Sounds like a good ol dose of common sense.
I read a book last week, the author being Tom Kelly.
You two have similar styles, and that is a good thing.

Agree with DEP when it comes to all of us non-competitor shooters. You like to know that your hunting ammo is capable of sub-MOA groups so that you're own not compounding an existing problem with your own shakes, wibbles and wobbles. Of course since those are random quakes it might not matter anyway. I'm happy with my hunting rifles as long as I can consistently keep a three-shot group around an inch and a quarter at 100 yards (key word being consistently). Every once in awhile I'll shoot a half inch or so group with one or two of my guns, but I believe that is the result of a complicated series of events and processes that scientists call pure, dumb luck. Mostly I'm shooting at basketball sized targets and limiting myself to shots on breathing creatures to 300 yards or less (far more often far less), so 1 1/2 MOA is fine. The really amazing thing is how accurately most factory ammo shoots in most guns.
Biggest problem may be FINDING factory ammo, to revive another topic. I was looking for some 9mm practice ammo this afternoon for my daughter and can't find it anywhere near my home in San Antonio. Academy has no 9mm, although the clerk was breathless to pass along the fact that it was 3 p.m. and he still had four or five boxes of .223 left (I don't need it). Went to D__k's Sporting goods (yes, the stupid filter again) and they had exactly 9 boxes of .17 Hornady and absolutely nothing else other than shogun shells. Went to Walmart and the little old lady at the counter just laughed at me when I asked about 9mm. She said if I could be there when the truck came by next time I might get lucky; just don't be 15 minutes late. Total centerfire and rimfire ammo there in any caliber amounted to about half a dozen boxes. I am about to go shopping the net...

Went shopping the net. No 9mm of any kind at Ammo-to-Go, Midway, Sportsman's Guide; you name it. Do you think Janet Napolitano would sell me a couple of boxes? I understand she has about 1.6 billion rounds to spare...

Yep, it's the Indian, not the arrow.

I had a brand new X-bolt .243 with a Zeiss scope on it that wouldn't shoot Hornady Light Magnums for s**t. To say that the rifle was inaccurate would do grievous injustice to the term "inaccurate". It literally sprayed bullets to and fro.

I checked EVERYTHING. I remounted the scope three times. Lapped the scope rings twice. I took the rifle apart and checked the bedding. etc.. etc... etc...

I was about to sell the "piece of crap" when a thought entered my feeble brain, "Why not try a different brand of ammo first BEFORE you sell the rifle?" So I picked up a box of Winchester Ballistic Silvertips and that piece of s**t rifle is now the most accurate rifle I've ever owned. It'll darn near send every bullet through the same hole.

Ain't it amazing how some rifles are so picky about what they eat?

Since I started reloading my own rounds, I found that it ain't the bullet for me. Its the powder charge. 1/10th of a grain can mess up my groups something astonishing. That and all the other minutia keeps me awake at night.

nunyabinis,
I had a similar experience with Hornady factory loads as did two friends with two different calibers in two differnt model rifles. All magnums, all different calibers, all different rifles; same story - would not group for beans! BTW, all three rifles are MOA shooters with different factory loads.

in that case, my bullets are ALWAYS accurate

WE are all spending too much time shooting off the bench, and the modern rifles and bullets reflect this. Pick up an older lever action and you might notice how much better it aims off hand than the current "hunting" firearms. If taking game is your goal get off the bench and practice the kind of shots you will likely have in the field.

Douglas,
I'm with you; I'll try various powder loads, primers, seating depth and even cases and more times than not I can get hunting accuracy out of just about any bullet. When my groups open up I look to the Indian not the arrow! Although factory loads are a lot better than they used to be I find I very seldom shoot factory ammo, I'd rather roll my own.

Harold,
O'Connor wrote a LOT about bullet construction and its bearing on performance in the hunting fields. He was never a "small" or "large" caliber guy -- he was a put a well-constructed bullet of adequate caliber in the right place guy.
Keith liked a big hole in the end of the barrel in great part because he did not like or trust smaller caliber bullets to both penetrate and expand; and as Dave noted, he had good reason to suspect them in his younger days. He certainly understood the value of good bullet construction, although he did not write about it as much as O'Connor. I do recall Keith being apoplectic about some lousy .338 or .333 bullets (I forget which) that he used on his first African safari.

Mark-1,
I used to read old Elmer's columns on a fairly regular basis (I read O'Connor's religiously)and he could be entertaining at times, although I would hardly call him a stylish writer. From what I've read, it took the sweat and toil of about six editors just to make him grammatical. At the same time he had certainly lived an interesting life and his contributions to handgun and handgun cartridge development can't be denied.
Having given the old devil his due, he was also known to just flatly make things up. Part of the somewhat overblown Keith-O'Connor feud resulted from former journalism professor O'Connor actually fact-checking Keith's stories with others present at the time and then publishing the results. To say that Keith did not let facts get in the way of his prejudices is putting it kindly.
My dad owned several of Keith's early books and I have most of the others. I remember one story he told about a mule deer that supposedly absorbed about six, 150-fr. 30-06 bronze points right in the boiler room, and reacted as if he had been bitten by a mosquito. I used to shoot 150 gr. 30-06 bronze points a lot before ballistic tips came out and I never had any deer I hit with them take a single step, so it sounded like pure bunkum to me. Later discovered that was one of the stories O'Connor checked out, and it was indeed a load of horse manure. Keith told a lot of stories like that.

I have known several people who have known E. Keith and some of their stories would curl your hair! It's been a while since I've read any O'Connor pieces but I don't remember any of them saying to the effect, "X bullet in 30 caliber will do a better job on elk than Y or Z bullets. Better use the last two for deer and antlope." He often mentioned the bullet he used for a particular beast but I can't remember him ever going much into bullet construction. He was, however, my favorite gun writer. This was because he was honest! He admitted mistakes. The others probably would have had they made any. ;-)

The bullet is only one part of the accuracy equation. In the cartridge alone the casing, the powder, and the primer also have a bearing on accuracy. The rifle - barrel, bedding, stock, and trigger - all impact accuracy. And then there is the shooter. You can have the best bullet ever made, but if any of those other components is off, your accuracy is gone.

Amflyer,

I'm feeling cranky, too. Even stayed home from work!

Here's a bold statement, too: Most of the nimrods that shoot/claim to shoot MOA from the bench can't hit a bull in the butt with a banjo in the field. Can you say "Range Monkeys"?

My rifles shoot more accurately than I can hold them, so I zero and fire for groups from the bench. When they're zeroed and I have some idea of their accuracy potential under ideal conditions, any inaccuracy beyond that is my contribution, so I work on that.
It warms my heart to fire tiny little groups with my varmint rifles, but I don't fire them in the standing offhand position; that's what my hunting rifles are for, and most of them are lever action carbines or bolt action carbines equipped with 18 to 20 inch barrels.
I observe that most of my 24-inch medium-weight barrel contours have been retired or replaced by rifles that carry easily and point naturally.

Harold,
O'Connor probably focused less on bullet construction than we do now because there were fewer choices available when he was writing, but he actually did address the subject quite a bit in his books. If you go back and peruse "The Rifle Book," "The Hunting Rifle" and "Rifles and Shotguns" you'll find quite a few pages devoted to the subject of bullet construction, terminal performance and the type of bullets that needed to be used on various mammals from prairie dogs to elephants -- although O'Connor admittedly cared little about elephant hunting and shot only one small-tusked pachyderm.