James B

I used to have a lot of rifles that wouldn't shoot one inch. I don't have them anymore. Its true, many if not most bolt guns will not shoot one inch from the box without trigger work and experimenting with loads. I try a rifles, Rework the trigger, play with some loads and if the potential is not there, its gone. I won't put much extra money in a rifle. If it won't shoot pretty darn good from the box with good factory loads, it gone. I have a Browning A-bolt stalker that has shot every factory and hand load that I have tried in it into one inch or less. I have the trigger set to about three lbs and it does it every time out. The Remington 700 rifles I have had will usually shoot one inch with the trigger done and shooting Nosler BT's and Sierra Pro-Hunters.

I am talking three shot groups off sand bags under fair to good conditions. I don't give a hang if a hunting rifle won't shoot five shot one inch groups, I seldom if ever shoot more than two shots at an animal, if I have not hit it with two then I probably won't hit it with four or five either. Its where that rifle puts the first shot every time that counts.

rem 700

I think 1.5" is reasonable for a random factory load. 2" isfair-poor from a modern bolt gun IMO. I could take that from my muzzleloaders but not my centerfires. Mostly I think the shooters have a hard time holding the gun still enough to make their gun shoot 1" groups. Let's say it shot 1/2" from a solid concrete bench rest and an expert shooter...not exactly a lot of room to play with to get those 1" groups.

nchawkeye

Well PA...Look at my post, never mentioned that it was a stock factory gun...As long as you are curious...
It's a Ruger M-77 in .243...Action has been bedded, barrel floated, trigger honed, polished and adjusted to a crisp
2 1/2 pounds...And the barrel, it's a Shilen.....

Frankly, I have found it fairly easy to get Remington 700s to shoot a 1 1/2 inch group out of the box with good factory ammo fairly easily, after a good trigger adjustment and maybe a little barrel tuning...At least half of being able to make a rifle group is have a good bench and rest...I have seen many guys shoot a 3 inch group and let me try their gun and I would shoot 2 shots within a half inch of each other...Some guys just can't shoot that well.

Rammer

All of my bolt guns will put handloads under 1" real easy, as long as I do my part. I also shoot 3 shot groups, most the time you can cover them with a quarter real easily, if I am really working hard at shooting good groups, you can throw a nickel over alot of 'em and sometimes a dime. I've got loads worked up for all my guns that will shoot extremely well, so I'm not too interested in shooting groups anymore. I go an practice from my bipods, or shooting over my packs at 200, 300, 400 yards.

Hunting the North

No joke, last week I shot clover leaves @ 100 yards with my (out of the box) Remington 700 XCR in .30-06. Best part about it was that I was using $11.00 a box Remington Powershock ammo in 150 gr. No extra work was done except for breaking in the barrel using instructions from Remington. Trigger is at 4 lbs. from the factory.

Pawildman

Well, guys, I took it from the original post that the gentleman was shooting a stock gun with factory ammo. I still stand by my statement. I also realize that most of us on here do our own handloading and tuning, be that triggers and/or bedding and custom barrels. I also realize that those of us who are really concerned with wringing as much accuracy as we can from our guns have, for the most part, probably turned into decent benchrest shots. Some of the posts plainly show handworked ammo. Some of the posts concede that factory MOA guns aren't the common, run of the mill off the rack guns. I do agree, and always have, that 1 1/2" groups are more the norm for them. Just because a gun shoots a 1" group occasionally does not make it a MOA gun, does it? It's gotta do it regularly, in my mind.
Anyhow, Thaaaats my story, and I'm stttickkin' tooo it!!

kdvollmer

One thing that we all are forgetting here when the companies are claiming MOS or sub MOA guns, they are shooting expansive MATCH ammo, not your factory hunting loads. That ammo is suppossed to shoot the same every time you squeeze the trigger.
Usually, when we read the advertisements for these guns it says using premium ammo. And from what I see and read, it is usually black hills anymore.
i have to agree with the statment that most guns that make these claims, will shoot better than the average joe will be able to shoot them. There are lots of guys out there (NOT EVERYBODY) whose idea of shooting is once or twice to the range over the non hunting months to shoot the huntingload that they worked up 5 years ago, and then 1-2 times right beofr ethe hunting trip. AND, there are the guys that shoot almost weekly, until the hunting trip, and then mightbe every 2 weeks or so. It takes that kind of practice to shoot those sub MOA groups nearly everytie you go to the range. But that is just my opinion.

ShatoDavis

I have a custom 6.5-284 that shoots sub 1/2 MOA Fairly regularly but is a true 3/4moa rifle. I have 338 win mag that is basically factory with a bedding job and trigger adjustment that shoots on Avg 1 MOA. My favorite rifle is a Browning ABolt in 280 that have nothing done to it and it shoots between 1-1.5 MOA. I have several sub 1/2 moa varmint rifles.

BigTiny

My model 760 .30-06 shot right at MOA with premium ammo, but I had to switch to managed-recoil (doctor's order) to keep shoting it. Now it shoots 1/2 over MOA if I hold up my end of the deal. That's OK with me since I'll rareley get a shot over 100 where I hunt. I have a Saiga .223 that shot 3" with silver bear ammo and shoots 1.5" - 2" with core-locts. It did shoot one group with all the holes touching, but I know it was just luck.

My favorite target shooter is my .22. It is an old Romanian training rifle I got for $40. Really cheap fun.

This is a 40-shot group at 50 yards, open sights:

wyotimberghost

About .5 inch with my varmint set up. About and inch with my 7mm Rem Mag. Both groups should improve once I start hand loading.