mill surplus and expected realistic rifle accuracy

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
I was recently asked by one of my friends that knows , that I,ve been using rifles and reloading for decades.
on what he could reasonably expect to see in the way of accuracy in a used mill surplus rifle.
I asked him what he was looking at and he stated he had looked at a lee endfield mark IV and a Russian,
and mauser bolt action and a chinese semi auto , he was not all that specific as to age, condition or the calibers.
now obviously condition, caliber and ammo has a huge effect on accuracy.
I think he was expecting those rifles to shoot well under 1" groups and after asking around he had gotten the firm impression that was never going to happen.
Its been my experience, that in general most mill surplus rifles using surplus ammo are expected to hit all shots in a 3"-4" circle at 100 yards,
off a solid bench rest,
using the original sights when fired by an experienced marksman
.(using a quality scope and mount might improve this marginally)
obviously if the rifles bore is worn,
or the rifles not in good condition or ammo's less than average quality things get rapidly worse,
as far as accuracy to be expected, and in my experience
your average American made rifle tends to be a marginally bit more accurate.
this has little to do with anything other than the age and original precision machine work and quality control, there are certainly mauser bolt actions,
and American bolt action rifles that provide better than average accuracy
a modern AK will shoot similar groups,
many AR15s will shoot a slightly tighter 2"-3" 100 yard group.
keep in mind if the rifle shoots lets say a 3" group at 100 yards that says all shots hit rather randomly , about within 1.5" of the aim point, at that range
most commercial sporting bolt actions will with iron sights shoot a 2"-1.5" group, certainly more accurate than the surplus rifles,
but keep in mind most of the mil surplus rifles are in less than ideal condition and many are 50-100 years old.
that mil surplus rifle accuracy may not sound impressive,
but a good shot could be expected to placed a lethal hit on an opposing soldier,\
out too well past 350-400 yards, and that was all that was expected in most cases.

if your experience differed please post your info and the rifle info
 
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