Before I get into this, please excuse me if this information has already been discussed and readily available on this forum but being I am fairly new to precision shooting I am not sure how to go about finding this degree of technical information. I have a 400 yard range at my house and have never joined or even been to a shooting range. So other than scouring the internet and reading Ryan Cleckner's Long Range Shooting Handbook, all of my experience in precision shooting has been through self taught trial and error. Being I have never had the luxury of a hands on instructor, I would think this "self taught" process has had some negative effects on me by potentially creating some bad habits in my shooting techniques. I would be willing to bet if were to spend a little time on the range with a more experienced precision shooter most of the issues I feel I am having could be cleared up with some helpful tips. I do plan on joining a local range but with this COVID-19 stuff going on right now that has obviously been delayed. That said, I am hoping you guys might be able to help me out for the time being with some tips that will improve my groups and overall precision.
Ok, so I am able to hold 1/2 to 3/4 MOA groups at 300 and 400 yards on about 50%-75% of my 5 shot groups. Being I know the rifle is capable of sub MOA I would like to improve my group consistency to where i am shooting sub MOA 90%-100% of the time.
Over a few hundred rounds at 300-400 yards I have determined the inconsistency is in my cross hair stabilization on the bulls eye. What I mean by this is when I am looking down the scope at the target I feel the cross hairs are jumping around too much. I noticed at 400 yards the crosshairs seem to bounce around in about a 4-5" area on the the target.
I guess the major question i am asking is, how do I become more efficient at stabilizing the rifle while aiming? I will go through my techniques with and maybe this will help you guys address my issues or tell me what im doing wrong.
I am shooting from prone position on a bipod and sandbag. Before shooting any given day (and usually before shooting each group) , I do just much dry firing as I do actual shooting as I noticed this really helps me get me calm, steady and in my "zone" so to speak. I lay parallel behind the rifle with feet spread. I make sure I am as comfortable as possible by allowing myself to lay as natural as possible behind the rifle. Using the sandbag, I use the bag to get on target as much as possible to minimize having to physically adjust/hold the rifle on target. I then go through my breathing patterns (2 deep breaths in and slow exhale), load the trigger by pulling up the slack and then squeeze off the shot on the tail end of an exhale by slowly apply pressure to the trigger to ensure I am not anticipating the shot. Its while in this final stage of exhaling and that preapring for the shot that I feel I am still not stable enough as the cross hairs just seem to be bouncing around too much.
When I first started trying to shoot for precision, I was basically trying to minimize my shoulder and trigger hand contact to the rifle to minimize movement of the crosshairs on the target while aiming. Basically, my theory here was to use the sandbag and bipod to emulate what you would do with a led sled/vise. Because the rifle has such minimal recoil, I can pretty much make it where my trigger finger is the only contact point to the rifle. This seemed to help to a degree as I was getting sub MOA most of the time but I started realizing that this technique had some disadvantages. One being that this causes the cross hairs to float around the bullseye in an inconsistent pattern vs the the cross hairs floating across the bullseye in somewhat of a pattern that would allow me to somewhat time the shot. This is how I always shoot my bow to get tight groups. By getting the reticles to move in a pattern across the bullseye i could get into a rhythm that would allow me to time the shot as it came across the bullseye. Another issue is see with this "minimal contact method" is if I tried this with any other rifle with more recoil (like a 300 mag or any other of my hunting rifles) I would end up with split/black eye simply because the rifle isnt braced into my shoulder enough to stop the recoil. So I started bedding the stock into my shoulder a little tighter (like I would when shooting any other rifle) and also started "loading" the bipod by using my toes to slightly scoot up on the rifle when aiming. This did allow me to get the cross hairs floating across the bullseye into somewhat of a better pattern. I made sure to shoot all my groups this way yesterday and overall, I felt more confident in my shot placement but after shooting (3) 5 shot groups at 400 yards and (3) 5 shot groups at 300 yards I was disappointed to find that my groups still were inconsistent. I actually had 3 out of 6 groups that were just over 1 MOA!!!
