Gah! I mad another mistake in it with putting zeros and 9's in the wrong places, it should be

MariaDB [static]> select cpid,nick,count(*) as mycount from boinc_user
where
metric1 between 995 and 1005
or metric1 between 9950 and 10050
or metric1 between 24875 and 25125
or metric1 between 49750 and 50250
or metric1 between 99500 and 100500

or metric1 between 248750 and 251250
or metric1 between 497500 and 502500
or metric1 between 746250 and 753750
or metric1 between 995000 and 1005000

or metric1 between 2487500 and 2512500
or metric1 between 4975000 and 5025000
or metric1 between 9950000 and 10050000

or metric1 between 24875000 and 25125000
or metric1 between 49950000 and 50050000
or metric1 between 99500000 and 100500000

or metric1 between 248750000 and 251250000
or metric1 between 499500000 and 500500000
or metric1 between 995000000 and 1005000000

or metric1 between 2487500000 and 2512500000
or metric1 between 4995000000 and 5005000000
or metric1 between 9950000000 and 10050000000

or metric1 between 24875000000 and 25125000000
or metric1 between 49950000000 and 50050000000
or metric1 between 99500000000 and 100500000000

group by cpid order by mycount desc limit 0,25;

This highlights the benefits of being able to parameterise it and work it out automatically at run time! I have no idea if SQL allows this but it would be good if it did. Anyway - sorry for messing you about, I am fairly sure it is right now.