training is always shortchanged as the military budget is skewed to funding Defense Corporations and major weapon systems acquisitions.

Soldier pay does not attract those with Doctoral degrees so weapons have to be extremely simple to assemble and disassemble. The emphasis over time has been to issue extremely simple weapons that are medium powered and cheap to make. Cheap can be understood, if the lifetime of a Soldier is less than 9 months, why issue him/her a expensive rifle that will last decades? Given that Soldiers are not going to be trained to any sort of meaningful marksmanship standard it does not make sense to arm them with expensive, high powered weapons that are capable of target grade accuracy out to a 1000 yards. Medium powered cartridges were developed because it was realized that the troops have zero marksmanship skills, they don’t need to shoot at targets over 300 yards away, because they can’t hit a person at that range. As a note, marksmanship training in major wars became in time less than rudimentary. A Uncle of mine was allowed eight rounds of familiarization with his M1919 machine gun before parachuting on D-Day. He and his team were so ignorant of the operation of the thing, they did not realize the machine gun did not have a safety. As they were setting it up in France, they put a belt in the M1919 and accidentally bumped it on the trigger mechanism. One team member had his hand over the muzzle and lost a finger when the machine gun discharged! Our oldest gun club members had a total of 20 rounds of familiarization before landing second wave, on Iwo Jima. He was issued a new carbine on the ship prior to invasion and he had to zero the weapon in combat! He believes that if his Dad had not taught him how to shoot as a kid, he would not have made it out of WW2 alive.

It takes years to practice to become an good shooter and since the last two World Wars ended in less than five years, time was not be available then, nor is it expected to be in the next World War, to train anyone to an acceptance marksmanship standard. Given the expectations of low marksmanship skills accuracy is not an important consideration in a service rifle and is traded off for other features. Ergo, 5 MOA is just fine for a cheap military weapon as long as it goes bang each and every time.

All one has to do is shoot a AK47 with issue ammunition to see that accuracy is a low priority in modern weapon design. The Russians built an outstanding service rifle in the AK47: reliable, simple, but not accurate.

I am not really sure what the author is trying to say here. I doubt there are many 18-20 year old kids that can get a doctoral degree so that statement and subsequent point was a little insulting.
Breakdown of weapons was simplified because during weapon jams and failures previous weapons were essentially out of the fight as they took too long to tear down and had too many small parts moving.
Having been under fire I can tell you that the last thing you want to do is try to find a tool set while taking fire and clearing your weapon jam/failure.
Further, it does not take years to become a good shooter. If you do not learn technique and fly by the seat of your pants, then yes instinctual shooting takes years, and a great many hours of regular practice to become and stay proficient.
However, as a police firearms instructor, I can teach you to shoot proficiently with almost any small arm in a matter of hours.
His statement of the life of the service member though inaccurate, is also irrelevant. Service members do not take their weapons home. Most weapons in the US arsenal are designed to last for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of rounds under regular combat conditions. AS such will be passed to the next service member.
This is not to say there are not extremes were a weapon won't be fired at length over it's tolerances, this does happen. And still the weapons perform brilliantly. For the most part. There are always outliars.
Just to be clear, my M14 fired at sub MOA. My M4 with NO modifications fires at sub MOA.
The intermediate round was not designed because the soldiers have no skill. Again, that is insulting. It was developed because most combat does not occur at ranges over 300 yards, most is in the range of 75-100yrds, but not all obviously, AND accurate suppressing fire from multiple locations was a game changer in small unit tactics.
My Uncle fought WWII, I have those endless stories of combat and his skills to prove it. He was able to consistently strike targets at 300-500 yards with a carbine. He was also disappointed at the training levels for marksmanship at the time. Most of the guys in his platoon had never held a weapon. I can't even imagine that. Moreover, the personnel requirements during war makes it hard to equate when evaluation training of the average soldier.
The author of that post really has a low opinion of our service members. This is very sad.

[T. O'Heir]

The OP is 4 years old. And mil-spec is a marketing term that means military specification. It has nothing to do with mils.

[rickyrick]

I think most people loosely use the term. I think most intend to illustrate a condition that reflects what an average military weapon is capable of doing. I don’t think that they intend to compare the term milspec to the worst possible passing condition.

Just a guesstimate, but I was probably issued in the neighborhood of about 20 m16/M4 variants... not a single one of them was inaccurate. The very first groups I made zeroing that rattling basic training M16 went in one hole for each group. The drill sergeant yelled that I needed to shoot each one three times. I told him that I was hitting in the same hole. He thought I was lying. After that I spread them out a little. The sergeant was pleased about how I was “improving”... ahhh to only have those 17 year old eyes again.

Milspec isn’t bad, things could be a lot worse. If milspec were a tool, it would be miles ahead of Harbor Freight

[Big Shrek]

Originally Posted by Quentin2

But when it comes to firearms there are too many on the market that are below the milspec bar. And when some folks realize they didn't do their homework and bought substandard, well they scoff at the standards. If buying a serious weapon it's wise to meet or exceed that bar, not fall short. That's what our military strives to do and many civilians and LEOs as well.

Sure, there are higher bars to reach than milspec but at least get over the middle bar, don't trip over it.

As far as 8MOA, I suspect many of our rifles easily beat that but it's not as certain that the shooter can.

Mil-Spec equipment is often looked upon much like a West Point slick-sleeve butter-bar with a compass...
it might turn out alright, but chances are your platoon is about to get BF-Lost
It's a beautiful Theory, but the reality too often shows more shortcomings than plusses.

Honestly, Mil-Spec, to the average Veteran, usually means a step above SNAFU.
Especially if they've got a few hash marks...because we all know for a fact that this statement is 100% true...

Mil Spec., means: build by the lowest bidder that didn't loose its contract...

Also have to remember how much absolute junk is bought by individuals that DO NOT
have our country's best interests at heart, but are only interested in inflating their wallets.
They even invented a word for that...they call the resulting purchase a Boondoggle!

[Rob228]

Pretty sure I've heard 4 MOA being acceptable for the M16A4/M4 variants. I've never been issued one that shot that poorly, and they get beat up pretty badly.

[davidsog]

I dealt with enough military rifles since I started my military career 47 years ago to believe the above numbers are pretty close (for arms room guns, not match rifles).

Good post.

In SOTIC they put out the average service rifle is ~2.5 MOA and a good quality sniper system ~1/2 to 1/4 MOA. The M24 was a 1/4MOA weapon IIRC.

MILSPEC is nothing more than the specification the military requires. It is not necessarily the lowest common denominator but simply sets a standard to measure.

[Nathan]

M16A1
accuracy: 8 MOA

Do the math....it is not as bad as you might think.

If the shipping limit is 8 MOA is the shipping limit, the likely are trying to catch those that fall more the 3 std deviations away from the mean.

If we assume the best M16A1 shoots .5 MOA, we get:

8-(((8-.5)/6)*3)= mean group size = ~4MOA....not terrible

[DMK]

All one has to do is shoot a AK47 with issue ammunition to see that accuracy is a low priority in modern weapon design. The Russians built an outstanding service rifle in the AK47: reliable, simple, but not accurate.

I read somewhere that the acceptable accuracy for an AK to pass QC was 6moa. That's not very far from a Garand or M14, which were its contemporaries when it was designed.