Greetings, Looking through the forums I was searching for how people practice offhand shooting and keep track of how they are doing. I did not find much. So in an effort that may help some (to include me), how do you practice offhand shooting and how do you keep track of how you are doing? I have noticed throughout the years that the more I “practice” the “luckier” I get at shooting. After the postal and the squirrel dodging telling shots, I decided I need to get more practice in and started doing so. Using my muzzle loader, I am going back to 5-shot groups (shoot 10 or 50 if you want to), shoot one group at a time, and then measure the linear distance tween all the shots (10 lines) for a summation of linear distances. The smaller the number the better the group, this quantifies it for me better than just a circle or distance between the farthest apart shots. The idea is not to see how good a one time group is, but consistently practice with paying attention to form and follow through. I am also not shooting hunting loads, but a relatively light 2-dram load as most of the errors for me in offhand shooting happen before the hammer hits the cap. I am lucky in that I can shoot 25 yards at home in the winter. For hi-power I do the same measuring. So, how do you guys practice your offhand and quantify your results? TK
Offhand Practice Shooting
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- Last Post 03 January 2016
We shoot three matches a month, 33yds OH at the 6 bull NMLRA target every fourth shot is a Jackpot, 1st place + special stuff maybe a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs for the jackpot and a pack of sausage for the 1st place, 15 shots total the amount of groceries you bring home tells you how well the practice was
fourth Sunday is pistols, 33yds, one hand
Patched Round Ball only, from a heated building
sometimes we actually practice on the off Sunday, we try to stay in the black...not as easy as it looks...
I see you shot the postal...non-round targets are the hardest to center your eyes on
looking forward to the next postal match
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My best practice was 22 silhouette matches. I have a home range with a swinger but when I miss I just scratch my head cause who knows where they went? Dry firng or just holding at things a long ways off is good to keep up the mucle memory. Tubb did a nice article in the Rifleman some years ago on off hand techniques. Foot placement and stock placement at the shoulder are important. Big corrections in alignment use the front foot. Small corrections twist the back foot. The feet should be shoulder width apart. The head is upright to see straight through the iris'. I face the target, close my eyes and “aim". I open my eyes and move my feet until I am lined up without twisting my hips or shoulders. I lower the rifle between shots and don't hold on the target more than ten seconds without lowering and starting over. The rifle should be held in the off hand just back of the balance point. The offhand is the weight supporting hand and the forearm should be straight up and down so the bones of the arm are holding the weight of the rifle and not the arm muscles. The shoulders should be held back so that the upper body's weight is over the hips. This lowers the center of gravity a bit. Don't try and force the shot in. If it ain't happening lower and start over. I used to get 97's at the 100 yard reduced high power in off hand sometimes and averaged over 90. I shot 22 silhouette with peep sights and got some hits on rams at 100 but the chickens and turkeys really gave me fits of depression. Pigs were the easiest.
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Some years ago, a number of my fellow club members, along with me, were heavy into Black Powder Cartridge Silhouette. We only had one match a month.
In an effort to seriously improve my offhand scores, I built a target trap in my back yard for my Anschutz Pellet Rifle. The Anschutz is a precision rifle. At the standard air rifle range of 10 meters, I could shoot five shots through the same hole off a good rest. They are EXTREMELY accurate within their range. Further, the rifle has a two stage light pull trigger so you can get the absolute best results you are capable of.
When I started shooting with the air rifle, I found that I was fatigued after just ten shots. I started shooting every other day. I started out with ten shots on the air rifle target and kept my scores. As my strength and endurance increased, I shot more and more. After just a couple of months, I could shoot eighty shots without serious fatique. It was simply a matter of conditioning. My scores really took off. We started a .22 Silhouette match at my local club. We would run a match a week. We ALL got MUCH better.
Here's the beauty of it. Match .22 Ammo was relatively expensive (and that was BEFORE the shortage drove prices out of sight). However, match quality pellets cost less than 1½ cents each NOW. Match .22's run $1900.00 per 5000 whereas match grade pellets are $72.00 per 5000. No contest.
My Anzchutz used a scuba tank for air and it cost very little to fill the tank. Shooting was still precision at practically no cost after the rifle was purchased.
Just a thought or two...
Dale53
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Dale53, your experience closely matches what I started doing after our club started shooting a standing match after the monthly bench rest match. The 1st couple of times I could not believe how bad I was or how difficult it was. I had several air guns (none as nice as your pre charged). I decided to use a FWB .177 and use a target down sized for the distance. The off hand target used for CBA competition is the NRA TQ-4 which has a scoring area of 12". I used a 10 meter air pistol target, NRA B-40. My shooting was done at 25 yds. and I limited the scoring area to 3", or 1/4 the 100 yd. As you mentioned it takes some time to gain some degree of efficiency. The 10 mm (.40") 10 ring stays really elusive for some time. I started with 10 shots per session and worked up from there. I finally started shooting some decent scores and actually won the 2012 Dixie Regional offhand match. As info, there have been some fairly recent developments in spring air guns that dramatically improve accuracy. A process called “soft bedding” (using 1/8” thick closed cell neoprene) permits the gun to be shot with the fore end directly on a sandbag. My grand daughter, who several months ago developed an interest in air gun shooting, can keep a 20 shot group on a 1” target plaster at 25 yds. from rest using the FWB 124 & 8.44 gr. JSB EXACT pellets. This level of accuracy can provide some realistic practice. Don Ross
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Practice with 22's and Air rifle's will greatly improve holding offhand, basically all Good practice will help
But, Muzzleloaders are a different animal, with cartridge guns and air rifles your shooting position is stable for the number of shots taken, the triggers and sights are usually different also
ML are usually loaded behind the firing line unless you are shooting dirty, and woods walks
Every shot is a different position, and the time between shots is drastically different
first, make sure your load will shoot off the bench with accuracy that you are happy with...proving that the missed shots OH are really you
making sure your position is the same for each shot is difficult, if you move to reload.....then the conditions have usually changed....
