I'm fairly new to this but not to shooting in general. There is no substitute for a good bench and sandbag rest to take the human factor out when you are working up a load and testing the accuracy potential for your rifle. I also suggest you swab the bore after every shot while developing a load. Dirty bores often do not shoot as well or even to the same point of impact as clean ones. If you hunt, you will most likely fire your first shot at game from a clean bore so it just makes sense to me to regulate my load and sights with a clean bore, at least clean as it can be with a spit patch followed by a dry one between shots. Opinions differ on range but to me 25 yards is too close. Most all guns, centerfire included, will rag out a hole at 25 yards but some of them shoot like crap on down range. 50 yards is a good place to get your sights set and see sort of what your gun will do. 100 yards is to me at least the final real acid test of the gun's capability off the bench. Everyone has his own criteria for what is acceptable. For me, I want my rifle to reliably put three balls in a decent group on a common index card(3"x5") at 100 yards off the bench. If a rifle will reliably do that off the bench, I KNOW that any missing I do is my own fault and not my rifle. I have no experience with smaller calibers so my experience may not help you. However, on a still day I suspect my process will work for you. FWIW a 3" group at 50 yards standing or offhand is darn fine shooting. However, 3" off the sandbag bench at 50 is pretty mediocre. Actually to me, 3" at 100 off the bench is pretty mediocre. JMO Hope this helps. :-)
