What does Gaylord know about groups?
Or statistics?
I was reading his blog the other day (I thought I might hear more about “Mr. Condor” 🙄 ) and he was going on and on about how many shots belong in a group. He made quite a show of his two semester’s worth of statistics and also referred to a manufacturer who shows 3 shot groups and must therefore be mis-leading folks as the guns don’t really shoot that good.
His main point apparently was that a 3 shot group tells you nothing about the rifle and should only be used while sighting in a scope. He went on to say that a 5 shot group doesn’t tell you much more or give you a great deal of confidence but he’s going to continue to use them in his reports. You see, a guy who is paid to write about guns clearly doesn’t have time to shoot big groups. 😕
According to Gaylord, you need a 30 shot group to be able to have confidence that you know the gun is accurate. Well, I agree that a good 30 shot group will give lots of confidence in how the gun shoots but I don’t think you need to see a 30 shot group to say a gun is accurate. Why? Well, in my limited experience with guns I’ve found that accurate guns will usually shoot a good 3 shot group and inaccurate guns will almost never shoot a good 3 shot group. The first few shots don’t really prove accuracy so much as they prove the gun is not inaccurate. Pretty soon you find that an accurate gun shoots one great 3 shot group after another and a medicore gun almost never shoots a good group.
Giving Gaylord the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was talking about looking at one group in isolation vice a history of good but small groups, I thought I’d have a little experiment.
My Prairie III will routinely shoot sub-MOA groups but I never shot a 30 shot group to see if its an accurate gun! Well, I cast a few extra rounds and had a go.
That’s just 3 at 43 yards. Not a record by any means but a nice group.
Same group with a dime for scale.
Well, that tells us nothing… Better move to a 5 shot group. I actually shot this group the night before with a different slug that the gun might like a touch more. I forgot to shoot a 5 shot group today with the Bishops. 😳
In any case this 5 shot group is not much bigger… It’s actually smaller…yes, I know..better slugs and so on… But still, if I used the 3 shot group to say the gun was accurate and then followed up with this group….
Again, the dime for scale.
Well, the above would have made me pretty darn happy had I not read that those groups meant NOTHING! The only way to really know that the gun is accurate is to shoot a 30 shot group like a manufacturer. Damn, this is going to take a while. Good thing I have not adjusted the scope and I can keep the cross hairs on the bull for every shot.
Here’s 30 freaking shots plus an extra.
For a second I thought I was hosed as the flyer was the third shot. Now most folks allow for the occasional flyer that is the shooter’s fault or maybe a pellet with a flaw. I don’t know which this was but i ask your indulgence and just to make the point, I shot a 31st slug into the group.
OMG!! It takes a nickel to cover this! Yes, 30 shot groups will be bigger than 3 shot groups. But, if you can shoot a good 3 shot group consistently, there’s no need to go and waste 30 shots to prove your gun is accurate…
All Replies
Statistical analysis can be pretty complex, but it doesn’t have to be. I don’t really bother with it when it comes to quantifying or demonstrating accuracy. Any of my airguns, rifles, carbines and shotguns are more consistent and accurate than I am. Therefore, the most inconsistent variable (in most cases) is the shooter. I firmly believe that shooting is a mind game… if you have the right equipment and appropriate technique you can hit the target… if you can do it once there’s no reason you can’t repeat thousands of times… unless YOU make a mistake. The fewer shots you take the less likely you will make a mistake… 3 shots, 5 shots or one shot a day for 10 days.
Don’t know much about Gaylord, but I have read his blogs and listened to a few of his podcasts. The majority of the information he provides seems to be reasonable but he does have a habit of contradicting himself and discrediting methods and subsequently uses the same methods to illustrate his point.
regardless of what he writes – he deseves a beating for not having his name changed and most likely passing it on to his poor unfortunate Gay Brood.
Wonder if he has ever been in the military. Let’s see ,Gay Lovd. Or would that be Lord Gay. 😆
He was in the Military – Not sure what exactly, but he does mention it now and then.
DK – I think you’ll find that Gaylord has a very skewed and negative opinion towards Talon related forums and blamed us for all the woes of the world for our “tampering” with Airforce rifles.
Being able to adjust your own rifle is a large part of airgunning to me – Gaylord himself would talk about modifying crosman guns, springers and taking apart other PCP’s but for some reason Talons were off limits and those who did take them apart were ruining them.
He also misinformed a LOT of AF owner’s when we tried to get our guns repaired by Air Force.
Your own friend Tony1994 would be a bad un in Gaylords book for daring to alter his Talon SS because they ALL worked perfectly when he tested them…
The guy is a Hypocrite – one day he will mock the engineer who claims to be able to tell temperature by sight – but he claims to know how fast a gun shoots without a chrony. He will tell us that our guages are off, our chrony’s are busted before he’d admit there was a problem with an AF rifles. Under his leadership as technical director parts were non existent and you would need to send your gun back to AF for the slightest replacement such as a broken trigger – What you can now repair yourself for $5.
So yeah… there’s a little Gaylord bashing.
If folks are done bashing Gaylord, I’ve got a thought or two to add.
First off, IIRC the numbers right there’s a statistical factor here, 5 shot groups should be 1.3 times 3 shot groups and ten shot groups should be 1.5 times. It’s easy to understand if you think about which 3 of those ten rounds would be in the 3 shot group. The seven shots that aren’t there have a good chance of opening up the group.
Which is exactly why Weatherby did 3 shot groups. Between the freebore and being WAY ove bore capacity, accuracy was gonna suffer. IMO his guns generally wouldn’t make that one inch at 100 yard bit with larger groups.
