The "Do my part" factor

[JeffsJeep04]

I like guns, but I don't like spending a lot of money on them. One of my other hobbies is playing guitar, and I know full well that a great player can take a made in china junk guitar and make it sound phenomenal, but a poor player on a custom shop built wonder machine will still sound like poo.

If someone had a rifle that was capable of shooting in the 1 MOA neighborhood, what are some things that that shooter could do to insure he kept up? I'd like to lean this mostly towards hunting and not necessarily bench shooting. When I take my shots, they are generally fired with the gun resting on the window sill of my stand or on something else very improvised. I'd like to know what I can do to make the most out of every shot, even if I'm just in the field throwing some lead to practice. If this is beat to death, I apologize and would REALLY appreciate some links. I've done some searching already and haven't found a whole lot.

It's easy to tweak a gun to shoot better...I'd rather spend the time building good habits on my end I guess.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Follow the basics man.
Practice.
Experiment with breathing tecniques and find what works for you.
Practice.
Flinching, anticipating recoil is never good.
Practice.
Squeeze the trigger, don't jerk it.
Practice, practice, practice.
When you've done all that, practice some more.
This may sound basic, and I'm not trying to insult you, but did you become good on the guitar by playing once or twice a month? You won't become a good shooter like that either. I don't know how much you shoot, but most people don't do it nearly enough. They throw six or eight rounds downrange, right before season, and call it good if they're on the paper. That's just not good enough. There is no substitution for trigger time.
Did I mention practice?

AP

 

[JeffsJeep04]

They throw six or eight rounds downrange, right before season, and call it good if they're on the paper.

That's me to a T. I'm on here to fix that. First step is admitting your wrong, right? You surely aren't going to insult me by telling me to practice. I'm hoping to come up with some things to work on, the breathing is a good one.

What is the general consensus on dry firing? I know the 1911 guys say do it until you wear your finger out, and it has made me a MUCH better pistol shot. Lots cheaper then live fire and it completely cured me of flinching, getting used to the gun not recoiling.

The way '06 ammo is these days, I think I can swing going through a box of 20 every month or two and keeping myself sharp that way. At least that gets me closer to enough practice, right?

 

[44Dave]

I get more dry fire than live fire. It's a great way to practice the basics. Won't help with flinch much though.

 

[PowerG]

Ed King says that mastery of the guitar takes 10,000 hours of practice. While playing the guitar is obviously a more involved process than shooting, the underlying principle still applies.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

There's nothing wrong with dry firing. I do it all the time, and have never harmed a gun by doing so.
As for the breathing, I take two deep breaths, then take one and hold it. Then shoot. This is what works for me. My dad takes two deep breaths and fires on the exhale of the 2nd. Play with it and see what works.

 

[Murphys Law]

I agree with 44Dave. It does help as it will allow you to practice and won't worsen your flinch. Before you start dry firing, please make sure your gun is completely unioaded each and every time and that you have a safe backstop or direction to dry fire in. That said, dry firing while squeezing the trigger and elimnating all movement or disturbance of your sights at the moment the trigger breaks will do wonders for your trigger control. Dry firing also allows you to become in tune to your own breathing patterns. Practice all of the positions, standing offhand, standing using an improvised rest (side of a tree), kneeling, sitting, etc. As your muscles get used to holding a rifle steady, the wobble of your sights will start to go away. Not to mention the biggest advantage of dry firing, is its cost.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the above applies to center-fire cartridges. Don't dry fire rimfires as the firing pin can hit the steel edge of the chambers and can quickly be damaged.

 

[gondorian]

Set of a small high visibility target at one end of the largest room in your house and practice dry firing correctly (^see above post^) at the target as much as you possibly can. Make sure you get a good sight picture and a good trigger pull.

 

[twofifty]

practice with a 22LR

Gear:
Get yourself a good quality 22LR bolt gun, one with as good a trigger as you have on your 30-06, similar stock height/length of pull, fitted with a powerful target-turreted scope that goes to at the very least 12x. Mine is a used japanese Bushnell Banner 6-18x40 with target turrets & parallax adjust, on a used Anschutz 64. Put a piece of masking tape on the scope, and write down your turret settings for every distance you expect to shoot at. This will save you time and frustration later. Each time you go to the range, use the bench and bags to verify your zeroes. Then get OFF the bench.

Then you need a training program, with goals that you gradually increase in difficulty. Take that 22 to the range once or twice a week, and put 2 or 300 well thought out practice shots through it, offhand, seated, prone. Find out if there is a Metallic Silhouette group within driving distance - they will be glad to help you out.

Practice/Training Program Ideas:
For example, download & photocopy onto 8.5x11 some NRA metallic silhouette paper targets, of chickens-pigs-turkeys-rams, and pin these up at 20 or 25 yards. There will be maybe 30 rams on each sheet. You fire ONE round at each tiny animal - this is not easy. Keep track of your scores, try and figure out why you miss an animal. There are plenty other target shapes online, like numbered pool balls, that you shoot in order. If you get a buddy to join you in these games, you will have fun and stay with your training program.

