Originally Posted by
Bocajnala
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
I agree with much of what you said, but
good shooting is controlling the variables. Consistency makes for a good shooter. The road to be a good shooter is to minimize the variables or at least being aware of the variables so you can compensate.
Having good tools, rifle and ammo, helps. Breathing control, trigger control (not flinching) is often way more important. Knowing how your bullet is likely to act differently at radically different temperatures can also be important. Shooting uphill or downhill. Shooting straight or over your left or right shoulder. Even learning to control your excitement level, when your hart is pumping hard your rifle barrel is likely bouncing.
IMO the only way you are likely to know the differences is practice and the only way you are going to get relevant answers is a control group. And the control group needs to be as accurate as possible.
All the variables can affect accuracy and if they don't cancel each other out, the results can be a miss or worse yet a wound.
Something about a wounded animal having a slow death upsets me. Bad stuff can happen no matter how competent you are, it is your responsibility to stack the odds in favor of a quick kill.
I've been out tramping around in the mud, carrying a few extra pounds of mud on my boots, for so many hours I was ready to drop, looking for a wounded game animal. IMO it is part of a hunters responsibility not to let an animal die a slow death. The easy solution is to be a competent shooter and knowing your tools.