Equipment versus practice posts and Rifle practice/shooting

gman82001

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Sep 22, 2013
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I’ve been trying to figure a way to get some real world practice with hunting type rifles and not sure how I missed this thread but this was exactly what I was looking for. So just a bump for anyone else looking to get some quality practice in
 

lhbackcountry

Lil-Rokslider
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Jan 13, 2021
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Wow. This will become the first drill I do at the range. I am left handed and left eye dominant however I decided to do this with a ruger american 223 with SWFA 10x right handed action. I got every shot off working bolt with my right hand. 10/20

Did this with my left hand t3x 308 and had 2 failures to launch in the 20 sec time frame. 7/20.

Funny how I shoot my trad bow almost daily and clearly thought my rifles are a breeze, then Form says get ****** and think again.
 

ztc92

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May 8, 2022
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Wow. This will become the first drill I do at the range. I am left handed and left eye dominant however I decided to do this with a ruger american 223 with SWFA 10x right handed action. I got every shot off working bolt with my right hand. 10/20

Did this with my left hand t3x 308 and had 2 failures to launch in the 20 sec time frame. 7/20.

Funny how I shoot my trad bow almost daily and clearly thought my rifles are a breeze, then Form says get ****** and think again.
This was exactly my experience a few years ago. I used to shoot hundreds of arrows with my bow multiple times a week but only shot my rifle to check zero before deer season. It saddens me that I never connected the dots that practicing with a rifle is equally as important as practicing with a bow.
 
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Jun 25, 2016
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Tried this for the first time today. Definitely need to work on off hand. 2 misses on the first round using 6x, but hit the rest using 3x. Some of that was luck as I had a hard time keeping it in a 12 inch wobble zone. For some reason I'm shooting high when seated and shooting off the pack. It took a bit to get used to seated with the pack on too. 12/20.

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First time shooting the 18” ar for this, need to do it more it was good for showing me I need practice handling this kind of system on the clock. Major blunder on the final stage getting my sling and backpack wrapped up, took the eyepiece to the cheek real nice. I need more practice offhand with this handguard vs my hunting rifle

10/20 shot like shit, dumb mistakes and rushing

Ego got bruised on that one, but that’s a good thing! I’ll get another one in soon and see if we can clean it up some. 7D86D9B8-3298-4CE5-A0B2-BFD4D4B34F57.jpeg9BF8AE8D-77FC-46C8-9B78-F381E4382D76.jpeg
 

2-Stix

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What cheek riser is that?
I have it on 2 rifles

 

Marbles

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Well, I need a lot more work. My only excuse is it was slick ice and I was not using traction devices. However, first run ever I scored 12 (if counting 2 touching the outside of the line). I looked at my times, and said, I'll just slow down and beat that score, well second run I scored 11, but all were clean. My printer was out of toner, so did not have the targets for this.

Run 1 times
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Run 2 times
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While I am sub 1.5 MOA for all 10 round groups shot for accuracy prone, I am not even sub 2 MOA for my prone groups on this. Clear evidence I need to practice building the shooting position.

I'll update when I can get a score above 15.
 
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Sep 6, 2018
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As someone who has done 99 percent percent of my shooting off a bipod prone and missing a shot on an elk this year off hand I decided I need to practice more positional shooting.

Yesterday I went out with my tripod and shooting sticks and worked my way out from 300-500 shooting seated off of my sticks with no rear support at my 8 inch gong then past 500 I used my tripod rear (first time doing this, definitely going to need some work.) Worked out to 750 with the tripod rear missing my target about 60 percent of the time. Shows I definitely need more work in positional but excited to be working on it.

Conditions: 8-14 mph crosswinds, hail/snow mix, 30-35 degrees.

Shooting my tikka 6.5 creed chopped to 20 inches in a krg bravo with handloads.

Maybe I can even ditch my bipod one of these days…
 

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Did a bit of practice with the 17 HMR this morning. Distance is 105Yd. Dots are 1.5 in. Air was calm. I didn't follow the practice drill in the first post, cuz I didn't have any targets printed out so I just did a very loose positional shooting practice session.

