I think Lloyd is much like my old best friend Billy Doss (now deceased) who's bench technique never allowed him to shoot groups to same POI as his free hand or hunting rest techinque. So Billy pretty much refused to sit down at the bench and really lock things down to determine the absolute accuracy of his loads or guns. But my that rascal could shoot and free hand shot better groups than 90% of the folks I've seen shoot were able to from a bench.
Me on the other hand I developed a bench technique that allowed me to really lock it down to take out most of the human element and yet my POI was still the same shooting free hand or from field improvised rests. So I did a lot of load development for both of us from the bench and often even sighted in Billy's guns for him cuz when he shot it free hand it hit to same POI as when I shot it from the bench. Now mine you with our competition guns we ALWAYS did the final "Nth" degree of sighting in free hand as that's the way we shot in competition. Our technique was to fire 50 rounds free hand and then determine group center and adjust as needed and fire 50 more rounds. This continued until we were satisfied with the 50 ground group center as being same as our POA. Once established we didn't mess with the load or sight adjustment again unless and until our shooting told us all was not right and that something had moved or changed.
I've owned some phenomally accurate handguns in my life time and like a fool all are now gone on to folks smarter than me who had the good sense to not pass up such an accurate gun and to hold onto it forever. I had an old S&W 686 with 8-3/8" barrel and the four position adjustable front sight on it that I named "Silver". That gun had a most uncanny knack of putting bullet after bullet into a ragged hole. I've shot way too many groups to count with that gun that measured an inch or less at 25 yards free hand mind you running the entire six in the cylinder into the group not just five. With the old Elmer Keith load using the Lyman 358156 GC bullet in .38 Special cases that gun just didn't seem capable of missing in those days. I won a huge pile of trophies and a not inconsiderable amount of money with it. Oh to take back the trade that saw that one get away from me.
Both Billy and I had S&W Model 29s with the 10-5/8" barrels with the four position adjustable front sights. Billy being smarter than me died still owning his and his step son Blake still owns it to this day. Blake's shooting buddy Tim owns mine now. I took that gun to a bunch of different states and killed a huge pile of game of all sorts with it. I won a truck load of trophies with it and a pile of money as well. One year in B'ahm, AL I won every single NRA Sponsored Hunter Pistol Iron Sight match held with that gun and no one ever even came close to winning one of the matches from me. That one too with it's favorite loads put bullets into an inch at 25 yards time after time after time. Sure me and it missed from time to time as the old fart holding it wasn't as good as the gun was and was known to flinch or just plain miss from time to time. I'm sure the gun was mad at me at such times cuz it had it in it to do it every time.
I've really never been good enough to claim to be able to shoot 2" groups at 50 yards however with iron sights. At my best in my competition days when my eyes were still good enough to see those sights I could stay in 3" pretty much all the time and in 4" every time unless one of those flinches hit me in which case I'm not sure 2' would necessarily cover it.
But sit me down at a bench and give me a scope on that rascal and ya better believe the groups would tightened.
I had one particular S&W 629 Classic DX that I scoped with a Bushnell 2-6 Trophy scope that was perhaps the most accurate revolver I've ever owned to include the FA guns. It was a genuine 2" 100 yard five or six shot group gun day in and day out with the load it preferred. Once when getting ready for an out of state hunt I set down to shoot a five shot group at 100 yards to verify my zero was still correct before heading on the hunt. The first three shots looked like one hole to me thru the scope and I almost stopped there to go see but didn't. I fired two more after having the fellows with me look at it thru their scopes to verify those three in a tight little cluster. Later when measured those first three were 1/2" CTC and the entire five shot group was only 1.5". That gun would shoot. Once again I sure wish I'd been smart enough to hold onto such a fine shooting piece of equipment but didn't and traded it for something I thought I wanted more.
These days my tired old eyes can't focus on the front sight anymore and good groups are merely memories for me with iron sights. My old muscles have taken too much recoil I guess for maybe mom's Parkinson's Disease is creeping up on me, dunno but my arms are no longer steady and the shakes prevent me from shooting very well even with a scope unless I lock it all down at the bench. Free hand I do good now to hold 4" groups at 25 and don't do it every time. At 50 yards it's foolish to even pretend to shoot free hand now and at 100 yards those metal rams that used to fall so regularly for me in competition would need to be the size of a buffalo to be in much danger from a free hand shot.
I've shot with and competed against the best shooters the state of Alabama developed back in my day and some of the best in other surrounding states as well. I've seen both good and bad shots and I'm here to tell ya that the majority of those who claimed to be "good" weren't nearly as good when the chips were down and the money or trophy on the line as they thought they were. In the last few years of Billy's life we had a range in his back yard that streched only to 50 meters as that's all the room there was for it. But he and I fired thousands of rounds per week down that range and each Saturday we held matches there open to anyone who wanted to show up. We had trophies bought to give to the winners. Folks came from far and wide to show us how to shoot. No one not a regular shooter with us who the two of us had taught to shoot ever walked away with a trophy from that range. Billy and I generally took one and two and someone else managed third place for the most part. It was never a sure thing which of us me or Billy would be first or second as neither of us really was better than the other it was just whichever was shooting best on that day.
With .22LR handguns we shot the little 1/5 scale NRA rifle silhouettes at 25, 37, 42 and 50 meters using iron sight guns only and free hand only. If you wanted a trophy that day you better not miss many of them. We had a little chicken swinger I'd bought and we shot that sucker so many times it pushed the sides back and made it look like a cup until it finally broke off the arm and we welded it back after pounding it flat and did it again a few more times.
How much did we shoot? Dunno but we bought .22LR ammo in cases of 5000 and in one summer just from what we shot in revolvers and dropped into a five gallon bucket it ran over with the empties. Both of us shot the semiautos a fair bit as well so that wasn't all of them by any means.
What does all that have to do with anything? Not much I guess just fond memories of days past when my best friend was still alive and we were the terror of the local handgun shooting circuit. Damned if we didn't have some good times together and shot untold 100s of thousands of rounds thru those guns in those days. But I do have a pretty good idea what a really good shot is capable of doing and what is mere keyboard boasting, that's fer shore cuz I've shot with some fine shooters over the years and have a lot of first hand experience seeing what can be done with the money rides on the outcome.
