The factors leading to accuracy.

Ron, with FACTORY ammo, I would call 1/4" groups rather amazing too, depending on the chamber and gun in question, but at a serious bench rest match, with a real BR gun, and handloads, a 1/4 group of five shots aint gonna win nothing but a "thanks for entering" at 100 yards, and wont win much more than last at 200 yards.

Now I am not talking win 94s or Ruger Mini 14s either, I am talking serious bench rifles.

but even when I was building sporter rifles, if the gun wouldnt hold under a half inch for 5 shots, even with the larger rounds, I didnt feel right in shipping it.

Any round under 6 MM should cloverleaf 3 shots,, maybe 4, and on a good day, 5, if everything is kosher.

And no, in most books 3 shot groups dont count for much, even though admitted, in a hunting gun it may be immaterial, if you put 3 rounds in a cloverleaf, and the next round goes to lets say an inch and a half, that barrel has some stress in it, or the shooter jerked or something, even with a sporter tube.

Now this accuracy level is fairly recent, lets say the last 20 years, and thats mainly due to good bullets, and better rifle building knowledge, bedding etc. Not too mention vastly improved scopes.

heck, when I first started gun work, John Nosler was not that far removed from making bullets by hand. Right now, even his hunting bullets will perform accuracy wise, up there with any of them. But at the time, they did good to offer 2 inch groups.

Same with scopes, a lot of my early mentors, simply did not trust variable power scopes, and with good reason. Or fogging? when was the last time you saw a fogged scope?

So for sure a lot of reasons the groups are getting smaller.