Practical vs. 'best' accuracy

Was thinking about this in relation to the M1 Carbine, but it holds for a lot of firearms. There are two types of accuracy, which can depend on the firearm itself or the user or both.

Best accuracy is what you can get under ideal conditions; the best possible load for accuracy under the best possible firing conditions with the best possible aiming system.

Practical is what you can get with the best ammo for THAT USE with standard sights under field conditions. That's how I put it, anyway.

You can set a rifle up to get the finest possible accuracy; match sights or scope, load tailored for accuracy, solid bench with solid rests fore & aft, etc. It may be accurate as hell, but not much use for hunting or, if things go to hell, fighting. That's 'best' accuracy.

Practical is what you can get with, call it 'working' loads and sights and a stock you'd actually carry around, working from either a field expedient rest or shooting position.

The sights on the M1 Garand and Carbine both are NOT designed for match shooting; the front blades are thick to be easier to see in bad light and faster to line up, the rear aperture sized for the same(though for field use it could actually be a bit larger with no problem). They can deliver very good accuracy, but there's a reason people trying to wring the best out of a Garand use different sights; to get a more precise sight picture on targets.

I like shooting iron sights, especially on something like the M1's. I decided to try out the scope idea for two reasons: to get a better sight for testing loads, and to see how the idea would work out for field shooting. And fact is that on some indoor ranges the light makes it a bit difficult at times for me to shoot a rifle well; harder to hold a good sight picture in dim light. So far, I think this setup would work quite well for field use, the mount- with a tight-fitting handguard- doesn't shift, fast pickup, same things that have the military using lots of optical sights now.

I don't think this mount idea would work as well on an M1 Garand. The rear handguard, for best accuracy, HAS to have a bit of fore & aft play, maybe 1/10 of an inch, and that is not a good thing to mount a scope on. Especially on a hard-recoiling rifle like this. So I think the type that mounts directly to the barrel, replacing the handguard, would be better. I'll have to see how taking the handguard off & replacing on the carbine affects things, I think it should hold zero pretty well.

We'll see.