the biggest problem most of the guys I shoot with is concentration, mind wandering, especially us older fellows
one of the fellows I shot BPCR with always said, “sight picture, Sight picture, Sight picture"
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Front sight, Front sight, Front sight, Follow through, Follow through, Follow through. The shot will go where the front sight is pointing, every time!
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as far as keeping ” score ” i like to use the 10 target 50-foot smallbore 50 ft. target ... and i shoot at fifty feet so i don't have to walk a lot to check targets . when i shoot big bore at 100 yards i am winded and take 5 minutes to rest up '
as far as technique, for me most important is foot position ... contributes to repeatability . next for me is sight picture ...if i have good footing, i prefer to take command of the rifle, and wipe the crosshair across the bull...usually left to right . kinda like shooting trap... in fact i need to lead the 10 ring a little ...depends on the trigger ...
don't be too persnickety with your sight picture ... as you practice more you will get luckier ... heh ...
ken
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Practice even makes small benchrest groups.
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Like some above, my OH practice is with an air gun in the basement at 10 meters. I have a fancy match air rifle but don't like to mess with iron sights anymore since I don't no longer hunt with iron sights . So I practice with a scoped Beeman R-7 ( 600-700 fps but more accuracy than the higher powered springers). Like Ken i use the 10 or 11 bull 50 foot small bore target and use the scores as an index of improvement if any. If over 80 do not look at your records to see what you were shooting 20 or 30 years ago unless you want to get discouraged. But even an old dog can improve.
John
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I also shot small bore and high power silhouette and used a Beeman .177 for paractice. It was amazing how my scores increased. One trick I learned was to get the rifle on target, close your eyes and the see where the rifle is pointing when you open them. Most often you will see you are off target considerably. Adjust your stance until when you open your eyes you are still on target. This helps to eliminate “pushing” the rifle to target and is more comfortable.
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90% of my offhand practice is on steel clangers, I have a 4", a 8", and the club has a 12". The 4” is the only one which really tells you how are shooting to any degree. I will shoot a group on paper if somebody leaves a target up to check how I'm doing.
Eric
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Me too ,I very seldom shoot for groops on paper , just to zero in the rifle.
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not totally on point .... but when i wuz obsessed with chasing coyotes and foxes with trail hounds i was privileged to have a lot of running, offhand shots ..... only now, years later, does some really bad shooting start to seem funny ...
...or maybe it is because i now appreciate how great it was to have just been out there ...
...anyway, :::: offhand shooting is hard to do .... but for everybody else too ... ( oh... except for loness wigger, the human bench rest ... ) ...
ken
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tlkeizer: The secret to shooting winning offhand scores and ending up with all the roses is: Causing the gun to fire without disturbing the sight picture! Simple isn't it? Well, in reality, not so much. Not even the accomplished high power shooters can do this for each and every shot. We think we can but it is humanly impossible. So, the following is an exercise that can be very helpful in trying to get there by specifically practicing these fundamentals: Position - Already been mentioned Sight alignment Smooth Positive trigger control, Emphasis on POSITIVE Follow through - continuing to hold after the shot is fired Shoot at a blank paper or the back side of a target. The idea here is to eliminate the irresistible need to hold and hold and hold on the bull for the perfect shot. Which is impossible. Just take up a good position, aim at the center of the paper some where, get your sight alignment, then use smooth positive trigger control to fire the shot “as soon as the sights are aligned” and without disturbing them. Then follow through by continuing your hold. The shot is not complete at the instant that the gun fires. But only after and when the gun comes back down from recoil and the sights are aligned again. The focus needs to be on the front sight always. Again, the idea of all this is to make the rifle fire without disturbing sight alignment. If your focus is continually on the front sight and the follow through is good, you will immediately know without looking where your shot went, low, high, left, right or whatever. And you will also know if the sights were not aligned when the shot was fired. Bad sight alignment will cause a much wider dispersion on the target than when they are aligned but the sight picture is off the aiming point. After becoming familiar with the above then add the target. Or, continue to use the back side of a target and try to center your shots on the paper. You might be surprised how close your shots are when looking at the bull side. Usually the first good sight picture is the best one, so I try to get the shot off then. For some reason I can't hold as long and steady as I used to so I compensate by just shooting faster
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Flintlock! Oh-Yeh Follow though!
For practice I used to dry fire my flintlock aiming at a black dot on the wall down the hall about 8 yards away. I made a wooden dummy flint to simulate the real thing without sparks inside. Made a BIG difference to my shooting. As little as 10-15 cycles ex evening was enough.
Cheers from New Zealand
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