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What is your standard for accuracy?

My goal at my 25m range, is as close to one ragged hole, 5 shots, in no wind condition. But if I can shoot 1/4 inch, without flyers, I am also happy. 4 shots in a ragged hole, and a 5th flyer may anoyie, me more than all going inside 1/4 inch. If it is a new gun, I can live with bigger groups, as it may not have been broken in yet, or tuned for one pellet only.
 
For me it's hitting what I aim at. I havent shot a target or piece of paper or put a gun over the chrony or tuned in over 6 months. It's been amazing getting back to just shooting. My main targets are sparrows, starlings, doves and pigeons. If I can hit my target reliably at any distance out to 100yds I'm happy. Main gun is 29fpe .22. Anything much past that is luck if any wind involved as it's all out in the field so to speak. Enjoy it way more than I used to. I will check at 50yds when testing a gun to see how it does and if it's a solid MOA gun I'm happy.
 
Precision and accuracy beyond what specific airguns are designed for have always been a fleeting thing for me. Like shooting at 100Y on a BR card with pellets and getting a .5" group followed a few minutes later by a 2.5" group. This was with the gun sitting on a one piece rest and with a nice gun at that, but the same thing has happened with every airgun I've shot at 100Y using pellets to some extent as far as precision goes except marginally worse. The ammo seems to be the limiting factor but the other factor is how much wind affects the horizontal and the vertical for pellets.
Yeah, I know, shoot at bigger targets, but nevertheless.....

Shooting a FT match, with pellets of course, in which case a nice gun and good pellets are fully capable of a perfect score, are more fun to me, all done inside 55Y, and for whatever reason a flyer is rare.
That vs shooting a XFT match using pellets out to 100Y because my hit ratio is much lower - I'm just speaking for me. The difference is in FT I can shoot a perfect score occasionally but in XFT it'd have to be perfectly calm to do that and that's if there are no flyers which happen often enough to annoy the heck out of me. I feel I could shoot a hundred matches in XFT using pellets and never get a 100%??

With using slugs in XFT it seems more likely to get a perfect score and even more so with a 22rf. So far Ive had way more fun with my 22rf in this type of match. I hope to have a similar experience using slugs this year but I'll know more about that later as time passes by.

I've found out that for myself, in the case of shooting long range steel, while using slugs way out there, that if I can't hit the target most of the time I also lose interest.

Just plinking in the yard I don't feel the need to shoot farther and I use lower powered guns on moderately sized steel usually. I like my Steyr's, and a FX Royale for that with pellets. I enjoy with a 6 fpe LGB1 Biathlon, the ProX semi, and the LP5 pistol the most and almost all shot at normal distances appropriate for those guns and power levels.

So basically for me it comes down to higher hit ratios. If the gun or ammo aren't capable of getting a 10 on paper, or a hit on steel most, more preferably all of the time in good conditions, I'm not getting what I want out of the experience.
 
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I dont actually have a standard for what I consider accurate , I think its more on a rifle to rifle basis, what is this rifle used for, what is acceptable , etc .... what do you consider accurate? For my hunting rifles its first shot accuracy, for my plinkers its a whole mag in a dime at 50 yards... 100 yards id love every group to be MOA but realistically for me and my current level of shooting something close to MOA is accurate.

People have asked me about how certain rifles of mine are performing... and Ive noticed a lot of people lately are EXPERT SNIPERS ... with their mouths, not their airguns.

I recently got "Wow, so the accuracy really isn't there" in regards to shooting 1.25" - 1.5" 20 (YES TWENTY) shot groups at 100 with slugs, fired from an airgun I had less than an hour behind off a poop table lol.... excuse me? I don't normally get bugged by this sort of thing but when looking through posts from the people saying things like this only to find they are sub 50 yard shooters and base everything off 30 yard groups I just have to laugh.

Watching too much youtube? lol
My "standard" for accuracy/precision is 1 MOA or less. As I rarely shoot past 50 yards and most shots are in my PBA (~14 to ~35 yards using a quarter inch as the target area) that works well for me. 1/4 inch groups at 25 yards and half inch groups at 50.

Of course, less than 1 MOA is always better and without wind, I usually get less than MOA at least out to 45 yards with the .177 Fortitude in my sig.
 
