Wow, a lot of different thoughts here and quite a few misunderstandings between posters. Probably because there are many different definitions of accuracy: mechanical rifle/ammo accuracy off sandbags/bench vs. shooter skill accuracy, target size accuracy requirements (prairie dog accuracy vs. elk accuracy, 100 yds vs. 1000 yds, etc.). Many of us are talking about very different selections from this group, which is comparing apples to oranges.
A lot depends entirely on what a given shooter wants to do with his rifle. The varmint guys seem to all want .5" @ 100 rifles, and some of the big game guys too. And a lot of people are stuck in 'shoot off the bench=accuracy' mindset. This is 'rifle/ammo accuracy', not necessarily shooter accuracy, though you still have to know how to aim and press properly even off a bench to get the best results.
Speedkills, I didn't mean to say that someone can shoot tighter from position than the rifle will group from the bench. Rather the opposite: If your rifle bench-tests at say 1" at 100 yds, and the best you can do away from the bench (say rested prone) is 2" at 100 yds, then you are wasting your time and money trying to make your 1"@100 rifle into a .5"@100 rifle. Better to spend your time and money learning to shoot up to your rifle's ability. When your field position skills let you shoot as accurately as the rifle shoots off a benchrest, THEN it is worth your time and money to try to increase its accuracy, because if you keep practicing then you might be able to increase your skill to match the rifle's new better capability. Otherwise the .5"@100 capability is something you simply cannot put to noticable use under field conditions. Will it make you 'feel better/more confident'? Maybe, but will that 'feeling' make you a better shot? I doubt it highly.
I can understand the high accuracy requirements for varmint/target/sniper rifles, but not so much for big game. A deer's kill zone is around 8" give or take. Even way out at 300 yards that's just under 3 MOA. If you're a skilled position shooter, you can hit that from sitting out to 200-250 yards with sling, or 300 w/sling from prone, without a rest, and without a sub-MOA rifle. The people I know who can do this with ease can do it as well with a 1.5 MOA rifle as with a sub-MOA rifle. You sure as heck don't need a sub-MOA rifle to kill at 200 yards, even something as small as a coyote.
On the topic of shooter accuracy, I see lots of references to using a rest, any rest, backpack/rock/bipod/sticks/log, whatever. All fine ideas, and I would encourage the use of rests whenever possible. As Jeff Cooper said, "If you can get closer, get closer. If you can get steadier, get steadier."
But honestly now, how many of you guys can hit worth a darn without a rest? How many of you guys know how to use a loop sling? How many have had good instruction in proper position principles? Someday you might not have a rest available for the shot. Of course I am an old bullseye position rifle competitor (no rests allowed!) so that gives me a different perspective on rifle shooting (I guess I'm just a position snob). Not meaning to offend anybody, but in my position-shooting-snob opinion, if you can't hit without a rest, YOU CAN'T REALLY SHOOT! Being able to shoot very well without a rest will not only be a bigger 'confidence booster' than having a .5 MOA rifle (because it will be REAL not imagined), it will actually make you a better shot over a rest as well!
Having the skill level to shoot, with a loop sling but no rest, 8 MOA from standing, 2-3 MOA from sitting and 1-2 MOA from prone means being able to properly hit your deer/elk at 100 from standing, 200-250 from sitting w/loop sling, and 300-400 from prone w/sling. All doable with a plain-jane 1.5 MOA rifle.
Given a kill-zone target size of 8-9" where any hit within that zone counts equally, if any of you guys can come up with a realistic, field-demonstrable criticism of that kind of personal ability with that kind of average rifle, I'd like to both hear your explanation AND see you demonstrate it in the field, at unknown distance, under time pressure, on that target. I'd really like to see where a rifle of .5 MOA gives a MEANINGFULLY better result than one of 1.5 MOA within 300 yards. Yes I know that from the bench at 300, a 1.5 MOA rifle should give a 4.5" group vs. a 1.5" group for the .5 MOA rifle. My point is I know darn few rifle owners who can hit an 8" target at 300 FROM POSITION, whereas the ones I know who can, can do it just as well with either a .5 MOA rifle or a 1.5 MOA rifle. Human accuracy counts more here than mechanical accuracy.
