If you can stay on a pie plate your doing good offhand. 4" circle your doing great. Slow deliberate fire from a good offhand stance. 4" should be a solid benchmark. Moderately rapid shooting, or engaging multiple targets 8" is a pretty good standard.
You want to see how small an 8" plate is at 100 yds??? Put a plate stand at 100 yds with the plate on the ground beside it… Start the timer with the shooter’s cleared rifle shouldered… Shooter sprints to the stand, places plate on stand and sprints back to the line loads and engages the plate with as many rounds as it takes standing offhand. Fastest time wins. Trust me… this is a young mans game.
To me, this is real shooting and separates the men from the boys. Off hand with my Aimpoint PRO at 100 yards, I’d be happy to consistently get hits on a 10" steel plate. Using a magnified optic such as my *Leupold Mark AR mod 1 (1.5 - 4) a nice cluster should appear on the plate. (*Same setup from the bench I’m usually sub to 1.5 MOA depending on the load.)
This is where high power match shooting proves it’s worth.
IMO you can pull the trigger as fast as you want on targets inside 50 meters and not show much marksmanship ability.
The 10 ring on an SR1 target is 3.35"
If you can shoot an 8" group offhand standing at 100 yards with iron sights, I’d call that very good.
Interesting discussion and to see what others can do. I agree that the original post is ambiguous. Here’s my take.
If you’re benching the gun - i.e. shooting off a rest or a bi-pod your contribution to group size should ideally be close to zero (particularly with a reasonably powered scope). So around 2" groups with military surplus ammo, 1" or better with match ammo (depending on how accurate your rifle is). Of course, in the real world a lot of us (including me) are going to add some operator error.
Prone or sitting - I personally can pretty consistently keep about 85-90% of my rounds in the black of an SR-1 target (about 6.25 inches across) with some kind of optic - anything over about 3.5X seems to work pretty well. That’s using XM-193 out of a decent quality AR. My results deteriorate a little if I’m using a red dot. I suspect this is decent, but nothing to write home about. We do have a high power shooter who is a distinguished marksman in our gun club who is pissed if he doesn’t cleans these targets in competition - i.e. all 10’s shooting rapid fire prone and sitting, using a match rifle, hand loaded ammo and shooting jacket but with iron sites obviously.
Offhand - Honestly, I think this is what separates the men from the boys. If you can keep 75% of your rounds in the black on an SR-1 target I think you’re doing pretty damn well. Personally, if I can get 60% hits on a 10" plate with a standard AR and milsurp. ammo I’m pretty happy, but my offhand shooting could definitely use some improvement. Also, I find when shooting offhand red dots to be almost easier to shoot accurately than scopes, particularly anything over about 6X.
Hell yeah it is! Old, fat, cripple and half blind, I walk with a cane if I’m going far, and can hardly identify a target at 200 without glass. (100 yds and back could qualify as “far” unless I take my time) I can keep on an 8" paper plate at 100 with my SBR and it’s Aimpoint, but not a pretty group. With my RECCE and it’s 1-4 scope I’m better, but not as fast.
Some of us will not be going on any more extended dismounted patrols. We have been placed on “speed bump” status.
Like the above poster I’m old, slow, fat, lazy, half blind, and out of shape, plus I am a cripple. But, if you cannot shoot clay pigeons on the 100 yard target line’s berm offhand ( this means standing upright, without any type of rest or support ) with a decent quality iron sighted gun w/ quality ammo about 90% of the time you are not a good rifle shot. Anything below 50%, you are a poor rifle shot.
Since this is an AR forum I’ll use an AR as an example:
With the conditions as listed above, with a red dot sighted AR the number would be 95% and 99% with a 4X power scope or larger.
Shooting from a bench without any stress on a KD range ( KD = Known Distance ) basically on shows the ability of the gun, not the shooter.
I’ve seen people before that had never fired a rifle before hit 8" plates at 300yds from a bench with a rifle that had already been sighted in at that distance. Several of these “people” were 12 & 13yo girls that were friends with my daughter and two stepdaughters.
Anywho… I’ve always considered myself a decent shot with any type of gun, not a great shot, just a decent shot and I shoot clays at the hundred yard berm at +98% from a scoped AR.
OK Paul, either you are being very modest when you characterize yourself as a “decent” shot or exaggerating your abilities. Since I don’t know you I won’t presume to say which of the two it is. I base this conclusion on knowing at least a little about high power shooting and knowing a few high power shooters. The SR-1 target used in these competitions for standing at 100 yards has a 10 ring that is slightly smaller than a clay. The 9 ring is approx. 1.5 inches larger than a clay. If you are able to shoot a non-competition rifle, without a shooting jacket, using non-match ammo into either the 9 or 10 ring on nearly all of your shots you are doing as well as, if not better than an awful lot of high power shooters using the best equipment. If your accuracy goes up to 98%+ with a scoped AR you are out shooting at least one distinguished marksmen I regularly shoot with. This is someone who regularly wins or places in the top 5 shooters of most service rifle matches he competes in, and has done very well in the national matches at Camp Perry.
Again, I’m not saying you can’t do it, or that it can’t be done In fact, I would love to see you post a video of yourself shooting a line of 20 clays at 100 yards with the rifle and scope of your choice. If you are able to hit 19 of them I will be very impressed and bow down to your superior marksmanship. But until then, I can’t help but be a little skeptical.
I’d like to see it with iron sights as stated: “if you cannot shoot clay pigeons on the 100 yard target line’s berm offhand ( this means standing upright, without any type of rest or support ) with a decent quality iron sighted gun w/ quality ammo about 90% of the time you are not a good rifle shot.”
“a decent quality iron sighted gun w/ quality ammo about 90% of the time you are not a good rifle shot.”
I’m wondering if it is really true that a person who can not hit clay pigeons, shooting offhand, irons only, at 100 yard, 90% of the time is not a good rifle shot.
Does anyone have any documentation for this assertion? Any proof?
How does this square with military marksmanship standards and awards?
Plus, I’d like to see somebody actually do this under battlefield stress, and while those “clay pigeons” are shooting back at you.
Frankly, you’d probably be an idiot to remain standing in the open while taking incoming fire and would probably hit the deck and shoot from the prone position, right?
Well building fundamental marksmanship for one. Not every skill set has to have a tactical application.
Look at it this way, if you can reliably make standing off hand shots at 100 yards, or 200 yards then your other positions will probably improve as well. Your kneeling will improve from this quite a bit since it is barely more stable than standing. Furthermore when it comes time to shoot low probability targets at closer ranges from standing it will be a lot easier if you have worked hard on your standing off hand shooting already.
Well if you can hit clays 98% of the time at 100 yards you should have no trouble picking off people at 500+ yards. Based on the skill level of most people I’ve seen at public ranges I’d feel pretty safe at those distances.
