Originally Posted By: Rocketman
Good post, Miller. Glad to hear you are feeling up to some shotgun research. Have you read "Performance of Sporting Shotguns" by Dr. Andrew Jones? He answers a lot of questions.

Shotgun patterns follow a Rayleigh distribution, which can be nicely approximated with a normal distribution. The Rayleigh distribution describes rifle groups, artillery fire, and bombing patterns, also.


Thanks for saying that. I don't believe I have ever heard another shooter actually mention ANY statistical distribution, much less the correct one. I approximate that with a bivariate normal distribution - simply because I've never found a proper transformation function for the Rayleigh. For most purposes the bv normal is close enough when testing rifles for precision. I'm afraid I have never done any statistical analyses of shotgun patterns - though maybe I should.

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BrentD, (Professor - just for Stan)
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