CandleInTheDark

Hey folks,

On Tuesday I took two shots at doe: standing position 125 to 150m, with a 30-06 in the freezing cold. I missed.

Now I used to do some target shooting between 9-12 years old, but since then I've only taken shots during hunting season. And I don't get out to do much hunting. Now I'm getting a renewed interest in target shooting: smallbore and fullbore rifle, IPSC, and skeet. Since it will be a while before I can afford my own firearm, I thought the membership here has some reading and viewing recommendation for markmanship techniques and shoot. I was really surprised to see there is really no discussion about shooting in this forum.

So what are the best resources for improving my shooting? What are your favourite books and videos? Web sites? Give me a solid base before I start putting more rounds down range.

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Where there is doubt there is freedom.

Bear Cub

You need to start by picking a desired goal and giving us your available equipment. I could spout off the finer details of your offhand support elbow or sling placement for 50 meter international style 3 position smallbore rifle, but this doesn't do shit if all you're worried about is shooting a silhouette from 25 yards with an M1 Garand.

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Living in the United Socialist States of America.

CandleInTheDark

Oh lord goals?!

Off the top of my head:

1. Put a shot with-in a 30cm circle from all positions at 50, 100, 150, and 200m with a .30-06 Springfield caliber rifle (scope optics) and a .303 British caliber rifle with peep site.

2. Be competitive in F-class rifle competition

3. Safely participate with a pistol in IDPA/IPSC competition

4. Be competitive in smallbore sporting rifle competition (3 position, 20 yrds and 50 yrds).

Edit: Forgot equipment

Available to me on an irregular basis are the two previous rifles mentioned, as well as a 10/22 Ruger rifle with iron sites. I plan on purchasing my own equipment in the next year: a smallbore and fullbore target rifle, and a autoloading shotgun.

__________________
Where there is doubt there is freedom.

Bear Cub

If you've got $65, hunt down the book "Ways of the Rifle."

You can follow that book word for word, picture for picture, and have a very solid foundation for competitive smallbore and big bore shooting.

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Living in the United Socialist States of America.

The_Dunedan

Any of the "Fred's" columns from Shotgun News prior to about 2005 will have -LOTS- of good advice on basic riflemanry, with emphasis on accurate shooting to 600 yards from field positions. Any of Maj. John Plaster's books on the subject will also be helpful. Col. Jeff Cooper, Jack O' Connor, and Elmer Keith also have much wisdom to share, and some of the barbs Keith and O'Connor traded are real stingers, funny as Hell. Beyond that, it comes down to:

1: Practice.

2: Practice some more.

3: Sling Positions: Get to know your sling. Get to LOVE your sling. Get to know that lovely feeling of Compression Neuropathy when it's so tight it numbs your arm. Short of using a rest and sandbag, shooting off a sling is the easiest thing you can do to improve field marksmanship. Bipods are nice, but unless they're integral folding units like on my STG-56, they get in the way. Worse, they can become a crutch and add excessive weight to the gun. An M-14 sling weighs next to nothing, and it's always with you. Half a second and you're "hasty slung" for quicker shooting from "high" positions: take a few more seconds and you're "loop slung" for shooting prone at longer range. No muss, no fuss, just a simple trick.

4: Natural Point Of Aim. Think of your body as the rifle's "gun carriage" or "gun cradle." Your body, the sling, and the rifle itself all make up this "carriage." In order to aim the weapon, you coarse-aim by moving the "carriage;" ie if you're shifting fire from one target to another, don't move the gun, move your whole body. But, and this is important, this only works if you have you're NPOA. Natural Point Of Aim is where your body, the sling, and the rifle working together want to point. If your target is anywhere other than -here-, you're fighting the gun to get on-target, and you increase your chances of missing. So, here's what you do. Get into position, sling up, and draw a bead on the target. Make sure it feels like you're "on it" all over. Then, close your eyes, relax slightly, and take a deep breath. Exhale and resume normal breathing. If your sight/crosshair is still on your target when you open your eyes and before you so much as -twitch- the rifle, you're on your NPOA: Your entire body, the full length of the sling, the weight and torque of the rifle, are all, working together, aiming the rifle at that point.
If, when you open your eyes, the sight/crosshair is -not- on the target, now you know where your NPOA is; right where the sight is. So what do you do about it? Swivel your whole body around your off-hand elbow: left elbow for righties, the opposite for those "afflicted." Use your feet to move your body, don't disturb your hands on the rifle. Once the traverse (side-to-side) is correct, adjust your elevation by moving your off-hand up or down the forearm: closer to you will raise the point of aim, further away will lower it. Once you're on-target, repeat the breathing drill from before. Make more adjustments as needed, then take your shot. Over time, you'll find that muscle memory takes over and drops you into or close to your NPOA as easily as breathing. You can practice this with dry-firing practice indoors using a small target, like a spot on the wall across a large room.

