The Zero Check Thread

[Steelisreal]

20 shot groups should be the minimum, hot barrels be buggered. I guess I'll keep being a dinosaur and consider 5 shot groups is all I need. I cannot recall ever having to shoot 10 shots while out hunting. Tell me again why we need to burn powder, primers and barrels because someone decided its now necessary to have 10 shot groups for a hunting rifle?

You don't need to do anything that falls outside of your own requirements. If you're happy with your method of defining precision and zeroing your rifle then good for you - go shoot stuff and be happy.

Here's the big but - when claims are made that a rifle shoots 'sub-MOA all day' or suchlike, that's when statistical validity becomes the primary consideration.

These discussions posted by Gimp et al have always been to try to get us thinking about what we're claiming (and expecting) of our equipment and abilities and BE HONEST with ourselves about our expectations of both.

Beavis makes a great point that errors in your system are much less problematic if you follow the traditional hunter's advice to 'stalk in close, then get a bit closer' before shooting. This was very much the approach when I was younger and was taught to shoot. And it served us well for trying to achieve humane kills with the equipment we had.

Times change though and these days it's very easy to wander in to a shop and buy yourself the ultimate long range precision rifle setup and set off into the world to emulate what has been seen or read about online. And that's where it can all come unstuck without understanding what precision actually is and how to use that to zero your rifle/scope system to make best use of that potential.