New Hunter Shooting Practice

[cjdewese]

Hey Guys, I am a fairly new shooter and trying to become a lot more proficient than I am currently.

The post on wind calls and using 1st and 2nd focal plane scopes I thought was great.

Are there any resources or courses that you guys would recommend to a new shooter to become better at shooting for hunting purposes.

I currently shoot a Tikka T3 Lite Stainless in 243 and am practicing with it as much as possible since I got it. We have access to places we can shoot out to 500+ yards for fun and would like to be proficient at 400 and in for hunting purposes and hunting situations. The place I hunt is western mountains and possible cross canyon shots on occasion. My buddy and I go hiking together and do rock hunting on occasion but would like to have a better foundation in general than I do currently.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SouthPaw]

Equipment versus practice posts and Rifle practice/shooting

This isn’t in response to anyone I particular, but there is an up tick in the amount of “I want a XXXX distance hunting rifle” traffic the last few months. I am getting a lot of questions relating to this, which I do not mind helping, but thought a public post might help answer some questions...

rokslide.com

 

[Moose83]

^^^^ what he said^^^

 

[cjdewese]

This is great, not sure how I missed it.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

What Southpaw said. I would add check out some videos by Ryan Cleckner . He was a sniper team leader and instructor. He has videos on how to select the proper scope, how to properly mount it and many others, such as long distance shooting, understanding MOA, proper gun fit, Check out his videos. Then depending on what every advice you listen to, go out and shoot, then shoot some more. If you have or have access to a rifle that you can shoot without breaking the bank, a .22, .223 or something similar, start with that until you are shooting nice groups.

 

[Pony Soldier]

I don't have any prepared instructions but over the years I have learned to practice shots I have made as well as the ones I have missed. Over logs, over rocks, hanging onto a tree, sitting on a bare slope, standing in a surging wind. Try every imaginable situation.

Distance teaches you hold over and distance recognition. Try as many variables as you can imagine until it is natural.

 

[TaperPin]

There is value in just throwing lead down range - it builds muscle memory and paper targets let you see where you are at.

Keep in mind each position has it’s own set of challenges to master. What seems natural may or may not be helping you score.

After you spend a decent amount of time shooting different positions and have plateaued, hopefully shooting with good form, the most bang for the buck with an intermediate shooter is to focus on trigger pull drills. Up to this point many shooters have been waving around the target until the gun goes off - your groups won’t be better than the random barrel movement. You know how sometimes the crosshairs are headed for the target when the gun goes off and it’s a better than average hit - intermediate and advanced shooters focus on increasing the number of those shots, and that doesn’t happen simply by trying to hold the rifle more still. By training yourself to instinctually make the shot anytime the crosshairs are headed into the kill zone, you can have a poor rest or poor conditions and make good shots.

Practice for this can be done in different ways, but it’s best done with steel targets. Focus on making the trigger break as soon as the crosshairs cross the edge of the target - this means be ready with your finger for the shot before the crosshairs reach the target. Start close up so you can hit 8/10 and as soon as you hit all ten, move the target out further. If you fly fish, it’s a lot like training your brain to set the hook as soon as a fish takes it. At first it’s slow and clumsy, but over time it’s lightning fast and instinctual.

After you shoot this way a while, you’ll notice it’s more natural to come into the target from a certain side - any side is ok. I tend to sweep the crosshairs left to right, except for standing where the crosshairs settle onto the target from above, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’re consistent.

A good quality trigger is really worth it at this point - I’d say it’s almost essential.

Keep your shooting fun, get out in all wind conditions, and practice dry firing when you can’t make it to the range. Just taking 10 dry fire shots a day while standing, at a knot on your fence or whatever is handy, is probably as valuable as 1000 live rounds a year.

 

[loganwayne]

since you have a tikka t3 you should get a t1 for practicing to same some money.

 

[Jimbee]

NRL Hunter matches. They're enjoyable and good practice.

 

[RockAndSage]

Dry fire. Extensively. 10x over live ammo practice, minimum.

If you can't pull the trigger without your crosshairs moving when dry firing, you won't be able to do it with ammo, flinching, and recoil anticipation added to it.

Start by dry-firing prone, with the rifle rested over something steady, but not strapped down or locked into anything. You want it steady enough to have almost no movement on your target, but you still want it able to reveal how much your crosshairs move when you squeeze/press/pull the trigger improperly.

If you squeeze the trigger properly - pressing straight back along the bore axis, perfectly parallel to it - the crosshairs will not move when the trigger breaks.

But when you apply that energy to the trigger in any other direction, it will cause the crosshairs and muzzle to move before the bullet exits the barrel.

With rifles, the direction of energy on that trigger pull will cause the muzzle to move on the exact opposite direction - if you're pressing that energy a bit to the left, the muzzle will bias a bit to the right, for example. If your finger is pulling a bit upwards off of parallel to the bore axis, the muzzle will slightly bias down. And this absolutely does have an effect on your accuracy.

Until you can squeeze the trigger without any movement of your cross-hairs, you're not ready for live ammo - it will only solidify and mask poor trigger form.

The profundity of this wasn't revealed to me until I transitioned from finely tuned, super-crisp 2lb 1911 triggers running iron sights to relatively crap striker-fired triggers and red-dot sights. I'm an accomplished shooter, but had zero idea just how relatively poorly I had trained my trigger finger until I saw what was happening with that red dot. Fine triggers had made me lazy and unaware of what was going on with my trigger fundamentals. I put extreme focus on that in dry firing, and had my groups tighten up enough to start taking the spots off of playing cards at 7 yards.

