What is the effective accurate range of old military rifles, such as Lee enfields or pic related...

This, you have to keep in mind that even though the cartridge can ballistically hit out to 800 meters, in practice the effective range is much smaller than that. Factor in stress, makeshift rests (you might be shooting off sand bags or resting the rifle against a tree), and the rather rudimentary sights, and you're hitting much less reliably than on a static range.

moa at best

Cartridges like .30-06 and 7.92mm Mauser have long reach, but the inherent precision of the average infantry rifle back in those days was just not anything great.
If the gun could shoot as good as 2MOA, it would likely be handpicked to be used as a sniper's rifle, 4MOA would be typical for the average Springfield, Nagant, Carcano, Enfield or Mauser, but they can actually be worse sometimes.

Some rifles were just not fully consistent in manufacture either, for instance the trigger on an Enfield rifle can vary from rifle to rifle, you can get one and it has a shit trigger, stiff and gritty, you could get one that's actually pretty smooth and decent, this will affect precision.
Some rifles aren't as inaccurate as their reputation suggests, Carcano rifles for instance get this badly, one is that ammunition was very inconsistent in Italy at the time, producers stuck to their own specs rather than a single one, and this wasn't kept track of, so sighting a rifle in could be hopeless (and you'd see this in surplus ammo), another is that some reloading manuals actually note the incorrect bullet diameter, leading to lot of people shooting undersized bullets and reporting bad groupings, when with appropriately sized projectiles you could shoot some perfectly alright groups, and there isn't strictly anything wrong with Carcano rifles themselves.

I'd be surprised to see an average milsurp bolt-action rifle grabbed from a rack shoot 1MOA, that'd be incredible luck on your part.

I routinely hit man sized targets out to 600 yards with my Lee Enfield No4 mk1 using surplus cordite ammunition from the fifties. It's not hard to be accurate of that range whatsoever and I can pass my rifle around to friends, experienced or not, and they all succeed do the same.

On top of that as evidence of how stupid the average poster is here the Marine Corps used to qualify every single Marine out to 500 yards using only iron sights up till 2012 where they switch to using the acog. It still blows my mind that they made that decision to switch but it proves that iron sights can be easily used to far greater distances than the average unskilled person (Jow Forums poster) thinks.

based

Kinda depends, but overall not that great. My Arisaka is a freaking tack driver - too bad about the situation with finding ammo for it. My Spanish Mauser can reliably hit the big end of a barn, but that's about it. In short, if you want history, get a milsurp. If you want accuracy, get a Savage Axis.

specs on ammo? pic of your muzzle? are the action screws tight? do other people have teh same result shooting your gun? try taking it in to the gunsmith for a recrown or counter bore if everything else fails

well theres your problem. stop blaming the rifle, its not the guns fault you cant keep it still with those lanket arms while standing

I was never blaming the rifle. I was blaming myself, cuz, you know, I came here to figure out where I'm going wrong and how to use it better

I use PPU sp 196 gr. The barrel is in excellent shape, strong rifling and it's clean. No issues with the bolt either. My guess is it is me

yeah its more likely than not your technique. remove yourself from the equation, fire it from a bench rest and post results. that will be a better indication of the rifles potential. these should easily get 3-4 MOA if they are in good condition and not worn out. if your groups are 15" from the bench, then you can figure out what is wrong with the gun. you should be eaisly able to get under 5" groups at 100 yards with that thing, and probably better. even with crappy 1940s surplus turk ammo my turk mauser does like 5-6" and that shrinks to 3" when i use something actually consistent like yugo surplus. if anything, the limiting factor on these rifles is the sights. they are not that well defined on the turks. it might help you to widen the rear notch a bit with a file, or swap out to a peep rear if you really care that much. personally i would just take a V file and widen the rear sight a tiny bit and sharpen it up, and make sure your front sight isnt dented or worn down. some people will reshape the rear sight to a "U" or a |_| square shape, which can be quite helpful depending on your preference. if your gun is matching #s, get yourself a spare rear sight and do the mods to that one, that way you keep your serialized matching sight in "original" condition.

Eyesight, skill and the rifles sights are all greater factors here than its external ballistics or even its mechanical accuracy in most cases.

Okay, but the sand people are mostly magic users so that's probable.

Accuracy comes from consistencies. Accurate firepower from old rifles requires a consistent, good quality barrel and consistent lockup(matching serials on the barrel and bolt is a very important thing). The other issue with these rifles is their stocks tend to interfere with the barrel in unpredictable ways. Modern rifles ensure that the stock never contacts the barrel so that poorly fitted stocks don't interfere with accuracy, but this isn't possible on old firearms without bubba fucking it, so the best thing you can do is ensure the stock only contacts the barrel at the collar. A poorly fitted stock can fuck your accuracy up. I'm not a gunsmith, so take your rifle to a professional so they can properly shim your rifle's stock. You can achieve excellent accuracy with an antique rifle, but it requires a lot more effort than a modern rifle as there are a lot more factors that go into said antique rifle's accuracy.

The sights on it are pretty difficult to get proper sight picture out of