Y'know, another factor that some are not considering in statements like "I always do this" or I always do that" is that you're talking about YOUR OWN RIFLES.
You're talking about guns YOU OWN.
You're talking about GUNS YOU WILL BE KEEPING.
In other words, you're willing to put many hours and a fair amount of ammo money into extensive range testing to get the data you think you need on a rifle you expect to be using for a long time.
Totally different with me.
I do buy the occasional test sample, if I severely like it & it fills a niche for me, but 99% go back to their makers when I'm done.
Coupled with the production costs involved in a given article that I already mentioned, and the return-on-investment ratio (the check I get as gross income vs what I had to spend in time, resources, and money I had to put into that article), I'm just not going to waste all that time, resources, and money in extensively and intensively shooting hundreds of rounds over several sessions to create more data points on a gun I'm not going to keep.
If you've seen any of my print stuff, you may have noticed a target photo showing a best-of-session test group.
That's required by the company I sell to.
You may also have noticed the group shown on each is frequently not centered in the black bull.
That's the result of me not taking the time to precisely zero a gun/sight/scope any further than necessary to get a group centered well enough to put all holes on that one target to fit in a photo.
When I may be shooting two or four different guns at a typical session, I'm not going to take the time to perfectly zero each one, with each load, on a gun I'm not going to be keeping.
For accuracy testing, I don't need that, and it'd input more time into the project, skewing the return-on-investment ratio in the wrong direction, just to get nicely centered pretty target photos.
I'm not the only writer who does this, and readers have been known to complain about off-center groups in photos by saying the gun or scope or writer must be off if they can't get the combo to shoot dead-center groups.
Besides the additional time involved, it (again) uses up more ammo to get everything perfectly zeroed for perfectly-zeroed pictures.
Putting everything into the tightest groups I & the gun can get is the goal, not making pretty photos.
But, back to the "your gun" & the returnable test sample issue- the 3-shot group methodology works well enough to get a basic idea of how a test sample did for me, and works well enough for most readers to look at the results & get an idea of what a similar gun may do for them, as a general overview, in a "best case" (or best group) situation.
You have the luxury of spending as much time & money on YOUR OWN GUN as you want to.
On a loaner I won't be keeping, I don't.
As I repeatedly say- the system has its flaws & its limitations.
The mass-media writer who expects to make a profit on his or her work simply has to accept those limitations, and so does the mass-media reader.
The reader almost invariably forgets there's a profit/loss equation that plays a fundamental role in gunwriting, as well as space restrictions beyond the writer's control.
We are not here to be Consumer Reports Magazine.
We are not here to do ALL of the time & resource-consuming in-depth lab work some are demanding.
We are not here to make up your mind for you on whether to buy a new gun or not.
We ARE here to provide what info we can, within the framework we have to operate in.
Most of us try to give you the most info we can for your money, but the expectations of many readers are simply unrealistic.
"It's an elephant gun, why didn't you shoot an elephant with it for us?"
Africa's expensive, dude.
"It's a combat gun, why didn't you shoot somebody with it (or at least take it to a two-week carbine school)?"
That'd cost over five times what I'd be paid for the article, guy.
"It's a comp gun, why didn't you take it to Steel Challenge?"
Let's see.....several days to get there, stay there, shoot there, return home from there; entry fees, motel expenses, ammunition, travel expenses, food expenses, all not covered by the company I'd be selling the article to. Gee, Economics 101 says the basic key to financial success in a business model is PROFIT, not LOSS, so what's wrong with this picture?
"It's a caliber that's hard on barrels, why didn't you test it with several thousand rounds till the throat burned out and the rifling disappeared, making notes of deteriorating accuracy every hundred shots along the way to plot out a graph for us, and then re-barrel & repeat 9 more times to give us statistically valid extrapolations so we can know exactly what to expect if we buy one?"
Uhh......right.
"I only have xxx dollars to spend on my next gun, and I want you to shoot 400 different loads through Model X, run 10,000 rounds down the bore, compare accuracy with 10 different scopes, shoot it out to 1000 yards, tell me which round is the best one to use on everything from squirrels to buffalo, and make up my mind for me on whether I want to buy that rifle or not."
Nope, you're on your own there, bucko.
And so on.
You want to pay me to do all that, PM me & I'll work out a price package.
Cashier's check for 50% up front, balance due on completion.
You expect to be paid a realistic sum for your work, I have a right to the same expectation for mine.
Denis