"1 MOA, all day long"

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All day long huh? I have heard that before but what they actually meant was a five round group. Very short day if you ask me. If a person can load/select their ammo to ensure that the velocity is less than a 25 fps std dev, guess the wind and hold consistently all the time with few or zero flyers then they can claim all day long.

I have witnessed good shooting in the past; such as a 1.9 inch group at 550 yards with moderate wind. That shooter never claimed to be able to shoot 1 moa all the time. When I see someone put thirty rounds into a 1 moa group, then I will not roll my eyes at the phrase, "all day long". :)

lark
 
ive had a few sporter weight rifles that were true moa guns but there rare. Most guys who claim to have them fired one or two 1/2 inch 3 shots groups with the majority being alot bigger and just claim to have a tack driver. A moa gun to me anyway is one that will shoot moa in any weather and do it shooting a 5 shot group into an inch and a half EVERY time i have it at the range and there rare. I kind of relate it to this. We were at camp last week and talking trucks and gas milage. I told my dad my silverado will get 17mpg average. He said his dakota got 27 and he could prove it because driving on a flat at 55 mph his gas mileage guage said so. One 1/2 inch group proves nothing but that the stars were aligned that day.
 
I've owned 4 bolt action centerfire rifles, each would consistently do MOA or better. That's using either a bipod or front bag, no rear bag and me behind the trigger. What those guns would be capable if they were locked up tighter and/or had a better shooter would probably amaze me let alone the OP. Personally I feel that a bolt action rifle that won't do MOA with tested loads to be on the verge of being broken.
 
All the MOA shooters here should fire a 10 shot group. Shoot it in a minute or two. The faster you can get back on target and squeeze off an accurate shot the better. Shoot ten, ten shots groups like that over a day, or a few days. Now average them. If the don't average one MOA or less, you don't have a MOA rifle.

Shooting one three, or five shot group that measures a MOA or less, proves very little. Other than the rifle is acceptable for hunting.
 
nate45 said:
All the MOA shooters here should fire a 10 shot group. Shoot it in a minute or two. The faster you can get back on target and squeeze off an accurate shot the better. Shoot ten, ten shots groups like that over a day, or a few days. Now average them. If the don't average one MOA or less, you don't have a MOA rifle.

Shooting one three, or five shot group that measures a MOA or less, proves very little. Other than the rifle is acceptable for hunting.
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What makes your rules the standard?

First time I've heard a time limit on groups. :rolleyes:
 
How long do you take to shoot a ten shot group?

Anyway, take 30 min or an hour Brian, if thats what you need. The most important part is that you shoot ten shot groups and average them.
 
Most guys who claim to have them fired one or two 1/2 inch 3 shots groups with the majority being alot bigger and just claim to have a tack driver. A moa gun to me anyway is one that will shoot moa in any weather and do it shooting a 5 shot group into an inch and a half EVERY time i have it at the range and there rare.
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I may not understand the term 1 MOA rifle . It souds like some are saying if a person can't shoot 1 MOA the rifle is not a MOA shooter .:confused:. Yes I do not shoot sub MOA all the time with my American but I have done it many times . That tells me my gun is a MOA gun and I'm not .
 
All the MOA shooters here should fire a 10 shot group. Shoot it in a minute or two. The faster you can get back on target and squeeze off an accurate shot the better. Shoot ten, ten shots groups like that over a day, or a few days. Now average them. If the don't average one MOA or less, you don't have a MOA rifle.

Shooting one three, or five shot group that measures a MOA or less, proves very little. Other than the rifle is acceptable for hunting.
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I've never, and I mean never, heard of anyone defining MOA under your terms. I've seen/heard arguements for 2 shot, 3 shot and 5 shot groups and debates over how many of those groups it takes to define MOA but 10 - 10 shot strings is so far above any accepted proof of MOA it's not even funny. You want the best test for a gun/load/marksman? One shot, cold bore. Nothing else should really matter. 10-10 shots strings = irrelevent.
 
I must be a loser:mad:. I've always had to work my ass off to get a rifle to hold three shots inside an inch at 100 yards. I've got two now that with the right ammunition, a still day, a good bench, sandbags and me not having had too much coffee will usually do that for me. They're both hunting rifles, one is an M77RL in .270, the other is a 77/22 in .22 WMR. They're both very picky about the right ammunition.
 
nate45 said:
All the MOA shooters here should fire a 10 shot group. Shoot it in a minute or two. The faster you can get back on target and squeeze off an accurate shot the better. Shoot ten, ten shots groups like that over a day, or a few days. Now average them. If the don't average one MOA or less, you don't have a MOA rifle.

