I Ran across this 2022 article from
Outdoor Life recently and think it's an interesting read.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/guns/rifle-accuracy-guarantee/
To me, these guarantees are just about meaningless and really just constitute another sales gimmick. As pointed out in the article, there are many ways that a manufacturer can claim that such a guarantee is justified. To me, the most obvious is that just about any rifle/scope combination is capable of producing a single 1.0" or smaller group at 100 yards. If you shoot enough groups, in the end, one will match the guarantee. That's the one where your wiggles matched the rifle's wobbles just right. The remaining groups that were larger than 1.0" can then be disregarded. I suspect that this is the way that the gun maker justifies the stated guarantee (if, in fact, any groups were shot at all), the reasoning being that, if the rifle can make
one group better than 1.0", it is eligible for the guarantee.
I think that this logic is what's behind countless shooters claiming that their rifle "will shoot 1/2" groups all day long." The shooter manages to shoot one 1/2" group during a session, although most groups were considerably larger. To me, it is the aggregate, or average group size, that indexes a rifle's accuracy. I like the NRA's 5x5 method of assessing and reporting rifle accuracy. They take the
average group size of 5
consecutive 5-shot groups at 100 yards. The "consecutive" part of this is important. They don't cherry-pick the five best groups shot and report that average; they include
all groups shot when obtaining the average.
Just some food for thought....
