HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - just how accurate does your deer rifle need to be?
Old 10-02-2018, 07:46 PM
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Bocajnala
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Originally Posted by elkman30
Pie plate accuracy at the farthest range you anticipate shooting at from the positions you will be shooting from.
Yep. Accuracy is way over emphasized by many people. At eleven I taught myself to bow hunt. I had no archery hunters in the family to take me, but a great uncle told me to "practice until you can hit a paper plate every time, then go sit in the woods by a deer trail. And that's how I took my first few archery deer. These days I don't aim at the same spot on the target cause I can't afford to stack arrows up. It's better to be more accurate for sure.... But I could still hunt effectively when paper plate sized groups were my goal as a young kid with no clue what he was doing. Many people spend allot of time and money trying to squeak out accuracy they don't really need.

Ex, I've watched people spend hundreds (and it would be easy for this number to be "thousands" ) of dollars to take a rifle from an 1 1/4" to under an inch at 100 yards.

That extra 1/4" will never matter for the hunting they do. Most of my rifles shoot an inch or under. If they don't I get rid of them. But I have a few that I've kept that don't shoot any good . And I've taken deer with them.

Know your limitations, practice at the ranges and positions you intend to shoot from, then go shoot deer. Fussing over an extra quarter inch won't help most of us much.

All that being said... If you enjoy trying to get the tightest grouping you can, then go enjoy yourself .But it's not really required for probably 95% of hunting situations.

Lots of deer get killed every year by the pumpkin shooting after Thanksgiving dinner crowd.

-Jake
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