Somewhere, a village must be missing their idiot. Accurate and meaningful measurements are kind of important in a sport where group spreads in the zeroes often delineate the winners from those that didn't win. Apparently, you don't grasp the importance of measurement accuracy and significant figures. It's kind of a big deal if you want to say anything meaningful about group size.
With a .30 cal, tangent 10 ogive bullet on a .925" jacket, a well worked out leade angle and zero freebore.... right at .125 down the neck is exactly where the bullet base of that combination will end up.
Actually, it is not possible to state that such a group average is .0075". First off, .031 divided by 4 comes out to .00775, not .0075. If you were to round that number up to four significant digits, it would .0078, not .0075. However, it doesn't matter. In no way whatsoever can you say that with any meaning, when the precision of each individual measurement is accurate only to three decimal places. In fact, the answer would be that the average group spread could stated with certainty only to be .008" or .007". That is the whole point. Adding an extra digit if it was not generated during the measurement process really IS making sh*t up.
I will give an egg-head response to this. I took statistics when I worked on my Masters Degree. Here is a summary of the rule that applies to this situation. "For calculations involving measured quantities, the first step in determining the precision of the answer is to determine the number of significant figures of the measured quantity. With a five-shot group on target paper, three (thousandths place) is all we could hope for. When measured quantities are divided (like the four judges do) the rules of statistics state that the answer must have the SAME number of significant figures as measurement with the SMALLEST number of significant figures (three in this case)." Sorry, but I tried to give the simple answer in my first post, but some doubted.
The topic was presented.
I think that's apples to oranges with the rule written as is, but I understand what you're saying. It's all good though.
I realize that the rules are like they are, but to say that the group was .0077 is wrong. For example, if one judge measures away from the others, it can skew the results. Judge 1= .007; judge #2 .007: judge #3 .007; and judge #4=.010 The mean (average) is .00775...Does that truly represent the group shot??
I think it does. The game isn't perfect and I'd take the average of 4 over that of any one measurer that could be wrong. But that's just my view on it, fwiw.
Mr Blubbers, my calc rounded it to .0075, not .00775 as you stated. To all of you that don't like the rules and are railing about it, get with your regional director and try to get it changed. Do you want it to be rounded to .010"?
You're completely missing the point, like everyone else that got their panties all in a bunch when @ jamesdmock challenged the way the measurements were made/reported. The point is this: a supposed all-time record small group of .0077" is meaningless if it was measured to .001" or even .0005" accuracy. The most that can be said about it would be that it was .008". You can't simply make up an extra significant figure. If you do that, why even bother measuring?
From an a measurement/information content standpoint, yes.
One more time...I totally get that. I read it. It says "compute", not "measure". What is being stated here is simple. You can't make up an extra decimal place/significant figure via some mathematical action such as averaging, if the original measurements contained fewer significant figures. I don't care what the rules say, they don't trump science/mathematics. If the individual group measurements are not made with an accuracy to four decimal places, then adding the fourth decimal place into the final averaged value is simply making shit up. That last decimal place is a value that wasn't ever measured and never existed until someone took the average of several values measured to one less significant figure.
Mr Blubbers, I didn't realize this would bunch up your panties. You and James can get together and make your own rules.
My panties aren't bunched, Butch, yours are. In an attempt to denigrate and beliitle those making a valid point about the scoring process that you don't happen to agree with, you responded with a post that was misleading and incorrect. I merely pointed that out and you got butt-hurt. Did I miss some other event that transpired? Do you really want to keep going with this over something so trivial?
Young feller, I see that it really hurts you to be questioned. It is easy as you don't agree with the rulebook, so get it changed to the way you want it. I'll abide by it. NOW I will let you have the LAST word young feller.