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I was thinking some of what @Emu articulated. The confidence that comes with the ability to shoot comfortably within certain ranges. I keep targets and notes to remind me of my capabilities and my guns’ capabilities. Just because I was able to shoot accurately at some point doesn’t mean I retain that ability perpetually. If I put a gun down for a while, it’s time to punch some paper to get a feel for it again. Once I’m satisfied with what I see, I feel ready to hunt. This works for me because it has proven effective. I remember the couple of animals that I did not recover or the handful that suffered longer than I was comfortable with. That drives me to practice and practice build confidence.

I don’t regularly measure group size. I want see how close my POI is to my POA. I want that first shot to hit where I aim, the second shot too (I want one of them to be a kill shot). I’m generally not shooting at the same animal more than twice. I can’t stress this enough, I have noticed a direct correlation between how this plays out on paper and on quarry. If I have a pattern of nicking a bullseye while practicing, I’ve seen it play out where I nick the eye socket of a squirrel. Aim at the eye with the gun slightly canted and hit between the ear and the eye. It really looks the same on paper with shots hitting right of my POA. This also means shooting paper before going out in various temperatures to verify holds. Once the gun proves a satisfactory level of accuracy, I have to do my part and know what I’m doing to achieve the desired result. Even then there are other factors in the equation to consider.
I want a gun to out shoot me, that way if I do miss its on me.
 
Accuracy? I can usually hit a fly out to 100 yards with a $30 Red Ryder bb gun... After walking all the way down and shooting it at point blank range 🤣

But seriously, on average if I can shoot .5" to .75" @ 50 yards with a pcp or about .75" to 1" with a springer I'm happy. Sometimes I do a little better, sometimes a lot worse, all depends on what gun, pellets and wind. Now 100 yards (actually shooting the distance and not walking down, Lol) best I've managed so far has been slightly under 1.5" using airguns/pellets. Haven't got to 1MOA or less yet, probably never will. Have had more than a few pure luck first shot near bullseye instances, but only when wind has completely died down over the distance. Follow up shots always tend to get caught in ever so gentle breezes.
 
That’s a five shot group at 50 yards I shot today with a .22 Huben K1 and JSB monsters. I’m pretty happy when I get groups like that.

72324803596__AA80A1FB-D0F7-4088-8FD7-AF7F62B4C46E.jpeg
 
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My rifle is a average 2 moa shooter at 100 meter, that means some are better, some are worse. That is with 18 gr pellets. It once did a 24mm / 0.85 moa 5 shot group at 100 meter but I could not repeat that.

At 50 meter it average 20mm / 1.5moa.

For a 5 or 6 year old budget rifle bought used I am ok with it. I would like if it will do better but it reached it's limit, I think.
 
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It all depends on what gun I'm shooting. My pistol, with open sights, gives me 3/8" groups at a little less than 10M in my basement. But outside at 20, is another game. The Mrod, now sporting a peep sight, gives me minute of squirrel noggin out to 30 yards, maybe 35, with a hard hitting 13.43gr pellet. Limited by my eyes. The DreamTac is sub MOA out to 50 yards with 10.34gr or 13.43gr pellets, but I've got a scope on that one. My expectations are tempered mostly by the chosen sight system and how well I can see (which isn't getting better as I age) rather than the guns themselves. I like iron sight systems and as long as I can use them, I will, but my results improve drastically with proper optics.
 
I all depends on if shooting with open sights, red dot, peep or scope. Don't shoot pcp only spring and co2. Most of my shooting is off sticks or offhand. Most at 50 yards or under. Hunting I won't take a shot more than 40 yards.
So the way I shoot I guess I strive for accuracy but not persision. Off hand 40 yard group using red dot on springer.

Precision shooting has always been boring to me. The only time I'll shoot from rest is to sight in a gun.

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When I received my M24, right out of the box I zeroed my scope at 50 yards and then went directly to 200 yards. My Texan 257 LSS splits playing cards at 200 yards. If the M24 can do the same, it's accurate enough for me. It took a few hundred slugs to break in the barrel and a bit of tweaking the tune, but it eventually split playing cards at 200 yards. This is how I measure accuracy.