Scotty,
Agreed, however all 12 rifles (2 ea. for 6 action types) had scopes, with any variable scope set at 6X or lower. The targets were "life size" deer targets placed 75 yards away -- really shouldn't have been a big problem, at least not to the extent it was, and again, why the lever did so poorly in comparison? The lever action's accuracy ranking was #8 and #11 -- with two actions tieing for 10th, this makes #11 last place.
Quote from article; " What the "averaged" results don't show is the sometimes substantial difference that shooter familiarity made with the same rifle. For example, Shooter No. 1 had a time of 8.1 seconds with only one point for the first time out with the Marlin 336. The next time was nine seconds and a perfect score of nine points. Shooter No. 4 shaved 10 seconds off his score the second time with the Browning lever-action and added three points"
Again, why would the lever-action be more difficult for first time shooters than the other actions? As indicated, thought it was an interesting experiment. One of the topics the authur touched on several times was the pressure on the shooters from it being a timed event. I would suspect the pressure to hurry a shot due to being timed isn't any greater than the pressure of trying to get a second shot off at a fleeing animal in a woodland setting --- or anywhere else for that matter.
Dan