Secondly, guys most definitely shoot large effective groups. Serious target shooters often put up two and three targets stacked. I know a bullseye pistol shooter who had over 2500 rounds in the backer, all in the black (he’d put his daily and weekly targets over the top throughout the year). Then someone found the backer, put on a fresh target…….
Thirdly, as Finn Argard once pointed out for hunting guns one shot groups are all that matter. Hot or cold, rain or shine it’s the next round out relative to POA that counts. And that’s all that does. He advocated for ‘working guns’ you shoot ten rounds in ten outings. One round per. Then you’d *know* where the next one will go.
Lastly, IMO most of the time it’s a test of the shooter, not the gun. Give the same gun to a better shooter (or one ‘having a better day’) and you get a better group. There are exceptions, of course, but if you shoot five fair groups and an outstanding one or two, the gun didn’t suddenly get any better……
Not until you get to the point of Frank W. and can put 2500 out of 2500 in the black over a year’s time….without excuses. Which is, of course why Mann and Ransom make such good money with their machine rests.
Doug Owen
Little hard on Tom don’t you think? He writes article on airguns and shooting and sometimes his opinions are just that, opinions.
But it’s no reason to berate the man like you did, if you don’t like him, don’t read his stuff.
Humm! I guess GAY Lord could call Weatherby and tell them the three shot test targets shipped with their rifles are worthless!
Wonder if he has ever been in the military. Let’s see ,Gay Lovd. Or would that be Lord Gay. 😆
IMO,
If you are using your weapon for hunting, 3 shot group is everything, as I very seriously doubt a game animal will let you have more than 1-2 before the scenario changes, whereas a piece of paper will stay there until it is moved by a force other than itself..lol you can poke at it at your convienence. For hunting I would want a gun that will give me at least 2-3 shots at same POI as fast as possible over a gun that needs to be “cooled” between shots. Pokin’ paper, ya got alot more time to deal with, hunting you rarely do.
just my $.02 worth.
Peace,
ASMALLVOICE
Very nice big bore groups. Those barnes guns are just as accurate out to 100 yrds. I have seen the groups. 3 shot groups actually say alot. So does a 5 shot and so does a 25 shot and so does a 100 shot. I have read other members post TOO that say a 3 shot group means nothing. This is not the first i have heard someone say that. I SERIOUSLY BEG TO DIFFER. Why do powder burner guys always shoot 3 shot groups. Well because for those particular guns, after 3 consecutive shots, the barrel gets hot and will not be accurate until it cool. Unless you have a THICK TARGET BARREL. But if they shot very slowly and had very accurate ammo, they could shoot 200 shot groups into the same hole. For us airgunners, we also have variables that would hinder great groups. Main reason being air consumption. So for a big bore to shoot a group like that says a whole lot about the guns make and the shooters ability. It proves that if we had and endless 3000 psi supply of air in our tanks after each shot, then we could literally shoot through the same hole for hundreds or thousands of rounds. Proving the gun to be very accurate and well built. If you shoot a 3 shot group at 50 yrds and it measured 5″, that 3 shot group would tell you…SOMETHING IS WRONG with your gun, no matter how much air you had in your tank. So 3 shots say a lot. Not everything but a whole lot.
These so called AIRGUN GURRU’s or EXPERTS opinions mean nothing to me at all. Especially when they work for an airgun distributor. That’s why i never ask them questions…..he he he.
Oh no Lama! Putting all those bullets in the same hole just doesn’t count. We all know that a 5 shot group means just a little more than 3 and 3 doesn’t mean anything. 🙄
A 1000? I’ll bet he’s never even shot a 5 shot group and then shot the next 25! After all, as an authoritative airgun author, he’s way to busy to actually do the shooting he says is required to give you the expert opinions he gives you….
I just read that. Looks like my spectacular 5 shot group from my blaser was not a good test. 🙁
I like how he says a 30 shot group is a good example of what a 1000 shot group would be. Like he took a gun, shot it 30 times. Meaured the group. Then shot it 970 more times and it didn’t open much. 😛
You got it! He shoots a half dozen shots from a particular gun and gets three groups and tells us it is an accurate gun because its so easy to adjust for time, tide and shot count. He would have done that but he ran out of time…. Besides the pure BS, I’ve seen the bias tree leaning a bit there!
Thanks shooter.
Thanks photo. Good point there. If you’re hunting, it’s pretty darn important to know where the first shot goes! Regardless of the next 29…
I used to take a hunting rig on a “day” at the range and set a target at my 100yd sight in point. I’d shoot a 5 shot group over the course of several hours, minimum 30 mins between shots. One shot then shoot something else till enough time went by and shoot the next shot.
I’ve had guns that shot better groups warm, all shots in close succession, and the cold shot groups were not as good; and have had the opposite; where the best groups the gun ever did were with all shots “cold”.
For a target gun I’ll take the former, for a hunter the latter.
Good Ole Tom Gaylord suffers wind more then any other airgunner I have ever heard of.
It is always winding when he is shooting.
Maybe BB Pelletier can lend him a hand 😛
YN,
You got it! He shoots a half dozen shots from a particular gun and gets three groups and tells us it is an accurate gun because its so easy to adjust for time, tide and shot count. He would have done that but he ran out of time…. Besides the pure BS, I’ve seen the bias tree leaning a bit there!
Thanks shooter.
Thanks photo. Good point there. If you’re hunting, it’s pretty darn important to know where the first shot goes! Regardless of the next 29…
WOW that gun can shoot. And you did good your self Jerry 😆 😆 for hunting the first shot needs to be dead on. Many spring guns and some PCP’s will heat up after a few shots and shoot better or worst. One should setup the gun so that when you first shoot it, it will be dead on and this is really important for hunting rigs.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Hmmm is that “inconsistent variable” or should it be consistent variable… ❓