Now obviously if we either shrink targets or extend ranges, we will run into the range limit for the 1.5 MOA rifle long before the .5 MOA rifle. BUT, the difference in these cases (tiny targets at extreme ranges) only matters to the approximately 1% of rifle shooters who are skilled enough to take advantage of the extra mechanical accuracy available, at ranges far outside the sane limit for the other 99% of us! I think we do have to realize that there is a 'point of diminishing returns' where for most of us the difference between .5 MOA and 1 MOA simply doesn't realistically matter once we get off the bench and out in the hills.
I don't think I've ever owned a rifle that was a consistent .5"@100 shooter. I have shot a few 5-shot groups that small off the bench at 100 now and then, but even my heavy .22-250 AI pd gun averaged only about 2/3 MOA, and was very deadly past 400 before the throat burned out. Most of my guns are in that allegedly 'useless' category of 1" to 1.5" @100. Yet I have hit my share of game, have managed to make expert in highpower (with a 1.5 MOA M1 Garand), and with my 1-1.5 MOA hunting rifles can ring 8" to 10" steel plates from sitting and prone w/sling (no rest) all day out to beyond 300 with about a 90% hit ratio, and pretty darn quickly too.
And I know that the shots I have missed (and there have been plenty of those) were not because my rifle wasn't a .5 MOA gem. It was because I misjudged range and/or wind and held wrong, or because I flinched on the trigger pull, or because the target was moving and I had only a SWAG for how to lead it and guessed wrong, or because I didn't know how to get steady enough to hold properly and just let go a Hail Mary. All my fault, none the rifle's fault. And I have been using rifles for 35 years. The only exceptions I can think of were when the .22-250 throat burned out and I was either shooting rings around my aimpoint or the bullets were disintegrating in mid-air (faint puff of grey smoke) halfway to the target. Since all these were shot off sandbags on a bench, I'll call that a mechanical problem.
Okay, enough babble. How about a real working definition of accuracy?
For rifles, I think we can REALISTICALLY define mechanical accuracy by the requirements of target size and maximum practical ethical/skill-level engagement distance, with the absolute range limitation being a distance where the animal's kill zone is as large as the MOA accuracy capability of the rifle at that distance:
1) Big game: An antelope's kill zone is about 6", a deer's 8-9", an elk's 10-12". In general, we can call a big game rifle 'very accurate' if it shoots 1 MOA at the furthest distance (while MOA is always linear with distance, a rifle's groups are not necessarily linear with distance) that you think you should ethically try a shot in the field under ideal conditions. Anything under that is 'extremely accurate' (IMHO, unecessarily so) for big game rifle. A 1 MOA at 600 rifle will keep its shots on an antelope's kill zone at 600. That is rifle capability that far exceeds the skill capability of about 99% of rifle shooters. >1 to 1.5 MOA is 'acceptably accurate' for a big game rifle to 400 yards. Anything bigger shortens your theoretical range but will still work fine under the right circumstances (3 MOA .30-30 lever gun in the brush, etc.). I think it should be obvious that hitting an 8" target at 200-300 yards (the longer side of average distance for big game) does not REQUIRE a .5 MOA rifle. It DOES require the shooter to know how to shoot the rifle to a 2.5 MOA standard. If said rifle is only a 1.75 MOA rifle, guess what result said shooter will still achieve with it.
In this target size/distance category, shooter skill is more important than equipment capability, given the average rifle capability.
2) target/varmint/sniper rifles should be sub-MOA. One MOA at 500 yards is just over 5", which means that you're using all of a fat prairie dog's lower body. The X-ring of a 600 yard Highpower target is 6" (1 MOA), the 10-ring twice that. A man's face at 600 is about 1 MOA wide too. When the wind is blowing and/or you don't know the exact range but are pretty sure it's just a little closer than the moon, every little bit helps. At this category of target size/distance, equipment performance requirements are higher, and skill level requirements are not only higher but are required to approach equipment performance capabilities. .75 MOA will probably do as a maximum, but some folks will just feel really insecure with those buckshot groups. Here more mechanical accuracy doesn't hurt and may actually be usable if you are in that top 1%.
