SKILL AND ACCURACY

John Alexander wrote: An observation (probably obvious to all so maybe not worth saying) is that the importance of skill decreases as the class allows heavier and more specialized guns.

Of course the opposite is true of reading the wind a skill that is important to all classes and becomes more important going from hunting rifle class (1.2” groups) to unlimited class (0.4” groups.) .3” error while shooting a 1.2” groups may not hurt too much but the same error while trying to shoot a .4” group will be disaster.

Other than wind the importance of skill tends in the opposite direction. Shooting a 9.5pound 308 with a rounded forend and factory trigger consistently is a lot harder (skill is more important) than shooting a 14 pound heavy class rifle with a flat bottomed forend and a 5 ounce trigger, and much harder than shooting a 30 pound unrestricted class rifle or a rail gun. You might argue that skill is reduced to onlywind reading for the last two examples. However, “machinegunning” a string of shots to get them all off in one wind condition would be a skill beyond simply reading the wind.

I have rambled enough -- just some random thoughts.

John I was and am surprised at the relatively small effect that wind has on group size. I keep checking the arithmetic.However, “reading” or compensating for the wind is a “comparison-free” procedure. The flags look a certain way, the shooter holds off a certain way, the bullet makes a hole. Frequently/sometimes the hole location is a surprise. If the hole is where it was wanted, “reading” worked. If the hole is not in the desired location, something is blamed.The process is “comparison-free".If we want to know the effect of ex primer brand on accuracy, we shoot some groups with brand A, other groups with brand B, and compare average group size. We have two things to compare.Shooting in the wind gives us no comparison, we don't know if/how much “reading the wind” helps.One approach is to compare group sizes shot in a tunnel and in the wind.Another is to bolt a gun to a bench, fire it without regard to wind, and have a/some skilled shooters “read” and write down their hold off direction and distance, ex “1/4” 73 degrees".About shooting up to 200 yards. Or, we could look at past data. Wind effect varies as the square of distance, so wind drift at 200 yards is 4 times wind drift at 100 yards. We would expect that more skilled shooters “read” the find better than less skilled shooters, and that better shooters place higher in matches.The ratio of 200/100 yard group size is a measure of the shooter's ability to “read” the wind. The perfect shooter reads the wind perfectly and 200 yard groups are just twice 100 yard group size.Then the ratio of 200/100 yard group size and place, 1st or 2nd or 3rd... in matches should be related. Better shooters, higher places, lower ratios. They aren't related. Extensive analysis show absolutely NO relationship between the ratio and place. How can this be true? The only way I can figure it is that wind has a relatively small effect on group size, and that the process of reading the wind and compensating for it doesn't do much of anything. We think we're doing something, but we're not. This is a conclusion that may not be embraced by all shooters right away, but it's what the numbers seem to say.