Shooting one three, or five shot group that measures a MOA or less, proves very little. Other than the rifle is acceptable for hunting.
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This is good stuff. You're messing with us, right? 3-shot groups can mean just as much as 10 shot groups if you shoot enough of them. If you shoot 20 3-shot groups and the bullets all land in the same place relative to POA, then it's the same as shooting 6 10-shot groups with all the bullets landing in the same place relative to POA. Now, what rifle, heavy barrel or not can shoot 10-consecutive shots in a minute without the barrel heating to branding iron levels?

If you shoot 3 Sub-MOA 5-shot groups in a row, that's the same as shooting a 15-shot Sub-MOA group. Happens more often than some people in this thread think even with sporter rifles. I see guys at the range shooting heavy bolt-action rifles into 3/4"-1" 5-shot groups at 200 yards with regularity. I have a .243 that I can easily count on 1.5" groups at 200 yards. That's slow-fired 5-shot groups. Nothing special other than some painstaking work at the reloading bench.
 
FiveInADime said:
This is good stuff. You're messing with us, right? 3-shot groups can mean just as much as 10 shot groups if you shoot enough of them. If you shoot 20 3-shot groups and the bullets all land in the same place relative to POA, then it's the same as shooting 6 10-shot groups with all the bullets landing in the same place relative to POA. Now, what rifle, heavy barrel or not can shoot 10-consecutive shots in a minute without the barrel heating to branding iron levels?

If you shoot 3 Sub-MOA 5-shot groups in a row, that's the same as shooting a 15-shot Sub-MOA group. Happens more often than some people in this thread think even with sporter rifles. I see guys at the range shooting heavy bolt-action rifles into 3/4"-1" 5-shot groups at 200 yards with regularity. I have a .243 that I can easily count on 1.5" groups at 200 yards. That's slow-fired 5-shot groups. Nothing special other than some painstaking work at the reloading bench.
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Shoot your five three shot groups all at the same target, then measure.

Shooting ten shots in a row won't hurt anything. Even at a fairly rapid pace. People will use the heat as an excuse for why their ten shot group is 1.5-2 MOA instead of whatever their slow fired 3 shot group was. Truth is their 'MOA' rifle is really not.

There are stories of a single bullet that for no explained reason flies out of what might have been a tight cluster. This often occurs with a three-shot string and many times with a five-shot string. If you're lucky enough to fire a group without a flier, you can end up with a very tight group. However, usually what happens if another five or seven shots are fired to complete a 10-shot string, other bullets fill in the space between the main group and the flier to make a reasonably rounded group. Ten shots are a more reliable indicator when it comes to predicting what a load is likely to do in the future.

The problem with 10-shot groups is that when you report them, everyone thinks you aren't shooting very well or that the ammunition is not good because the group sizes are so much larger than three- or five-shot groups. Also, when we're firing three- or five-shot groups with a flier, it is only natural to assume that it was caused by a flinch or "pulling" the shot. Therefore, since the flier was our own fault, the tendency is to eliminate it from any reporting of group size.

This is one of the advantages of using a machine rest... The machine rest reduces the human element.
After using this machine rest for several years, I have determined that a 1.5-inch 10-shot group at 100 yards... is a good one.

- Rick Jamison, the author of the Precision Reloading column in Shooting Times magazine

I'm betting Rick Jamison has done more rifle testing than most of us. Seeing as how he gets paid and financed to do it.
 
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Now, what rifle, heavy barrel or not can shoot 10-consecutive shots in a minute without the barrel heating to branding iron levels?

I shoot 10 shot groups all the time.Barrel is warm by then Barrel is warm by then,but a far cry from hot.
 
nate45, I have a 500-yard range at my house. I mention this because the only ten-shot group I've shot in many years was on this range; maybe ten years back.

Probably about two minutes. I wasn't hurrying, but I wasn't dallying around. I called two flyers. The other eight were in a six-inch group. 1.2 MOA.

Low on ammo, I had just shot two four-shot .0.8 MOA groups a couple of minutes before, with a different load.

The old Weatherby has had around 4,000 rounds run through it. 3x10 scope. 26" #2 profile sporter barrel. '06.

This was just messing around, casual shooting. No real serious effort on my part. Just meddling along in my notion that if it's within 500 yards, it belongs to me. :D
 
About six months ago, I shot at several 55 gallon drums, I had sat out between 200 and 500 yards. My goal was just to hit the 12 inch paper plates I had taped to them. I'll say I'm good out to 440 with my rifles, 1/4 mile isn't bad. Thats without adjusting the windage and elevation though, although some of my hunting type scopes have BDC, still wind can really eat you up out at 500 and beyond. Even with my Mil dot reticle scopes, its hard to guess a kentucky windage hold way out there. Actually adjusting the turrets becomes a necessity for precision.
 
