Down Range

Sometimes I think gun writers have over the decades, done a great disservice to American riflemen by emphasizing shooting groups. The truth is shooting groups can be a great aid in marksmanship, or it can serve no purpose at all. The difference is in how shooting groups is viewed by the rifleman.

I know many shooters (including myself) have targets taped to the walls of their reloading rooms; they represent the best groups. The bad targets get tossed in the trash. Yet the purpose of rifle shooting is not to shoot the tightest groups. It is actually hitting a target, and the ability to do that is not enhanced by sitting at a bench and shooting group after group in an effort to get one worthy of hanging on the wall.

There are two basic reasons for shooting groups. The primary reason is to develop precise handloads or determining how well factory loads behave in specific rifles. The second reason is zeroing a rifle.

Let’s consider the first reason. Rifles shoot some loads better than others – that’s a rule. So, the effort in shooting groups with varying components is to find a combination that suits the rifle’s purpose. Let’s arbitrarily consider one-MOA groups as sufficient for varmint rifles, 1½ MOA for big game and for most paper or steel target competitions, and 2 to 3 MOA for most iron-sighted hunting rifles of any sort.

Once a rifle shows that it shoots as well as defined above with either handloads or factory loads, what’s the next step? For me it is to study those groups for a bit. Long ago, a fellow showed me a group cut from a paper target. It had three shots stacked directly atop one another, fired with a .222 Remington. It was just over .5 inch and was fired at 100 yards. He was bubbling over it and was downright offended when I said that its perfectly vertical shape troubled me. I said, “Groups should be round, or in the case of three shots at least triangular. Then I asked him if he had fired any other groups with that rifle and load. He had, but said he had thrown them away because they weren’t so impressive.

Perfectly vertical or horizontal groups trouble me, as do rifles that double-group, one of which I experienced in the past few years. The first five shots or so would make beautiful clusters. Unless it was allowed to cool completely, it would then shift point of impact several inches, but the rifle would shoot another nice five-shot group.

Vertical stringing can be indications of a weak strike of the firing pin to primer or a primer of insufficient strength for the powder type. Horizontal stringing and double-grouping are generally rifle problems most likely caused by the barrel and/or action bedding. Another type of group that indicates a rifle problem is the “hollow” group where bullet holes cut a circle. Even though it might be relatively small, it seems to me that there should also be bullet holes in the group’s center.

When I’m test-firing just about any rifle, I look through the spotting scope after every shot, because I want to watch the group form. Ideally, shots one, two and three will form a triangle, and then shots four and five will fall inside the triangle. If they don’t and travel off somewhere else, I figure there’s a problem. With BPCR Silhouette match rifles, I will initially shoot five-shot groups when working-up loads. The true test is with 10 shots because in competition, the longevity of precision delivered from a rifle using black powder and cast bullets, perhaps on a 95-degree day, is important.

Three-shot groups are fine for zeroing a rifle. Otherwise they can be misleading, as an accompanying photo shows. I don’t begin to twist knobs or drift sights until the group center is known. Each group will have a highest shot, a lowest shot, one farthest left and one farthest right. Making an adjustment should be from the group’s center unless the rifle just cuts one-hole clusters – most don’t.

Remember the arbitrary group sizes suggested for different rifle types? When a shooter has a rifle consistently capable of shooting groups to those specifications and has it zeroed, then in my humble opinion group shooting can cease. At that point it is time to learn to direct each bullet to a specific target. Big-game hunters should dump the sandbags and get up on their elbows or shoot from a  kneeling position unless they have a bipod attached, then strive to hit kill-zone-size targets of the game that will be hunted, and they should do so at ranges they expect to shoot. Target shooters should assume the position(s) from which they will fire their relays, and keep track of every shot. Varmint hunters get the most leeway in rests, but at least they should put their practice targets at staggered distances.

I have been shooting groups for well over 50 years and actually enjoy it, but it should not be an end in itself. Hitting what was aimed at should be the goal.