GUN...accuracy ?

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Heck, I can shoot sub MOA at 100 yards while standing on a bowling ball, holding the gun with my knees and pulling the trigger with my toes! (just kidding! chuckle)

I don't have a way to put my gun in a vice and isolate it for testing, so I will always have the human factor (me) involved. However, I would never be using the gun for my practical purposes (pesting) while it was locked in a vice, so although I get the sentiment of the OP, I also recognize that for all practical purposes a gun is only as accurate/precise as the shooter(s) themselves.

I would like to have a device or vice to lock my guns into to make sure of their accuracy, but since I don't... I can only base my accuracy/precision on the shots I take without such a device.

In the end, a human is involved no matter how accurate any particular gun. So, I guess that is where the precision actually comes into play? (smile)
 
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Rests do not work well. I have used Ranson rests for developing hand loads for pistols. In that regard they can help, but they cannot simulate you, the shooter. Only you can do that. It is sometimes really difficult to determine what causes a miss. Rests can lead you down the wrong path as well. It is a talent to trouble shoot a fault, not every shooter can do this. Consistent gun support is critical for repeatability and in that regard rests are useless.
 
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Rests do not work well. I have used Ranson rests for developing hand loads for pistols. In that regard they can help, but they cannot simulate you, the shooter. Only you can do that. It is sometimes really difficult to determine what causes a miss. Rests can lead you down the wrong path as well. It is a talent to trouble shoot a fault, not every shooter can do this. Consistent gun support is critical for repeatability and in that regard rests are useless.
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With respect Steve, I have to disagree. You are correct, that the Ranson rest or similar device cannot simulate the shooter, which is exactly its purpose! If you are evaluating gun or ammo, you don't want the shooter, or weather, or any other variable to be present. Will the gun shoot exactly the same when allowed the movement of recoil? Probably not, but it makes no difference, you're looking for a baseline of performance potential. What the shooter does with that information is a different matter. 
 
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elh0102, The trouble i had with them was caused by recoil moving either the rest or the table the rest was fastened to. The gun to rest coupling was so firm it absorbed no shock and easily caused movement. In my experience it caused more trouble than they were worth, at least to me. Now I have never used one with an air gun, but shooting PBs I found I could do just as well without the rest. Without the hassle of trying to determine if the spread I was seeing was due to the gun moving or the load I was testing. Also the POI would be completely different between the rest and my hand, not even close to the same. Have you ever used one?
 
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elh0102, The trouble i had with them was caused by recoil moving either the rest or the table the rest was fastened to. The gun to rest coupling was so firm it absorbed no shock and easily caused movement. In my experience it caused more trouble than they were worth, at least to me. Now I have never used one with an air gun, but shooting PBs I found I could do just as well without the rest. Without the hassle of trying to determine if the spread I was seeing was due to the gun moving or the load I was testing. Also the POI would be completely different between the rest and my hand, not even close to the same. Have you ever used one?
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Yes, I found it useful with handguns. Frankly, for my purposes, a good bench rest setup is good enough for rifles and air guns. If I were a 1,000 yard shooter and sought every bit of advantage I could find in my ammo, then a vice rest might be useful. The table to which the rest is attached at our club is a large concrete pillar, with large bolts attaching the fixture. It's not going to move.
 
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There is a big difference between a vise and a gun rest. A vise is something used to mechanically clamp something from moving. If vises were the key to absolute accuracy, then all Benchrest shooters would clamp their rifles into vises. Instead….all Benchrest shooters use rifle rests. A rest allows the rifle to recoil…it does not prevent it from moving as a vise would. The term “free recoil” is specifically about the method of using a rifle rest where you do not interfere with the movement of the rifle by gripping, shouldering or putting your cheek on the rifle. You pinch the trigger with your thumb behind the trigger guard or simply pull straight back on the trigger blade lightly until the rifle fires. A rest is working part of a Benchrest system. It can work with the gun or against it.

Mike 
 
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Fire this once and it will move back about 1/2”. Fire it twice without pushing it back forward and it will fall off the back of the front roller.

Mike 
 
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There is a big difference between a vise and a gun rest. A vise is something used to mechanically clamp something from moving. If vises were the key to absolute accuracy, then all Benchrest shooters would clamp their rifles into vises. Instead….all Benchrest shooters use rifle rests. A rest allows the rifle to recoil…it does not prevent it from moving as a vise would. The term “free recoil” is specifically about the method of using a rifle rest where you do not interfere with the movement of the rifle by gripping, shouldering or putting your cheek on the rifle. You pinch the trigger with your thumb behind the trigger guard or simply pull straight back on the trigger blade lightly until the rifle fires. A rest is working part of a Benchrest system. It can work with the gun or against it.

Mike
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Absolutely correct. The Ransom Rest to which the OP refers is, I think, sort of a combination, but certainly closer to the vice type fixures used in production testing. The one I used was hard mounted to a huge concrete block with large studs and bolts. With a handgun, it allowed some recoil, but returned to a fixed stop. Having been a BR shooter I'm very famiiliar with free recoil, and this would be about the opposite.
 
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An interesting experiment with my Delta Wolf ... I shoot up to 50 yards from a heavy bench. Two days ago I shot a couple of groups from a bipod which were about 1/4" ctc but 1 shot opened up the group in them, ie 4 into a single 25 cal sized hole and 1 just touching. I then clamped it into my bench vice with soft jaws and first four out were about 1", so stopped wasting ammo with that, but shot one more from the bench that was the tightest yet. Now I KNOW I'm part of the reason the group was not a perfect single hole, but the experiment from the vice was a bit surprising. I have shot from Mike N's setup at his place and I really don't know how it can be better than that.

Alan Z had a return to zero free recoil setup for testing Steyr's when he was doing a lot of them. Seemed that it was pretty dependable. 

I also remember way back that many testers had serious trouble getting a Ransom rest to do as well as they could from bags. Iirc, it came down to getting the return tension right. They NEEDED to recoil, but the proper rate was important.

Interesting discussion, regardless.

Bob
 
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