Moa: Fill & Download for Free

If you are talking true bird, it’s probably the now-extinct Moa of New Zealand.This is an exact replica of one next to a tourist.

Why do internet gun communities bash on 2-3 MOA rifles so much? Do they all have the need for surgical shooting at a thousand yards?America is home to the Cult of the Marksman.From our earliest history, when the United States was still the Colonies, settlers lived and died by marksmanship. Miss that deer, and go hungry. Miss that Redcoat, and die.Our love of accuracy is baked in. Further, everyone loves to envision themselves as the ultra-shooter who can pick a flea off a dogs ass at 10,000 yards. Movies and games have enhanced this effect. Finally, a lot of people play video games and spend a lot of time at the range, but don’t spend a lot of time shooting at food or people. Since we can build sub-MOA guns, we do, and then try to compete by showing off just how sub the sub-MOA is.But here’s something I learned, both from hunting and reading about Carlos Hathcock, the most famous USMC sniper.You only have to shoot minute-of-deer or minute-of-man to do the job.I was once part of the Cult of the Marksman, and largely still am. I still esteem accuracy highly, but I’ve learned a broader perspective. I also did the math.The average man is about 19 inches across the shoulders. Deer run a bit smaller. That means that to shoot a man reliably at 400 yards, a rifle has to have an precision better than 4.75 MOA.One Minute of Angle is about 1 inch at 100 yards (1.047 inches really, but this hardly matters. If you shoot well enough that 0.047 inches matters, you are literally a world class shooter). It’s important to remember that this is a diameter, not a radius. Your round will land somewhere within a cone defined by it’s mechanical precision.The basic equation to figure out the size of the cone, or the precision necessary to make a shot, is MxD=S, where M is Minute of Angle, D is Distance in hundreds of yards, and S is size in inches. So to figure out the precision necessary to shoot a man at 400 yards, the longest range people typically engage at, the equation is 19/4, giving an answer of 4.75 MOA.I believe the maximum tolerance the US military accepts for small arms is 4 MOA, meaning a target can be reliable engaged at 475 yards, and most will shoot better than that.Clearly, if your rifle is capable of 2–3MOA, it should be quite sufficient for hunting man or medium game.Now, snipers typically engage targets out to 1000 yards or so. Running our math again, 19/10=1.9MOA. Well golly. 2 MOA?Yet Hathcock insisted that a sniper’s rifle should be able to shoot 1 MOA, and conversely, that 1 MOA was all it needed to do. Why is that? Because the average human male head is about 6 inches wide.Lets run some more math. 6 inches/1 MOA=6, or 600 yards (remember, D is in hundreds of yards). In Hathcock’s day, at less than 600 yards, snipers generally tried for a head shot, and farther, for a body shot. And, of course, a more precise gun is more forgiving of human error.Personally, I prefer to be the least accurate part of any weapon system I’m using.Now, if you’re shooting beyond 1000 yards, a varmint hunter, or you are a specialist marksman who deals with hostage situations, a sub-MOA gun may actually be useful to you. You may also find it useful if you are competition shooter and making a hole 1/10 of an inch too far on a piece of paper may cost you a match.For hunting, the vital area of a deer is about 8–10 inches around, but few people hunt deer at 400 yards. If memory serves, the average shot against a deer in my native Vermont is 77 yards.But for the overwhelming majority of shooters, 4MOA or better is fine. 2–3 MOA is good, and 1 MOA is great.Yet some internet communities poo poo 2–3 MOA guns for the same reason that they glorify Glock or masturbate to H and K (I’m sorry, HK, because manly Teutonic operators don’t have time to say “and”). Because it makes them feel better than everyone else.Now, I’m not saying you want an inaccurate piece of garbage. I think you should always make your weapon as precise as is practical. If you want to, and can, tune your rifle to 0.5 MOA, go for it. Why not? Just have a realistic understanding that you’re doing it because you can, not because you need to. And that no matter how mechanically precise the rifle is, it doesn’t matter if you yourself can’t shoot for shit.A good general guideline for precision is:1 MOA or more for a sniper2 MOA or more for a marksman4 MOA or more for a riflemanless than 4 MOA, we should be talking about handguns.Personally, if I can get a rifle or carbine to shoot 2 MOA or better, I’m happy. Which means I’ll stop trying to tune it better. Probably. Like I said, I’m still sorta in the cult.But I’m not going to bash someone who uses a 4 MOA Winchester .30–30 to shoot deer at less than 200 yards.For more, read Bearing Arms

We probably didn’t hunt mammoths to extinction alone, but it is indeed a correct observation that early humans preyed on mammoths, but not elephants.This is a bit surprising, considering:How on Earth do you come to a conclusion the creature on the left is too dangerous to prey upon, but the one on the right is an easy picking?My pet hypothesis is that mammoth hunting was a lot less dangerous and much more mundane than usually potrayed. Elephants evolved alongside humans and evolved and taught defences against human predation. African elephants know a bunch of tiny bipedal apes are a threat and act accordingly, but mammoths just ignored us. What can these small creatures do to a creature a hundred times their size anyway?I mention this because we do know this happened to Moas:The Moa could kill all of these maori, if it just knew they were a threat.The way ancient humans killed mammoths early on was probably a lot like this moa hunt above. Approach the creature or creatures, get in position, then on a signal, stab the mammoth or mammoths you targeted for the kill. It’s still a bit risky, but you can design better tactics quicker than mammoths can evolve better defensive strategies, so humans continued to prey on mammoths (and all other megafauna) until it was no more for a combination of reasons - human predation and climate change both.We know humans went after mammoths for meat, bone and fur and this implies mammoths were a good source to obtain all of those and also - crucially - a stone age mammoth hunt wasn’t as dangerous as it seems. Docile mammoths that don’t know humans are a threat are probably a part of the story.