I find that very hard to believe. I'd have to see them shoot 10 shots at 50 yards. Some of the best custom 1911's won't group that well at 50 yards. It is not common for a pistol that groups 1" at 25 yards to shoot a group twice as big at 50 yards. Usually the groups at 50 yards are much bigger. Of course if Apex is just shooting 3 shots at each distance, it is possible to get those shots to group that small once in a while.
Hello,
Actually we shoot 5 shot groups from the Ransom at 25 yards and at 50 yards. We shoot 5 round groups for a couple of reasons:
The first is that of time use. Until we have our new range facility built, we have to use a public range which is only open Thursday through Sunday. Depending upon the number of shooters, the bench space and time is at a premium. The shooting periods are also only 20 minutes long, so between initial set up of the Rest, proper seating of the firearm into the mounting panels via live fire for 5 shots, the actual time we have to shoot each gun becomes very limited. Also keep in mind that like the US Modular Handgun System trials, we use slide mounted sights to align for each round fired. My eyes aren't what they used to be, so eye strain can set in pretty quickly.
The second reason is that for our purposes, a 5 shot group is still statistically relevant for our application. 10 round groups only increases ammo consumption and the probability of larger groups due to frame or fixture shifting. In CA, since we can only have 10 round magazines, anyone who knows how difficult it is to stuff that 10th round into the magazine will understand what a pain it is. Fortunately we will soon be in a free state...
We did all our initial testing at 50 yards when we were developing our barrels, using the same sighting procedures as we do for 25 yards. This was to prove that our barrels would exceed the accuracy standard set forth in the MHS trial specs (their target is a 4" circle at 50 meters). Our barrels would consistently shoot better than 2" at 50 yards. We even compared factory and other aftermarket barrels for comparison. Our best non official group was .593" at 50 yards. I say non official because the target clearly shows the 5 shot group, however there is a 6th round on the paper that we cannot account for. This group had to be thrown out because we could not determine the origin of the shot. My suspicion is that another shooter on the line hit our target. But even with that 6th round, the group opens up to 1.19" @ 50.
I decided to stop the 50 yard testing after all the data showed that with proper ammunition, our gunsmith fit barrels would consistently shoot sub 2" at fifty. The sighting for each shot at that distance increased my fatigue, plus we were constantly having to run back and forth to remove and reset fresh targets for the next test gun. It hot old pretty pretty fast.
Our best group at 25 yards measured .313" for the 5 shot group with one police officer's duty gun. Our average was realistically about 3/4" for the 5 shots @ 25.
I engineered our barrel based upon the physics of what I saw happening within the M&P design. That is why we can make the claims we do. No one thought a polymer framed striker fired pistol could go toe to toe with high end 1911s, but ours can.
