It's time for Don1reed to show up again. He usually does when this subject rears its head.
For the time being, ... and for what it's worth, as I never used a real sextant:
I think that 5 to 15 miles would be the deadreckoning accuracy after long periods without star fixes. Not the sextant/celestial navigation accuracy. That would depend in a large part on the measurement resolution of the sextant. As 1 arcminute is about 1 nautical mile on the surface it depends on how fine the readout is. Ofcourse it also depends on how steady the sextant is held by the navigator.
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