How Important is Accuracy in a Hunting Rifle?

EffinGoof, truth be told, overkill is a very minor sin. I want my gun(s) to put every shot exactly where I want it to go. I respect the animals that I hunt enough to want my guns to be dead on balls accurate enough SO THAT THERE IS NO DOUBT IN MY MIND WHEN I DROP THE HAMMER THAT THE SHOT I TOOK WENT WHERE IT WAS MEANT TO GO.

'nuff said.
 
I am a bit of an accuracy "nut".
I fully recognize that a 1½ moa rifle will hunt 99% of big game in NA.
However, I love accurate hunting rifles. In my mind "accurate" is moa or less.
As another poster stated, I like to take the error away from the tool I'm using.
I will fiddle with rifle & loads until I am satisfied with the results.
If I am NOT satisfied, the rifle is sold off or rebarrelled.
If the only shot possible is on the long side, I want to be sure my rifle is up to the shot.
Regards, Eagleye.
 
Colonel Townsend Whelen once said "Only accurate rifles are interesting".

I am in his camp, I usually have more than one choice so I only hunt with accurate guns.
 
Short range benchrest group shooting with hunting rifles has become an informal sport or pastime all of its own. That's all well and good, but isn't nearly as useful or informative as many would like to believe. Its harmless enough if it doesn't make you put the A-Frames, Weld-cores and Partitions back on the shelf. "Whatever shoots the best" is a poor way of chooseing a hunting bullet.

How many of you have shaved a quarter inch off your group size, chortled with glee, then sighted the rifle 3 inches high at 100 because the logical part of your brain knows that 3 inches plus or minus of aiming error doesn't mean much out to past 300?

Hmmmm, 3 inches doesn't mean anything but half of that quarter inch improvement matters a lot? How helpful is it when wind drift is measured in feet?

I like an accurate rifle as much as anyone, but this endless pursuit of one hole groups is distracting people from things that are more important.
 
Depends on what is considered the vital zone of what one is hunting and the shooting position.
Most current factory hunting guns/ammo are accurate for most hunters and situations until about 300 yds. Then as Dogleg mentioned reading environmentals and trajectory become progressively important.

Edit: was writing while Dogleg was.
 
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All of my rifles have to shoot 1/2 inch groups @ 100 meters prior to taking it out in the field. They are all zero @ 300 meters. Do I deed that accuracy for hunting big game?...............absalutely not. I've killed well over 100 big game animals and the average kill distance was probably 125 to 150 yards and the longest was 310 paces. Accuracy and point of impact is very important to know.:D
 
Dogleg said:
Short range benchrest group shooting with hunting rifles has become an informal sport or pastime all of its own. That's all well and good, but isn't nearly as useful or informative as many would like to believe. Its harmless enough if it doesn't make you put the A-Frames, Weld-cores and Partitions back on the shelf. "Whatever shoots the best" is a poor way of chooseing a hunting bullet.

How many of you have shaved a quarter inch off your group size, chortled with glee, then sighted the rifle 3 inches high at 100 because the logical part of your brain knows that 3 inches plus or minus of aiming error doesn't mean much out to past 300?

Hmmmm, 3 inches doesn't mean anything but half of that quarter inch improvement matters a lot? How helpful is it when wind drift is measured in feet?

I like an accurate rifle as much as anyone, but this endless pursuit of one hole groups is distracting people from things that are more important.
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This is a great comment. If you are so concerned about accuracy that you want .25" at 100 over .5" then you shouldn't sight it in "x" high at 100 for mpbr with a 6" target diameter. You should zero your rifle at 100, have turrets you can crank in the field, range finder, dope, all that good stuff.

I have a 7mm rm with 162 ssts for "long" range deer. Zero'd at 100, drop charts, turrets, range finder, all that good stuff. That's the only one I was really determined to get the best possible groups with.

My "hunting" rifles are all handloads at about .75" or a bit less (my 338 wm just happens to shoot 3 holes touching with 210ttsx) and I didn't fiddle around with them all that much. They are sighted in for mpbr.
 
For most of my hunting career (and I'm turning grey) I've shot my moose almost every year with a factory loaded. 270 with a run of the mill scope at just shy of 300 yards. Always go for the boiler and they always die. I can proudly say I've never made a Texas heart shot (in the ass).

With the same rifle I've made a few head shots at under 75 with confidence.

With my new 7mm with my handloads I've taken a mulie in the head at 150, 2 moose in the head at 130 and another moose in the boiler at 275. The head shots I would have never considered at that range with the old setup but with my 'dialed in' rifle I'm more confident and that, I think, is the difference.
 
All riffles in my safe ( except SKS but I dont hunt with it) are 1/2 MOA with factory ammo.... More then that I dont keep them....
 
IMO accuracy in a hunting rifle is overated when your talking about a diffrence of .5-1MOA variance, ie: some will claim over 1.5MOA is no good, .75-1.5 is acceptable. Hunting accuracy IMO is how well one reacts in the field when given a shot opportunity. Lots of animals for what ever reason seem to make guns no longer shoot straight. Why do many hunters have the inability to stay calm and make their shot hit home, That to me is what determines "hunting" accuracy.
 
canadaman30 said:
IMO accuracy in a hunting rifle is overated when your talking about a diffrence of .5-1MOA variance, ie: some will claim over 1.5MOA is no good, .75-1.5 is acceptable. Hunting accuracy IMO is how well one reacts in the field when given a shot opportunity. Lots of animals for what ever reason seem to make guns no longer shoot straight. Why do many hunters have the inability to stay calm and make their shot hit home, That to me is what determines "hunting" accuracy.
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You got it!
 
A rifle's potential for absolute accuracy (i.e ruling out the shooter, the optics, the ammo, the wind, the light, the rain, the altitude.......etc) is only one factor in a good hunting rifle package, and I'm going to say it is not even close to being the most important factor.

Personally I've got a pass/fail system for hunting rifle packages; 1.5 MOA is a pass unless it's a long range predator rifle.

That's quite easy to obtain with even mid range optics and basement gun-plumber accurizing on the rifle itself.

The hunter themself is THE major factor in hunting success, ANY hardware is secondary.

In terms of hardware, reliability is always number one. If it doesn't go "bang" when it should, I don't care if you can shoot bugholes at 1000 meters with it at the range in perfect conditions.

Absolute accuracy of a rifle package is kind of much farther down there in terms of bringing home game, and I think lots of people place way too much importance on it, or are way too quick to blame a lost animal on a lack of laser accuracy from their rifle.

I'd bet 98% of missed shots on game in real-world conditions are a result of hunter error, and the other 2% are a result of all other factors, only one of them being accuracy.
 
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effinggoof said:
In a world where optics are common and factory ammo is generally very well made, is the accuracy of a given rifle or load important to you, or do you just accept that modern rifle/optics /ammo is "good enough".
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"Hunting rifle" is a pretty general term. The 223 I use for coyotes can shoot a 2 inch 5 round group at 300 yards. In the real world shooting off my bipod the deciding factor will be my abillity to hold on target. Even knowing my range I would probably not shoot further than 300-400yards.

My deer and Elk guns could be quite a bit less accurate than this. My elk gun for example shoots just under 1.5". On a calm day with all things going my way I may shoot it out to 400 plus yards, but only if I had to (no option of stalking closer).

Shooting free hand I think there are very few hunters that can "responsibly" shoot past 200 yards IMO.

More important than accuracy is knowing your range and knowing where your gun shoots at that range.

G
 
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