My oh my, how spoiled we've become.......
I recall reading plenty of rifle reviews in the "Dope Bag" section of American Rifleman during my formative years. They way I remember things "back in the day" was that you didn't have to look too hard to find a rifle that wouldn't deliver a sub-2" group at 100 yards. In fact, in our family deer camp, there were quite a number of fellows who routinely hunted -successfully, I might add- with battered old M-94 Winchesters that probably couldn't print sub-3" groups on their best days.
It didn't stop these guys from hunting and it didn't stop them from filling their tags each season.
Flash forward to the present time, where we demand minute of angle accuracy, even though we might realistically be applying it to a task that doesn't actually demand such high levels of precision.
It is pure speculation on my part, but I would be inclined to believe that more game animals are taken at distance less than 200 yards in this country than are taken at ranges in excess of that mark.
Our family hunting camp that I mentioned was on the High Desert slope of the San Bernardino Mountains in California. Some of that country was as wide open as you can imagine. One of the longest shots I ever took on a game animal was made in that country. It was a 275 yard poke across a draw, with me shooting a Ruger No. 1 in .300 Weatherby Magnum. It was the first and only time in that country that I felt compelled to shoot that far, and it took two decades worth of seasons for me to come to a point where I decided to shoot at range, rather than attempt to close the gap.
I hunted that same general area season after season. I started at the age of 11 with a Marlin 336. Definitely not tack driving, long range ordinance. At 18, I managed to aquire ("steal" is probably a better word) a well-cared for Griffin and Howe built on a M-1903 Springfield barreled action, and I used that rifle, sans scope. Even in wide open country. It had the excellent Lyman 48 peep sight, but as good as that sight was, it wasn't a 9X telescope.
My 336 was a solid 2.5" @ 100 gun with everything I fed it. My Springfield would do 1 MOA, but not with my pet handload consisting of 180 grain Nosler Partitions atop 55 grains of IMR 4350. With that load, it was a whole lot closer to a 2" @ 100 rifle than a 1"@100 rifle. Dittos for my Number 1. With 190 grain Sierra MatchKings, it was dazzingly accurate. But those weren't the right medicine for hunting use. With 180 grain Partitions, it was much closer to a 2" @ 100 rifle.
That didn't stop me from wacking a mulie at 275 with the thing.
Like most people who shoot guns for fun, I find accurate rifles to be much more enjoyable to play with than those that are less precise.
That said, I'm not sure that having a rifle capable of hitting the vitals of a deer at 500 yards every time would have added much to my hunting in the past, and I am pretty certain it won't in my current situation.
Why?
Because once the blinding muzzle flash that turned my view through the scope orange went away, that 275 yard mulie that I had no problem seeing when standing on all fours blended in with the various shades of tan and brown of the local terrain so well that I had a devil of a time finding it, even though it was "bang, flop" and dead where it stood when it took the hit.
Once I got my size, I started hunting other places, like southern Utah. Again, pretty wide-open terrain. The farthest shot I ever took hunting in the general area of Panguitch was 175 yards. And that was with my old peep-sight equipped Springfield.
In truth, even in open areas, I've wacked more mule deer at distances less than 200 yards than ranges greater. In fact, they've often been a lot less, like 75 to 100. And that is in open, high-desert kind of country totally unlike the dense hardwoods of the Cherokee Nation that I hunt in now, where the longest shot I am ever likely to have even the remotest possibility of taking is 150 yards.
Even on our "big eared dogs" that pass for deer in my neighborhood, the KZ is roughly the size of a pie tin. Score a hit anywhere on that "pie tin" sized area, and you'll be eating backstraps in short order.
And I think I could get the first shot into that "pie tin" at distances greater than I really want to shoot a deer even if I was shooting a 2 MOA rifle, rather than a sub MOA one.
Ultimately, the 2.3" average of the .338 RCM might not impress some, and many might poo-poo it as being less than sufficiently precise. Others, like me, might well be satisfied with it. While "gnat's gnads" precision is nice, and certainly useful to some, for the game that I hunt and the manner in which I hunt it, a rifle that shot 2.3" groups wouldn't be the excuse I'd use for not filling my tag. Because even at that level of precision, I'd be likely to get that first shot into the "pie plate" sized vital zone, all the way out to 300 yards, which is about as far as I can imagine ever personally attempting a shot at a game animal.
