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…