I did a set of 25 jumping jacks with my pack on strapped in as it would be hunting then quickly got into position and fired either two or three shots. This was done as quickly as possible after finishing the jumping jacks. I didn't do any off hand shots. Top Target circled shots are prone, right target circled shots are sitting or kneeling using one trekking pole as support or knees, and bottom target circled shots are sitting with pack.

My zero is a bit off... I was guessing on clicks to zero it at 100 from shooting at 180 last time, whose shots are the ones left of the targets that aren't circled.

Doing this with such a light gun and having my heart rate up made the sitting and kneeling shots pretty difficult.

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I've done this a couple times, need many more. As someone who's spent way too much time prone and bench shooting, the one thing that really stood out to me is the odd feeling of breaking a trigger with such a big ass wobble zone when off hand @ 100 yds. It was hard to do even though I think i was 50% on the offhand portions, wobbling off your target that much makes it hard to send a round down range.
 
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I've done this a couple times, need many more. As someone who's spent way too much time prone and bench shooting, the one thing that really stood out to me is the odd feeling of breaking a trigger with such a big ass wobble zone when off hand @ 100 yds. It was hard to do even though I think i was 50% on the offhand portions, wobbling off your target that much makes it hard to send a round down range.
Yeah I’ve found i overcompensate and end up telling myself to “just send it!” In my head and then I take a poor shot.

Real experience over the last few years hunting I do not do that, so I need to be able to not do it in practice also. I’m glad I don’t irl though.

Hitting that balance of time, confidence, proper shot etc all at once in this drill in the offhand part is difficult for me
 
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The wobble zone is part of the reason I like a moderately weighted gun. My 17hmr is crazy light and I couldn't keep it anywhere close to the dot and only had the one target, which is why I didn't do off hand.

With off hand or some other unstable position, it's critical to focus on a slow squeeze and let the break surprise you. If you try to time the trigger break you'll end up building a bad habit of punching the trigger. It's a lot like archery in that way.
 
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12/20 yesterday with the spr. Started off slow but cleaned the last stage. Getting more used to this rifle and did a little better job, lots of points on the table with some more practice.

I need to be able to perform as well on stage 1 and 2 as I do on stage 3. The prone and pack shooting is fine on the earlier stages but the offhand and sitting unsupported are rough. Sitting unsupported in general I find difficult
 

SouthPaw

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Its been a while since I did this with something other than the .223. Bare muzzle 6.5cm. Counted the fringe hit for 14/20. Got lucky on the sitting unsupported, need to work on that one and offhand.

Whenever you start feeling good about your shooting, this drill is always a nice kick in the nuts.


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bbell

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Apr 8, 2013
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Went out and tried this today. Savage model 10 with a 17” x-caliber 6mm Creedmoor that I just put on last week. Shooting Hornady 108 eldm. Started cold with no warm ups. Shot 13/20. Lots of room for improvement but pleasantly surprised for first time doing the drill. 20 seconds goes way faster than I thought it would! Couldn’t make time for my last prone shot and one of my timed prone shots was after the buzzer. Not sure which one hit the circle so I didn’t count it.
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TaperPin

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Went out and tried this today. Savage model 10 with a 17” x-caliber 6mm Creedmoor that I just put on last week. Shooting Hornady 108 eldm. Started cold with no warm ups. Shot 13/20. Lots of room for improvement but pleasantly surprised for first time doing the drill. 20 seconds goes way faster than I thought it would! Couldn’t make time for my last prone shot and one of my timed prone shots was after the buzzer. Not sure which one hit the circle so I didn’t count it.
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It looks like you have good trigger control and know exactly when the trigger breaks. Good shooting.
 
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Tried this yesterday and learned a few things.

1. Need to print the targets without line weights disabled...impossible to see the circles when the line is as thin as the printer will get it.

2. Both unsupported positions need work, wish I had finished reading the entire thread for some of the recommendations on technique there.

3. Timing off an iPhone was annoying.

Didn't make it to string 3 because I remembered incorrectly and thought it was 8 total shots, only have a standard 3rnd tikka mag. 7/14
 
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