It applied equally to my rifle shooting - but I didn't realize just how much so, because of the fine, crisp, light triggers I run. In going back to the basics of dry-firing, and focusing on that alone through all sorts of positions and conditions - getting the energy of that trigger finger pressing perfectly parallel to the bore axis - I cut my group sizes in half.

In your shooting journey, you'll find all sorts of opportunities to see all sorts of whiz-bang "advanced" shooting, in a dozen disciplines. But hear me when I say this: there really isn't "advanced shooting", in reality - all there is is excellence in the fundamentals, applied to increasingly challenging situations.

 

[BadDogPSD]

Are you open to taking a class? As a newer shooter it would be good to get the groundwork for solid marksmanship basics & build from there. It might require some travel, but would likely be worth the investment.

 

[Steve300xcw]

I'd go find a few rock pits and work on hitting random stuff offhand out to 200ish yards. 22's,17's,223's or even that 243, they all will learn you.

I see a lot more benefit to being able to make a 180yrd snap shot on something vs the ability to make a 400-500 yard shot.

 

[def90]

Take a precision rifle class or two.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

Three most important things, practice, practice, practice,

 

[Rich M]

You can join an NRA shooting league and get some help along the way.

Get a nice 22 and master it 1t 50 yards then move to 100 yards. Then see how well it works at 200 yards.

 

[TaperPin]

Young me had a hard time sorting out good sources of information - luckily a teacher in high school was a serious shooter and lent me books from the big names in position shooting at that time - it can be confusing with everyone’s example of “correct” form or technique being somewhat different. Just keep in mind this is not unlike other sports - the answer to what works best for you will be self evident - after a decent amount of practice and effort into a new tweak to your form it either will or won’t be an improvement. Also like other sports, it’s nice to start with good fundamentals - they won’t be exactly right, but that doesn’t matter - through practice, trial and error you’ll find what works for you.

Also like other sports, instruction to those starting out in grade school is different from what is taught in high school, and is different than an Olympic or professional team. You have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run, and run before you can run fast. If you have a chance to go to shooting championships of different kinds, you’ll see the top shooters often have slightly different holds and body positions - it becomes clear there is no one right way, but they only figured that out by testing and tweaking.

 

[cjdewese]

Young me had a hard time sorting out good sources of information - luckily a teacher in high school was a serious shooter and lent me books from the big names in position shooting at that time - it can be confusing with everyone’s example of “correct” form or technique being somewhat different. Just keep in mind this is not unlike other sports - the answer to what works best for you will be self evident - after a decent amount of practice and effort into a new tweak to your form it either will or won’t be an improvement. Also like other sports, it’s nice to start with good fundamentals - they won’t be exactly right, but that doesn’t matter - through practice, trial and error you’ll find what works for you.

Also like other sports, instruction to those starting out in grade school is different from what is taught in high school, and is different than an Olympic or professional team. You have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run, and run before you can run fast. If you have a chance to go to shooting championships of different kinds, you’ll see the top shooters often have slightly different holds and body positions - it becomes clear there is no one right way, but they only figured that out by testing and tweaking.

Thanks for this, from a sports background this makes a lot of sense to me.

I would say I am in the late grade school portion of my Journey and like you having a tough time sorting out good info vs bad.

Practicing the past few months has definitely shown me my areas of weakness and what I need to learn more of the findamentals on so I can then tweak them some to see what works for me.

I've been enjoying just trying to build solid shooting positions and going through my shot sequence in hunting scenarios on hikes. Over the last year I have seen it be one of the more challenging things to do, especially in a hurry, while hunting in steep terain.

 

[TaperPin]

I've been enjoying just trying to build solid shooting positions and going through my shot sequence in hunting scenarios on hikes. Over the last year I have seen it be one of the more challenging things to do, especially in a hurry, while hunting in steep terain.

It sounds like you are on the right track. The key to getting those positions sorted out is repetition in different real world situations. Eventually you’ll come up with rules of thumb for every situation based on how fast and accurate you are in different positions given the available rests and terrain. The average shot in typical mountain hunting is only around 300 yards, and the closer the animal is, the faster your shot will likely need to be.

Sitting is one of the most versatile and fastest positions in the mountains, but it’s not trendy or sexy - nothing about it feels natural and it really requires a lot of muscle memory and good trigger control. I tell myself to spend 50% of practice time sitting, but it ends up being more like 25% - I just don’t find it all that fun.

You might start thinking about how to to avoid the time involved in dialing and having to think much to cover the short yardages. If you zero at 100 yards and always keep the rifle dialed to 200 yards for carrying around, and you know that’s within your accurate range to simply sit and shoot, then from muzzle to 200 you’ll be super quick to get that first shot off.

 

[gearguywb]

Lots of good suggestions here.

My number 1 rule for working with people that want to become a better shooter:

Unless you plan on carrying the bench with you when you hunt...get off it. Too many times "practice" is defined as sitting on a bench punching holes in paper.

A good rule for understanding the distance at which you can ethically shoot:
Take a 4" or 6" (representing the kill zone on the game being hunted) paper plate. Put the plate at various distances. The range that you can put every round into the paper plate from field shooting conditions is the range you need to limit yourself to.

 

[cjdewese]

Lots of good suggestions here.

My number 1 rule for working with people that want to become a better shooter:

Unless you plan on carrying the bench with you when you hunt...get off it. Too many times "practice" is defined as sitting on a bench punching holes in paper.

A good rule for understanding the distance at which you can ethically shoot:
Take a 4" or 6" (representing the kill zone on the game being hunted) paper plate. Put the plate at various distances. The range that you can put every round into the paper plate from field shooting conditions is the range you need to limit yourself to.

Good idea with getting off the bench and using paper plates as the targets at various yardages.