What do you consider to be good accuracy with a cast bullet?

I've long since burned out on and drifted away from competition shooting and care little for it anymore. I feel that most of it is contrived and bears no relation to reality. My needs are simple and “agricultural” to borrow the late Frank Marshall's term.

If a pistol, revolver or rifle isn't suited to carry on a walk in the woods or mountains, I have little use for it. So, if a cast bullet load provides safe, economical and reliable service which approximates that of factory ammunition from the firearm of interest, I'm happy.

I'm not seeking one-hole, sub-minute of angle ten-ring and x-ring. The basic requirement is that any useful load must shoot more accurately and farther than I can see with the unaided naked eye.

A pistol or revolver load should deliver groups no worse than one-inch-per-ten yards for casual shooting and practice to equal Franks “Ball Ammo” accuracy standard. To be considered accurate enough for “Small Game and Camp Meat” the expectation is to hit a target the size of a squirrel's or grouse's head, at a range suitable for the gun of choice with whatever sights are on it.

For an iron-sighted handgun, the range at which a fair handgun shot can see well enough to make humane head shots on small game is about 25 yards or so. Any pistol, revolver or light walking rifle load which shoots reliable inch groups at 25 yards pretty much on demand, any time with iron sights is simply splendid.

For a utility hunting rifle the standard of performance is how far you can safely identify legal game under field conditions and make clean kills with well placed body shots. It makes no real difference here whether you are talking about deer, turkey, woodchuck, coyote, etc.

A “clay pigeon” is about 4 inches in diameter. It is a readily obtained, iron-sight or low powered hunting hunting scope practice target which approximates the vital area of a game animal. Using plain iron sights and typical lever action rifles, any load capable of placing 4 inch groups on target at 100 yards would put lots of meat on the table. Military bolt actions meet this standard rather handily and are deemed serviceable for combat.

For sporting weight small game or varmint rifles normally used with a scope of less than 6 power, carried and shot from typical field positions the 4-inch grouping range extends to about 150 yards, unless you are a shooter of above average skill.   

For a heavy caliber big game rifle the 4-inch group benchmark gets pushed out to about 200 yards.  A two-minute rifle will do the job in the vast majority of cases.

For a heavy-barreled varmint or miliary sniper rifle using service ammo the 4-inch benchmark gets pushed out to 300 yards or meters. That's reality.

All of you guys who expect half minute groups from your woodchuck rifles at 600 yards should measure the ranges of your actual shots with a surveyor's transit, and either get real and go shoot at Camp Perry.

Just my two cents. Feel free to disagree. 8-)