I understand where the misconception comes from. If you personally never need to do a thing, that it can't be that important and doesn't affect you. But that's just not how math works. Or science and physics for that matter. It doesn't need your approval, understanding, or acknowledgment to exist and have the impact and truth that it does. Math is a universal language that gives numerical representation of the physical world. We can get rid of every spec of information and data we have uncovered about math, every law we've written down. Over time, all of those discoveries, equations and laws would be rediscovered and relearned.
I say all of that to get to the point that I had a back and forth with a pb youtuber that knows what they're talking about, he made sure to tell me. This fella had the stance that it is a myth that MOA is more precise that MIL. I pointed out that it is incorrect, that at 100 yards, 1/10 MIL is 0.36" and 1/4 MOA is 0.26", and that there are even more precise scopes that have a 1/8 MOA adjustments. The smaller the adjustments the more precise the measurement. This went about as well as it normally does. He quickly resorted to insults and "I do this for a living" and "you don't know anything about shooting" and my favorite was "You can sit there with your calculator and basic knowledge of .26 @100 vs .36 @ 100 and be wrong or you can go prove it to yourself or me in the real world." I wanted so much to explain to him that math and calculators and pi are the reason he is able to do the things he does. I thought for sure, being that close with that last one he would get it, but no. He pointed me to another of his videos as proof, it even had a test. The test was shoot 5 - 5 shot groups and then somehow measure the point of aim of those groups, not the point of impact, and then to see if the point of aim moved more than the most precise adjustment of your scope. If it did then the shooter had no need for those adjustments because they could not take advantage of them. This is a completely different point, but also very false. And to me that reads like, "I can't do it, so it's not possible."
I don't know how to explain or prove that a smaller measurement is more precise. You don't measure the width of a house with miles? You don't measure caliber with kilometers? I struggle to explain this, because it is so obvious to me. It's kind of like prove that 2+2=4... It's right there.. it just is. How?. I know that these type of proofs get done in math, but they are done at such a level that it completely flies past the average person, me included. So any type of explaination of that sort is probably out of the question.. I dunno.
But to the test that was proposed and why I say it is false too. Let's start with 100 shot group. This only works if you don't aim at your impact. So I aim off with stadia a few inches off center. You have to maintain a small target and point of aim for this. The more you incorporate field conditions, the more accurate the results you will get doing this. By that I mean, don't shoot all these shots on the same day. Same target, but different temps, time of day, etc. Eventually you will end up with a large round hole. This large hole is the shooting capability of you + gun + ammo + scope on any given day in conditions of your choosing. You may shoot better than that one large group often, but you will pretty much never shoot worse with that equipment in those conditions. This is the outer bounds. Not Center-to-center. That is for paper not hunting. Now you have your effective kill zone at that yardage. (I also have thoughts on "kill zones" - target the acutal organ size not roughly where it is.) So at 50 yards, if every shot went into a circle that measures 1 inch, then you are A-OK to shoot at any live target larger than 2 MOA at 50, cause you know you are going to hit the target area 100 out of 100 times. You still need to understand the actual size of targets, like a squirrel head is about 3x the size of a squirrel brain. So you should be aiming at a 0.5" target not a 1.5" target. Makes a big difference in your success rate. I don't know if this is where aim small miss small comes from, but the adage very much applies. But, this also means that since you shoot 2 MOA at 50, you are not qualified to shot a squirrel in the head, you would need to be able to shoot 1 MOA or bring the distance in to 25.
Now to get your aim dead on for hunting, it is going to take some time. This is where cold bore shots come into play. I understand this is a pb term, but it applies to air too. You only get one first shot. That is the most important one to make sure goes exactly where you want it to go. I do one or 2 of these a day when sighting, i.e. shoot the single cold bore shot, then let the gun sit for several hours so the reg stabilizes (not as important a wait for non-regged guns). Basically we want the gun to be in the same first shot condition each time on this target, then take the next cold bore shot at a new target. I like to draw a 3 rows of 6 or 7 half inch crosses on a sheet of printer paper. Only when I can hit all 20 odd of those at that distance consecutively, do I call that gun - ammo combo good for hunting. Anything beyond that is paper or gongs only. I know this strict demand of accuracy for hunting is not widely held, but it's what I do.
Now we get to why his test doesn't prove anything. You have your 100 shot group. He postulates that because this group is the size that it is, you will never be accurate enough to make any adjustments once that group gets on target. So if you have a 2 MOA group and you are aming at a 1/8 MOA target, once you adjust the group to just barely be covering the target, there is no more precision that can be gained. This is wrong. You want the center of your 100 shot group to be your aim point and you need to adjust your scope until that is the case. A shooter that shoots a 3" group at 10 yards can absolutely take advantage of moving that group 1/8 inch per click, just like they could moving it 1 inch per click. Once they get their point of aim centered over their point of impact they will have a higher number of hits on a smaller target than otherwise. Reasons for this gets into law of averages, statistical distributions, and barrel harmonics. I don't know if this accurately gets my point across, and I may make a video or at least some pics to better demonstrate if it will help anyone, but I think I've rambled enough for now.
TLDR: 1/4 MOA is a finer adjustment than 1/10 MIL and therefore is more precise, and even if you are incapable of shooting 1/4 MOA groups, you can still benefit from having fine adjustments on your scope.
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