Mix it up with a 6" steel gong set at 50, then 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 125 yds. If you have electronic muffs, you'll hear the hits. If your scope is powerful enough, and you develop follow-through (see below) you'll see the hits and misses. As you find that you are getting all your hits at 50yds, move your gong out to 60, and so on.

One game I play when alone at the range, is to walk to the 100yd backstop to fire at the 200yd gong. I will hit this 5" gong 5x, then step back 10 yards and hit it 5x more. Then back another 10yds (now the gong is at 120yds) and keep firing till I hit it 5x. Keep moving back that way until....you get good at it.

Train yourself to hold the sight picture after the shot fires, so that you see each bullet's impact. This technique is called "follow-through" and will do wonders for your in-the-field accuracy. After a few thousand rounds, you will be able to 'call your shot', i.e. you will know if you have a hit, and where on the gong, before the bullet gets there.

Consider that how you place your feet, how you hold the stock, and where you rest your cheek on the stock, where the stock is shouldered must all be consistent from shot to shot. All of these affect how the rifle directs the recoil impulse through your body, and therefore where the bullet goes.

Finish some of these 22 practice sessions with a half-dozen shots with your 30-06. This helps you transfer your muscle memory from one rifle to the other.

If you do this kind of quality practice for 6 months to a year (say 5000 rounds of 22LR), you will be amazed at what you can reliably hit with both rifles, from an unrested standing position.

 

[Abel]

I agree with the 22LR practice. It really works.

 

[mljdeckard]

I agree with the guitar analogy completely. I sold guitars for a couple of national retailers, and it was a never ending string of guys who thought that if they buy a $3000 Zakk Wylde LP or a Wolfgang, it makes them an ace guitar player. I told hundreds of parents; "Buy what you want. I will GLADLY sell it to you. But if junior hasn't maxed out what a $300 guitar can do, you are wasting the other $2500." If Gunny Hathcock himself were alive today, and you handed him an off the shelf Savage with $400 glass, he would still beat out most of the guys with computers and $4000 rigs.

And I absolutely agree with the above. Get a .22, even a CHEAP .22, go to the range, sit, breathe, squeeze, and repeat until you have a ragged 2" hole at 100 yards. I THINK, all rifle shooters should do this before they even touch a scope. I'm taking my 11 year-old to the range tomorrow to do exactly this, and if I have time, I'll take 300 rds and do it myself on Saturday. I have a army rifle qual coming up in a couple of months, and I can always work on fundamentals.

 

[twofifty]

Yeah, technology does not mask poor fundamentals, no matter the $ spent.

 

[Snakum]

Ed King says that mastery of the guitar takes 10,000 hours of practice. While playing the guitar is obviously a more involved process than shooting, the underlying principle still applies.

I think Ed King needs a few more thousand hours. He was (is?) an awesomely creative guitarist. But mastery? Sheeeeeeeiite, then he woke up.

But about practice, as everyone said: it really is the basics. Practicing positions, breathing, trigger control, hours and hours of dry-firing (I do 2:1 against live fire), thousands of rounds of .22LR, etc. It isn't magic. Much like drawing or painting or playing guitar or flying, it ain't rocket surgery. Anyone can do it if you have the drive to excel at it. And like painting or playing guitar or golf ... it's the Indian, not the arrow. I used to see guys at the range periodically with 700Ps or Kimber Tactical rifles with NightForce glass and thousand dollar spotting scopes who didn't shoot any better than I did with an old Win Model 70 because they weren't doing the real work. They just came out once a week to play with their toys. If that's their thing I'm all for it. But my thing is being the best that I can be with my current equipment, and there are no shortcuts.

 

[jacobl816]

dry fire works, its how i teach girls what theyre doing wrong when they swear theyre not jerking the trigger or flinching. I just pretend to load a round and tell them to fire, and when the pin drops on an empty chamber, they jerk the gun all over. and the mistakes arent camoflaged by a recoil. for zeroing a scope, i use a stack of magazines under the stock. the front of the stock (not the barrel) should be rested on something. stack magazines under the butt of the stock until the crosshairs are as close to the bullseye as you can get without going below it. then fold pages of the top magazine back under the butt until it perfectly aims itsself at the bullseye. thats what i do when i sight in or just need a shot to be perfect. breathing is important. i take a few deep breaths before i let out and hold it so i have plenty of time before i need air. i usually try to keep two (solid) contact points on the stock when shooting long range to prevent the possibility of teetering. a good contact point for the rear is your fist because you can make tiny adjustments by just squeezing and relaxing your hand and its pretty stable. if your looking through your scope and you can see your heartbeat on the crosshairs, then you can roll your fist back a little and your hand bone will take some of the movement away. and for god sakes do what twofifty said. after that post, you owe him somethin. oh ya, and some good ammo, i just went from 5moa to 1 1/4moa just from shooting better ammo but thats a whole nother thread

 

[Arkansas Paul]

That is a really good idea about using the magazines. I will trying that soon.