[Jeff Higgins]

These are run of the mill hunting muzzle loaders, Snowman. Finer accuracy is obtainable with dedicated match rifles. Slug guns will routinely shoot well under and inch. At 200 yards. Take a look at the Rowland Pope; widely considered the most consistantly accurate rifle ever made until just a decade or so ago.

Alas, most of these rifles are just as useless in the real world as their tack driving modern offspring. Give me a real rifle that can be carried into the field, and the gap between black powder and smokless powder accuracy quite literally goes up in smoke. Highpower match rifles and long range black powder match rifles are a step closer to this than the bench and slug guns, although I still would not want to be burderned by either in the field.

The gap in scores between highpower and black powder at mid and long range is closer than you might think. Yes, highpower will often see clean targets prone at 600, with winners determined by X count. Black powder, at the same range, demands scores in the high 90's, with the occasional clean score, to be competitive. At 1,000 yards, if you are not shooting into the 90's (on a calm day), guys like me will beat you. Not many highpower guys will hang with us at that range.

Yes, a modern gun has fired into 3" at 1,000 yards. One gun. One shooter. On one day; never repeated. There are hundreds of people across the country competing in 1,000 yard benchrest. They fire tens of thousands of groups every year, year after year. There is statistically bound to be an anamoly like a 3" group, eventually, with so many being fired. The average at these competitions is four to five times that spread, and that is for the winning groups. With rifles that sometimes take two people to carry to the line. Hardly representative of what the modern rifle will do.