There are four or five well-known custom shops producing barrels as well as T/C's own factory and their custom shop, Fox Ridge Outfitters. Most of these custom shops also perform full service pistolsmithing, offering barrel rechambering, trigger jobs and other tuning services. Each seems to have their claim to greatness and most have developed some line of proprietary cartridges possibly to get a little more name recognition, but more likely to keep up with Jones. Some provide a Minute-of-Angle (MOA) guarantee, others don't, but how much does it really matter?

For probably 90% of the hunting situations it doesn't matter at all. Don't get me wrong, I like a great shooting gun as much as the next person and I consider bullet placement to be of paramount importance in a hunting situation. However, unless you're shooting at prairie dogs out there at three or four hundred yards you won't be able to tell the difference between 1 MOA and 3 MOA or maybe more.

To come up with a reasonable estimate of the accuracy required for hunting think about the size of the vitals of the game we hunt. Consider the whitetail deer, they are one of the smaller big-game animals we hunt and their vital area is at least twelve inches in diameter. Since we're shooting handguns though, there will probably be a little wobble in our sight picture so call it a nine-inch vital zone. Lets also say that we won’t shoot our handgun at a deer that is more than 300 yards away, which is probably farther than most hunters should be shooting at a deer even with a rifle. An acceptable nine-inch strike zone at 300 yards translates into 3 MOA. That's roughly three inches at one hundred yards. For a three-hundred yard shot you need a pretty flat shooting piece which is fairly powerful and that translates into a bottle neck cartridge. In my personal experience, even the worst barrels will shoot better than 3 MOA with this type of round chambered. The acceptable accuracy level is even more pronounced on larger game. For the power levels generated by most handgun cartridges, shots at really large game should be kept under about 200 yards to ensure quick kills and depending on the situation and cartridge, even that may be a stretch. You could probably get by with five or six-inch groups at one hundred yards and still have plenty of accuracy for game like elk, moose or other large critters.

Ok, fair enough, what about accuracy in my 44 revolver? If all this flak over accuracy was really that important revolvers wouldn't even be considered as hunting handguns. One of my favorite hunting revolvers won't shoot tighter than a three or four inch group at a hundred yards with a full cylinder. So what! Due to the power level and trajectory of a slug fired from a 44 magnum, the effective range is only about 150 yards at the most, assuming the gun is wearing a scope. So a 44 shooting a four-inch group consistently should produce a six-inch group at 150 yards and that is plenty of accuracy for a nine-inch vital zone on a deer.

As with any broad statement there are exceptions and the one here is long-range varmint hunting. This is the one type of hunting where two or three MOA accuracy may not be good enough. I do find it doubtful that all those pontificating about this subject are involved in long-range varmint hunting however. So why all the fuss about tolerances and MOA accuracy? Most of it is for the sake of marketing hype or bragging rights from the paper punchers. Admittedly, I truly love to sit down at a bench with some rifle guys nearby and shoot a tighter group with my little old Contender than they can with their long gun but that's a different topic of discussion.

Will I still seek out the elusive MOA groups, the most accurate loads and the guns with the best fit and finish? Of course, but it won't matter much to the game I shoot.

Good Hunting, Gary