5: Scope. If you're going to use a scope, get something worth the money. A "cheap" scope is no savings if you miss because it sucks. Konus, Nikon, IOR Valdada, Zeiss, Trijicon...all make great scopes. Seriously consider the Konus, a straight 10x if you can find one. The Konus 10x on my FAL is bloody amazing; etched reticle (no crosshairs to break), HUGE light-gathering capability, and the Mil-dot reticle lets you do something really cool...
....which is this: Zero the scope at 275-300 yards. 300 is best. Now, that first Mil-dot below the crosshair? That's your 400-yard holdover. The second Mil-dot? 500 yards. Third? 600 yards. Dead easy. Nothing to mess around with, nothing to twiddle with, nothing to drive you crazy. Once you know the range (which is what Mil-dots were intended for anyway, this is just a nifty unintended consequence), you just pick which holdover to use. Dope it, dump it, drop it. That easy. This reticle, with the flight path of the 7.62NATO at least, is basically a "poor man's ACOG." Your mileage may vary depending on the calibre you're using, but it goes to show you the kind of hidden-under-a-rock tricks that jump out at you sometimes in the gun world.

6: Practice Some More. Seriously. I'd rather have a hunting partner with a $100.00 rifle and $900.00 worth in ammo blown away practicing than a hunting partner with a $1,000 sniper rifle who shoots it once a year. You get dialed in with your rifle, it almost doesn't matter -what- the rifle is, and you can do legitimately scary things with it. My Mom, for instance, once shot 5", 3", 3", 5" groups at 500 yards with her AUG. No bipod, no rest, just a rifle, a sling, and a heavily-armed Grandmother who'd spent 25,000 rounds in practice that year. But give her, or any truly spooky shooter, an unfamiliar gun? Sure they'd probably hit the target...but with their rifle they could pick which eyeball to put the bullet through. Greg700 has a similarly terrifying relationship with his .270 Sendero, which I can't shoot to save my life (not by the standards of a scoped boltgun, anyway). My FAL shoots like it has eyes, but only for me. Likewise my StepFather's BAR-10, which is a beautiful thing indeed (and I don't even like ARs!), but which neither Mom or I can shoot with any degree of precision.

7: Build/buy/part-up YOUR rifle. If you've got a gun/technique/load/sight combo that you can hit with, stick with it! Don't fix what a'int broke, no matter how much it amuses "the boys." Let 'em laugh. The only thing that matters is group size and how much meat you put in the freezer. I'll take a Rifleman with a 100-year-old Mosin Nagant that he knows and can hit with over -any- less-practiced individual, no matter how well-armed. There's a gentleman at the Revolutionary War Veterans Association who shoots every match, speed events too, with an SMLE. A 100-year old British turnbolt with no optics of any kind. He kinda drags on the speed events, but he is 100% poison shooting at distance. 500, 600 yard shots are almost easy for this guy, because he knows -his- gun, knows where it will shoot under -what- conditions, and what to do in order to make it perform. At Camp Perry, the front post of a shooter's sight will totally obscure the target...at 1,000 yards, the front sight-post obscures THREE targets! So how do they get their hits? They know their guns. It gets to be a Zen thing for a lot of shooters.

8: Brag on the internet about how much better you're shooting these days. This last bit is especially encouraged, since it'll motivate the rest of us to get off our asses and practice too. ;-)

Walt

I, myself, once dabbled in pacifism. Not in 'Nam, of course.

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