Shooter accuracy:
First, learn to use a loop (NOT hasty) sling (Ching, GI M1907, GI green webbing)! Second, learn position shooting skills (natural point of aim, bone support, relaxation, etc.)! Third, learn to aim properly without eye/sights misalignment! Fourth, learn proper trigger management so you don't blow the shot in the act of firing it! Fifth, use a point-blank zero based on your intended target radius and understand its concept! Sixth, learn to eyeball range well enough to judge your maximum point blank distance! Seventh, learn your trajectory beyond your maximum point blank distance! Eighth, learn to read and compensate for wind! Ninth, practice the above like crazy!
1)Big game: assuming scope sight and loop sling, 8 MOA or better groups from standing, 4 MOA or better from kneeling & squatting, 3 MOA or better from sitting, 2 MOA or better from prone. With iron sights or hasty sling, you will do worse. These are the standards to which I train and on a good day I can meet or exceed them. If you can do the above, you won't need rests, bipods, or sticks for any but the most difficult shots, and you will be better able to use them when necessary.
2) varmint/target/sniper: Varmints are usually shot from a bench or from sticks/bipods/sandbags from sitting or prone. Proper position shooting principles will make you a better stick/bipod shooter. So will loop sling use (in conjunction with the bipod/sticks) in certain instances. For target shooting you will have to do what the rules dictate (depends on the sport). Tactical stuff will be field expedient rests combined with really good position skills.
3) combat: all the above plus a well-ingrained reflexive snapshot from offhand out to 50 yards.
As you can see, my experience has been in position shooting in the field and on the target range. Observing shooters ranging from rank beginners to high masters, with equipment ranging from crude to unbelievable, at ranges from 50 feet to 600 yards, has given me some very definitive opinions on what 'accuracy' means. Namely, that the shooter matters far more than the gun. A top dawg with a 1.5 MOA rifle will open up several cans of whup-azz on a guy with a .3 MOA rifle who has only shot from a bench, if they both shoot from the ground.
All you guys who get rid of rifles that won't shoot 1/2 inch at 100, if I had the cash I'd be able to put them to very good use! If I had a dollar for every time I've seen on this forum "My rifles must shoot a half-inch at 100 or I get rid of them!" I could retire. On the other hand, after 3 years of smallbore rifle target shooting and seven years of highpower rifle target shooting and a few 3-gun matches here and there (and being a shooter for 35 years), if I had a dollar for every guy I met who could actually show me a difference in his personal performance between a 1 MOA rifle and a .5 MOA rifle, I would definately have less than $10 in hand, and probably less than $5.
Like Yogi Berra said about baseball: Shooting is 50 percent physical and 90 percent mental. Don't get psyched out over whether your rifle shoots tiny enough groups from sandbags on a bench unless you are a benchrest competitor or want a 600-yard prairie dog. If you yourself can't duplicate it in the field, it's meaningless. Get psyched up instead over shooting small-enough groups from a field position. That is where the rubber meets the road! When your field position shooting measures up to your rifle's benchrest accuracy, then start drooling over equipment upgrades. Learn to hit well without a rest and you really won't care much how tight your rifle shoots off the bench, as long as it shoots a bit tighter than you do.
For the record, I like my big-game hunting rifles to shoot no worse than 1.5 MOA and prefer 1-1.33 MOA. Still tighter than I can hold in the field. My coyote .243 shoots a 1 MOA load with a 70 Speer TNT, and I have on two or three occasions shot 5-shot groups with this from sitting with loop sling at 200 yds that measure less than 3". While I still can't hit a moving coyote at 200 for crap (the sitting ones should be toast), I don't think that would be cured by having my .243 shoot tighter off the bench.
Whew! I just spent 3 hours writing this when I had planned to go to the range today instead. Oh well, I hope this helps somebody out.