Alot has to do with the shooter, his skills and bench setup. Then the rifle has to be capable. I only keep rifles that will do it. Period. No rocket science there. And some rifles (like mine) do it with factory ammo.
 
There are probably quite a few 1MOA guns out there, but very few 1MOA shooters. I have 4 subMOA shooters for sure, but I simply cannot shoot that well each and every time out. For example, I have a varmint AR that was put together with a Del-ton 20" mid weight barrel, and free floated. It will shoot less than an inch @ 200 most of the time. Out in the real world I have pulled the trigger on it twice with the same result; varmint retired. Do I care if it is an MOA weapon or not?, No. Out in the real world there is wind, temperature, barometric pressure and such to deal with. All have an effect on where the bullet ultimately impacts, and all up to the shooter to correct for. I pull the trigger and a gust of wind hits the bullet out at 75 pushing the bullet off target and it impacts just outside the 1MOA circle. Does that mean the gun is not an MOA shooter? No. It means I didn't account for the gust of wind. My 700 .308 shot a 5/32" group @ 100 on a windless day bipod and bagged on the back. That is how capable that particular rifle is. I am not that talented on a normal day. All I'm saying is that there are probably a lot more rifles that are capable of 1MOA or less than there are people capable of wringing that out of a weapon.
 
I shoot 10 shot groups all the time.Barrel is warm by then Barrel is warm by then,but a far cry from hot.
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We live in different parts of the world, I guess. 10 shots out of any of my rifles in ONE minute and the barrels would burn my hand.

@nate45 Heat from the barrel can and will change your POI. Are you seriously saying that is just an excuse people use? Do you reload? Extreme changes in even ambient air temp. WILL change POI. I know shooting 10-shots in a row won't "hurt" anything, but to avoid extra throat erosion over the life of my barrels I choose not to shoot my rifles to the point where they are red hot.

You can listen to whomever you choose. The rest of the shooting community is going to judge their accuracy with 3 or 5 shot groups. And me, personally, I will be satisfied after I shoot several 5-shot groups and if most of them are Sub-MOA I feel ok about saying the rifle can shoot MOA.
 
Well, I don't know anyone who really consider 3 shots groups to be a good judge of a rifles capabilities.

Think of it like this... Here is a 3 shot group from my .204:

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That group measures less than 0.4 MOA.

Now, imagine if I shot another 3 shot group that was a mirror image of this one, two shots together, but the third shot low instead of high.

As a 3 shot group, it's still 0.4 MOA but if I'd shot the top and bottom shots in ONE group, it's be 0.8 MOA and there's no way of knowing, from 3 shots, if that's likely to happen.

The rifle is still easily under 1 MOA but a 3 shot group might literally be telling you only 1/2 the story.

Problem is, it might not too. You just can't tell from 3 shots. Now, I've shot this particular rifle and load enough times under enough conditions to know that it shoots at or under 1/2 MOA "all day long". You'd really, really have to screw something up to approach 1 MOA with this gun. I've shot it out to 410 yards and it shoots about 3/4 MOA out that far.

But from those 3 shots, you don't know if the center of the group is going to be between the bottom two (which would be bad) or if it's between the bottom two and the top one (which would be good).

So, yeah, you need more than 3 or even 5 shots to really call a group but, as to the point of the thread, a "1 MOA rifle all day long." is not spectacular at all. In fact, I'd consider it to be a requirement for most of my shooting. If I can't count on 1 MOA, I want a new gun.
 
There are 4 strings of fire which are the basic building blocks of any NRA high power rifle course of fire or tournament.

1. Slow Fire, standing - 10 rounds at 200 yards in 10 minutes.
2. Rapid Fire, sitting or kneeling - 10 rounds at 200 yards in 60 seconds.
3. Rapid Fire, 10 rounds prone - 300 yards in 70 seconds.
4. Slow Fire, 10 rounds prone - 500 or 600 yards in 10 minutes.

As we can see by the NRA rapid high power strings of fire, 10 rounds in a minute are a standard part of the course. Have been for years and years.

FiveInADime said:
@nate45 Heat from the barrel can and will change your POI. Are you seriously saying that is just an excuse people use? Do you reload? Extreme changes in even ambient air temp. WILL change POI. I know shooting 10-shots in a row won't "hurt" anything, but to avoid extra throat erosion over the life of my barrels I choose not to shoot my rifles to the point where they are red hot.
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When you talk about 10 shots making things red hot, throat erosion, etc you're way off of reality.
 
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