Did you realize, the more you shoot, the worse you shoot?

[Tangle]

Guys, you could take an athelete that's a professional and accomplished shooter, on an indoor range, and you'd still get the statistical results of an ever enlarging group size as he shoots more.

What this tells us is if you want to demonstrate your best shooting, shoot three shots and change targets. That resets the probabilities because the history of performance starts over again (I'm pretty sure).

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[los]

..Guys, you could take an athelete that's a professional and accomplished shooter, on an indoor range, and you'd still get the statistical results of an ever enlarging group size as he shoots more.

What this tells us is if you want to demonstrate your best shooting, shoot three shots and change targets. That resets the probabilities because the history of performance starts over again (I'm pretty sure).

Tangle, interesting hypothesis.

By changing targets after three shots, each target [shooter] should continue to produce tight groups of three, but MOA will slightly increase with each target.(?)

[Old School]

I've said a million times here that 30 minutes and 20 shots is much better time spent than an hour and 200 shots. I know that is not exactly what we are talking about here, but the more time you sit behind the barrel in one setting, the more fatigue sets in and the more prone you are to rushing the shot.

+1

Quality of proper practice not quanity of shots fired.
Works the same for me in golf.

[Tangle]

Tangle, interesting hypothesis.

By changing targets after three shots, each target [shooter] should continue to produce tight groups of three, but MOA will slightly increase with each target.(?)

Well, for the sake of being perfectly open and honest here, I wish to reiterate that statistics is not my strong suit, but I 'rub elbows' with those in my academic community that teach statistics and I have learned some things from them. And I have talked to a particular faculty at length about this some time back. I really can't claim that I remember all the details, but I do remember that the odds of a miss go up with each shot.

Statistics don't always predict or disclose what we expect or what seems intuitive to us and sometimes predicts things we strongly disagree with or don't believe is correct. Soooo, let me find my 'expert' and run some things by her.

In the mean time, I'm pretty sure changing targets, say every three shots changes the probability. Let's say we do three sets of three shots on three targets for a total of 9 shots. On each target you are only trying to match three shots to each other rather than match 9 shots to each other. I think you'll look a lot better on the three individual targets. If I'm right, not only will you look better, it will suggest you can do it 'every time'.

But I want to confirm this with my statistics professor. In the mean time, I'm going out and buy a bunch of targets!

[Dragman]

Just my 0.02 cents If you shoot 5 or 50 shots with the same conditions and care your goups shouldn't change. Are these results a result of loosing the center point of aim on your target??? I know myself If I shoot at one target I do exactly what you are saying the more the slightly bigger my gouping gets, but when I change out my target on each mag and stack the targets they don't. I think this is because as you "SHOOT OUT THE CENTER" you loose your exact point of aim.

[Tangle]

Dragman,
That is a good and valid point, I have experienced that myself and for shooting per se that may make things worse than some other activities.

But statistics would show, even if we didn't lose the center point of our aim, we would still see more shots produce larger groups. Plus the losing "center point" could essentially be eliminated with a scoped rifle and appropriate target, or we could set the cross hairs to shoot high or low so we would have the same sight picture every time and we would still get a larger group as more shots are fired - I think - I haven't been able to get in touch with my statistics professor yet.

[Tangle]

I should clarify this: the title of this thread suggests that if you shoot more and more and more, the groups will get larger and larger, etc. They won't or they won't statistically speaking. You would reach a certain group size limit, after which almost every shot would be within the group. So what I'm saying is if you shot 200 rounds at the same target, your group size wouldn't get siginificantly larger than the 100 round group size.

The data in the table in the OP, indicates that limiting effect.

[VBVAGUY]

I know that everytime I start to shoot really bad I go back to the very basic and start shooting my Sig P229 with the .22LR conversion and do that for a abou 200 rounds or so and then go back to shooting 9, 357's 40's, etc. and find my shooting improved. I hope this helps. God Bless

[Tangle]

I know that everytime I start to shoot really bad I go back to the very basic and start shooting my Sig P229 with the .22LR conversion and do that for a abou 200 rounds or so and then go back to shooting 9, 357's 40's, etc. and find my shooting improved. I hope this helps. God Bless

Great approach, the basics are the foundation.

[jumpwing]

Sounds like the results of simple fatigue. I don't care what kind of shape you're in, the constant flexing of the same muscles will eventually tire them.

SIXTO hit the wisdom bullseye: A little bit of practice every day beats a lot of practice every other weekend.

[RKM]

I always shoot best right away and it starts to fade off. Well, usually I get a mag through the gun, kind "re-learn" the sights a bit, then after shooting for 30-45 minutes, my shoulders fatigue, my left eye from squinting fatigues and start shooting worse.

[TN_Mike]

I've said a million times here that 30 minutes and 20 shots is much better time spent than an hour and 200 shots. I know that is not exactly what we are talking about here, but the more time you sit behind the barrel in one setting, the more fatigue sets in and the more prone you are to rushing the shot.

I have found this to be very true. And I have also found that usually my best groups are the first 3 mags that I fire when we go to the range.

[LoadedPipes]

Personally after 60-70 shots of .45 through my 1911 I start to fatigue usually I shoot a 100 at a time and the last few seem like a waste.

[zacii]

But how much would you be willing to bet (just figuratively speaking) that the fouth shot would lie within the same radius of the first three? How about the the next 96?

I did some more checking, statistics is not my strong suit either so I ran this by a professor that teaches statistics. Without hesitation the professor agreed with the table, not the actual numbers per se, but the statistical probabilities reflected by the table.

As for Hathcock, I seriously doubt he could shoot as tight of a group with 100 shots as he could 5 shots.

I think the accuracy of the gun is a constant. We could relate this to shooting foul shots in basketball. The more foul shots a person attempts, the greater the probability of a miss. I mean, sooner or later.... The probability of a hit, never increases, the probability of a miss does.

Also, I was told that this very thing came up in association with the NRA, and they state the same statistical outcome. Apparently this is true.

It's a little disconcerting to think that some (probably most) of our activities are statistically predictable.

So, what they're really measuring is the shooter, not the gun?

I'm not very good at math and statistics, but it also sounds a bit like the 'law of averages'

[Jason Storm]

For me it isn't. I shoot at least once or twice a month and I make each practice session meaningful. Because of that, I scored 233 out of 240 (Expert) in a timed Navy Handgun Qualification Course with the Beretta M-9 pistol. My other peers who don't practice at all usually are the ones who barely pass or fail the course. And, it is rare for a person who does not practice or does little practice to score better than average. Just my 2 cents.