New shooter: blame me or the gear?

[Steve from GA]

I am a novice shooter myself and own a T3X lite in 30-06. I had the benefit of taking some private shooting lessons. One thing I would recommend trying, and many may disagree with me, is at least loosely gripping the forend when you shoot. This is different than most guys who barely touch the rifle and only use their support hand to prop up the rear stock.

I know from experience that with a very light rifle like that, if you shoot prone with your support hand not touching the gun, that gun is going to fly in the air with each shot. You lose your sight picture, and it can be argued that this will affect your groups as well.

I recently tried shooting off my pack using one of the methods in this article - using a single or double wrapped sling and lightly supporting the forend with my hand. Instant improvement in groups - as in dead on bullseye at 100 yards.

https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/Hold+that+Forend.html

Also, use your sling as an accuracy tool when you can! Incorporating a hasty sling type technique into shooting positions can help tremendously - sitting, kneeling, standing, you name it. Night and day difference for me.

Good luck!

 

[Holmes]

Also, use your sling as an accuracy tool when you can! Incorporating a hasty sling type technique into shooting positions can help tremendously - sitting, kneeling, standing, you name it. Night and day difference for me.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tip. I fortunately read a few things about sling use for stabilizing after I found my rifle and bipod *leaping* off the ground, and I've been trying playing around with this, especially when shooting standing, gotta crank that sling around my shoulder/arm.
The hilarity happened when I then tried this technique with a takedown 10-22. It took me way too many wild shots to realize that I was missing because a takedown rifle (with the barrel bedded to the forend) doesn't like being twisted up by a tight sling <doh!>

 

[tdot]

A couple things that have helped me with my early shooting days and I still use. First is dry firing and 2nd is visualization.

I'll probably dry fire 10-20 times prior to loading a round and anytime between rounds that I feel the need. If I'm in an awkward field position, this will often expose issues before sending anything downrange.

Before I dryfire and before I fire for real, I'll visualize the entire process. From approaching the rifle, how it will feels against my face and shoulder, how the trigger pull will feel, how I'll handle the recoil and finally seeing the bullet hit the target or animal. This is helpful at the range, but even more so when in the field practicing different positions. Now when I setup to shoot an animal, the whole process is visualized in seconds and can often prevent problems.

 

[hereinaz]

A couple things that have helped me with my early shooting days and I still use. First is dry firing and 2nd is visualization.

I'll probably dry fire 10-20 times prior to loading a round and anytime between rounds that I feel the need. If I'm in an awkward field position, this will often expose issues before sending anything downrange.

Before I dryfire and before I fire for real, I'll visualize the entire process. From approaching the rifle, how it will feels against my face and shoulder, how the trigger pull will feel, how I'll handle the recoil and finally seeing the bullet hit the target or animal. This is helpful at the range, but even more so when in the field practicing different positions. Now when I setup to shoot an animal, the whole process is visualized in seconds and can often prevent problems.

Dry fire tests natural point of aim, and ypu are right, it exposes bad position and form.

 

[Holmes]

Sounds like good practice @tdot , I'll try to make that my habit.

 

[tdot]

Sounds like good practice @tdot , I'll try to make that my habit.

When I really started to focus on the dry firing, I'd watch the reticle move within the bullseye. I thought that must be ok. But now I have zero movement, and if I see even a tiny quiver of the crosshairs, I know to look at my setup and figure out what's wrong.