Originally Posted by
Mozella
Well, first of all you need to be sure you're talking apples and apples. There is no standard, but I think that when most people talk about group size they generally refer to 5 shot groups at 100 yards. Some folks quote group size using 3 shot groups and, of course their results will appear better even if they aren't. For example, a .415 MOA three-shot group is about the same as a .505 five-shot group, so it's important to specify. Personally, I'd like to see the 5 shot group be a standard, but that's dreaming.
Unless you're talking about some WW-I rifle dug up in India, any reasonable modern bolt rifle should be able to shoot 1 MOA most of the time without much problem. Most Savages, with a little attention to details, should be able to achieve 1/2 MOA on a good day. That doesn't mean it will shoot EVERY five-shot group better than 1/2 MOA.
Naturally, there is a big difference between shooting a .5 MOA group and AVERAGING .5 MOA. Again, you have to specify what you're talking about. For example, I have a Savage in 6mm BR Norma built on the cheap for less than $1000. I measure and catalog nearly every round I shoot. For this particular rifle shooting Berger 105gr Hybrid's at 100 yards the average MOA is .457, so I can say this rifle is better than 1/2 MOA . That includes all the load work up rounds, many of which I know ahead of time aren't going to produce the best results. If I include ranges longer than 100 yards, the average would decline. If I include several bullets less accurate than the Berger Hybrid, the average gets even worse.
If I cull out the roughest of the development loads, the average for the Berger Hybrid improves to an MOA of .394. In other words, with my "good" , "really good", and "match" ammo recopies, I think I can honestly say this rifle shoots better than .400 MOA on average. The fact that this rifle frequently produces 5 shot groups better than .250 MOA does NOT make it a 1/4 MOA rifle. In any case, I'm happy with my cheap Savage at 100 yards, especially since the barrel, the bullets and the loads are optimized for shooting F-Class matches at 600 yards. With a different barrel and bullet better suited to 100 yards, the performance would be better.
Here is another way to look at how precise your rifle really is. On a day without any wind, bring your best ammo and put five bucks down on your bench. Invite anyone to pick it up if your next five shots don't group better than such-and-such MOA. With my 6mm BR Norma I'd say 1/2 MOA. In other words, when you put your money where your mouth is, the truth often emerges.
In summary, your question is not easy to answer. I would say if you're paying attention to your reloading skills you should be disappointed with any 5 shot groups with an MOA worse than 1.000. That doesn't mean they won't happen once in a while, but you should not accept them as OK. You should expect to shoot a lot of groups around .750 MOA with some of them better than .5 MOA. When you do that, you should come home from the range relatively satisfied.
With luck (luck is the critical word here), some day you'll shoot a group around 1/4 MOA. You can cut this out and put it in your wallet and/or post it on the Internet. But don't get excited and claim that you or your rifle can shoot "1/4 MOA all day long" based on one really nice group.
Now if you work hard, you could improve your 100 yard performance from 3/4 MOA to 1/2 MOA most of the time, but the effort to improve from that point goes up exponentially. It costs more too. Some people pay more for their powder scales than I paid for my most recent car purchase.
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