ORIGINAL: yeoman
Pglasgow -
If you shoot a 3" 3 shot pattern 2/3 of the time, this means that almost 88% of your shots lie in the 3" circle. I would think, given the vast majority lie in 3" circle, a very minor probability (almost zero)exists that a shot will land outside a 6" circle (target).
What I was describing was a sequence of 3 shot groups,
not within a specific 3" circle, but within 3 inches of each other. The individual 3" circles, on successive outings, may be in varying places on the target. Can you find a probablility of 6/6 on a specific 6" circle from this information? I'm not sure.
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Added: Yoeman, I see I didn't answer the question specifically. I apologize for that. Regarding, a specific 6" circle, here is the best way tolook at it. The specific 6" circle should be centered on the POA. And yes, in virtially windless range conditions,the probability of impact in a specific6" circlecan be determined.
But for field conditions its gets more complicated due to windage. After all, we have to hunt when we can and during a specific time window, during which, we can not pick the weather.
Lets say you load with a 80 grains GOEX and a 270 BB. Lets also say that in pristine wind conditions you have found all of your POI's within 2" of POA. This would be a distribution that would most likely have most 3 shotgroups under 3" and all under 4". Speaking hypothetically of course it would depend on the actual distribution.
It is a better question while hunting to ask, "What level of crosswind has the potential of taking his shots outside of the 6" circle?" Forload andimpact distributionpreviously mentioned,as little as 4 mph will take the majority of impacts out of the 6" circle. Also, the crosswind must be less than 1.2 mph in order to for all to impact within the 6" circle. Also NO impacts will be within the 6" circle in a crosswind of 6.4 mph or greater, and having the potential to miss the intendedpoint of aimby as much as 7"
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Given different range conditions that is what we want to see,specifically, a good grouping whose center is deflected as a result of the existing range condition. This of course an indication of precision, though not necessarily accurate. We like precision because it tells us we can move that precise grouping centerto the POI we want.
Even so, precise accuracy is what we are ultimately trying to achieve. We want no more than an acceptable miss from POA. That way, we can be sure the POI is close enough to the point we are aiming at to get the results we are wanting (lethally shot animal quickly dying).