True enough, but back then nobody would think to take shots much over about 200 yards - stalking closer to maneuver yourself into a good position was how most people hunted.
Nowadays it's all about the long shot at extended ranges and buying the necessary equipment to do it which of course the retail market will try to provide. Popular culture has certainly been a big driver of this.
Accuracy over the period being discussed has come a long way.
The sort of accuracy we see today from many off the shelf rifles has become the new norm, because of the huge tech advances in manufacturing practices.
Bullets, for instance, now have extremely consistent jacket thicknesses due to the advent of the Juenke Guage, which electronically measures thickness very easily and quickly, rather than pulling the odd jacket out of a batch, cutting it, and measuring with a hand held micrometer.
This enabled the manufacturers to "fix" issues quickly, instead of running off entire batches of inconsistent jackets.
Then, with the advent of CNC equipment, everything got progressively better and just keeps on getting better. This will continue, as long as the manufacturers maintain their machinery.
Good scopes are now mostly the norm. Even low end scopes give excellent accuracy capability today, as long as the scope is built for the type of firearm it's being mounted on.
It's relatively easy to get a rifle, even one manufactured over a century ago, to shoot sub 1.5 moa groups, which are fine for most hunting conditions and the shots most shooters are capable of, out to 300yds.
Accuracy, once a shooter becomes used to it, can easily become an "obsession."
I fell into the accuracy "trap" over 60 years ago, and it still haunts me today.
I'm not nearly as anal about accuracy now as I was twenty years ago, but if a firearm won't shoot the way I want it to, it's either rebarreled, or sold off, with full disclosure, to someone else who doesn't require more, or has an idea to make it shoot better.
I don't have the patience to keep at a particular firearm to bring it around, and prefer to use the time I have left, using the already proven firearms in my safe.
I still like building "fun guns," such as the Martini I'm working on, chambered for the 218 Bee, just because.
When it's no longer fun, it's not worth doing. Hunting, shooting, fishing, etc is a "fun thing" for most of us. Not a necessity, or a chore.
When I was much younger, hunting/fishing, was a necessity. If we didn't do it, table fare was very expensive and boring. The "company stores" in the mining towns, had high costs, when it came to freight charges, and fridges/freezers were often non existent, because there wasn't any electricity to operate them.
Beef and chicken were luxuries during the early years of my life, mostly because there was no way to keep it fresh. Times have changed so much over the past 75 years.
... my M77 gives me a honest, repeatable 1.5 MOA or less 3-shot group @ 100 yds from sandbags with the factory ammo I use ... plenty accurate for my purposes
