Forum shooting challenge: The under 500 500

[Ultimitsu]

A score of 5 would be respectable = 1.5" @ 100m and the 100m and 200m target. 8 would be a good score if you made the 300m target as well. With handloading and home accurizing and a bit of good old kiwi ingenuity, the top score will be higher.

A full score of 22 is entirely possible but the 5 shot group is what will make it nearly impossible. It is actually less than MOA.

A score of 20 will be like a top score in golf. 22 is like hole in one.

Most of these guns shoot like arse but they can be made to shoot. It is just that the top guys would never bother, right @7mmsaum ?

Thus, the challenge

The 5 shot group requires a 1/4 MOA gun. Even expensive custom guns do not guarantee that. see this custom gun maker, only guanrantee 3 shots group 1/4 MOA, and you must use his $4 USD custom ammo.

A consistent 1 MOA gun would get you 18 points, that is pretty good if you can do it in 500. Load development is time consuming and costly. There is a good reason why most people (who have jobs) do not bother do load development unless the gun is worth it in the first place.

Regarding your last point. I suppose people have differing views on whether "guns shoot like arse" - "can be made to shoot". I am not so convinced. Most cheap and inaccurate guns are inherently inaccurate. While you can improve certain aspects to make it shoot a little better such as bedding and re-crowning. You cannot do anything about most aspects of the gun that made it inaccurate, such as -

* lower quality materials used for the action and barrel,
* low quality bore and rifling resulting from low quality craftsmanship and tools,
* imprecision of stamped actions,
* thinly made actions that have higher amount of flex,
* cheaply joined barrel and action (I remember reading reviews about one Remington rifle which had the barrel pressed into the action),
* off-centre action and barrel resulting from excess tolerance,
* excess tolerance in the headspace, and
* triggers designed/made to have 6-pound pull with a 3/4 inch of creep and no clear or consistent point of let-off.

And we are not even talking about rifling wear, fouling, pitting, rust and physical damage that comes with age.

(~awaits for someone to tell me that they got a beautiful xxx rifle from 1939 which had stamped action and pressed pencil barrel that had gone through WWII but still shoots like a laser)