This preoccupation with "accuracy" is developing into a major bore. There is hardly a rifled firearm that can be purchased over the counter today that is not more accurate than the shooter can appreciate, except from bench rest, and the bench rest is no measure of anything except what it measures, and that is not useful accuracy. We have been barking up that tree ever since the revered Townsend Whelen held forth on the subject, and I conclude that perhaps the squirrel is in another tree. I have always shot very accurate rifles and I enjoy this, but never once did the rifle itself achieve anything in the field. When I qualified for a hunting license in Norway I was required to fire a five-shot group at 100 meters from any position that did not employ a rest. I shot from prone using a loop sling, and the sergeant-in-charge did not seem to think that the sling was a rest in the sense forbidden. The group elicited admiration, which leads me to believe that the general level of marksmanship in Norway is no better than elsewhere. I have not heard that the standing world's record of a ten-shot possible on a 100-millimeter bullseye at 300 meters has been surpassed. That, of course, was not fired from a bench rest. Any man who can place ten shots into a 4 inch circle at 300 yards from a field position is an outstanding shot. Whether he needs an accurate rifle to do that is questionable, if we use bench rest competition as an index.
It has always seemed to me that the measure of a rifleman is what he can do with one shot, first try, against the clock, on demand. We have always held that the master rifleman is one who can shoot up to his rifle. We do not meet him very often.