What is the correct way I should be doing this? Also am i missing any techniques that will help me minimize cross hair movement when aiming?
I will say, I am 90% sure I don't have a flinching problem as I do not jerk the trigger and I am very continuous of letting the shot surprise me and not anticipating it. The one potential problem I know I have is not following through with the trigger pull. Again, I dont jerk the shot but I dont do the 1-2 second pull though after the gun fires simply because its a habit i cannot seem to get into doing. I could be wrong but I dont think this has any affect on my shots being I know i am not jerking ht eshot or flinching. I assumed this technique is more of a visual aid for instructors to ensure students are not jerking the trigger when shooting.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Ok, so I am able to hold 1/2 to 3/4 MOA groups at 300 and 400 yards on about 50%-75% of my 5 shot groups. Being I know the rifle is capable of sub MOA I would like to improve my group consistency to where i am shooting sub MOA 90%-100% of the time.
Over a few hundred rounds at 300-400 yards I have determined the inconsistency is in my cross hair stabilization on the bulls eye. What I mean by this is when I am looking down the scope at the target I feel the cross hairs are jumping around too much. I noticed at 400 yards the crosshairs seem to bounce around in about a 4-5" area on the the target.
I guess the major question i am asking is, how do I become more efficient at stabilizing the rifle while aiming? I will go through my techniques with and maybe this will help you guys address my issues or tell me what im doing wrong.
I am shooting from prone position on a bipod and sandbag. Before shooting any given day (and usually before shooting each group) , I do just much dry firing as I do actual shooting as I noticed this really helps me get me calm, steady and in my "zone" so to speak. I lay parallel behind the rifle with feet spread. I make sure I am as comfortable as possible by allowing myself to lay as natural as possible behind the rifle. Using the sandbag, I use the bag to get on target as much as possible to minimize having to physically adjust/hold the rifle on target. I then go through my breathing patterns (2 deep breaths in and slow exhale), load the trigger by pulling up the slack and then squeeze off the shot on the tail end of an exhale by slowly apply pressure to the trigger to ensure I am not anticipating the shot. Its while in this final stage of exhaling and that preapring for the shot that I feel I am still not stable enough as the cross hairs just seem to be bouncing around too much.
When I first started trying to shoot for precision, I was basically trying to minimize my shoulder and trigger hand contact to the rifle to minimize movement of the crosshairs on the target while aiming. Basically, my theory here was to use the sandbag and bipod to emulate what you would do with a led sled/vise. Because the rifle has such minimal recoil, I can pretty much make it where my trigger finger is the only contact point to the rifle. This seemed to help to a degree as I was getting sub MOA most of the time but I started realizing that this technique had some disadvantages. One being that this causes the cross hairs to float around the bullseye in an inconsistent pattern vs the the cross hairs floating across the bullseye in somewhat of a pattern that would allow me to somewhat time the shot. This is how I always shoot my bow to get tight groups. By getting the reticles to move in a pattern across the bullseye i could get into a rhythm that would allow me to time the shot as it came across the bullseye. Another issue is see with this "minimal contact method" is if I tried this with any other rifle with more recoil (like a 300 mag or any other of my hunting rifles) I would end up with split/black eye simply because the rifle isnt braced into my shoulder enough to stop the recoil. So I started bedding the stock into my shoulder a little tighter (like I would when shooting any other rifle) and also started "loading" the bipod by using my toes to slightly scoot up on the rifle when aiming. This did allow me to get the cross hairs floating across the bullseye into somewhat of a better pattern. I made sure to shoot all my groups this way yesterday and overall, I felt more confident in my shot placement but after shooting (3) 5 shot groups at 400 yards and (3) 5 shot groups at 300 yards I was disappointed to find that my groups still were inconsistent. I actually had 3 out of 6 groups that were just over 1 MOA!!!
What is the correct way I should be doing this? Also am i missing any techniques that will help me minimize cross hair movement when aiming?
I will say, I am 90% sure I don't have a flinching problem as I do not jerk the trigger and I am very continuous of letting the shot surprise me and not anticipating it. The one potential problem I know I have is not following through with the trigger pull. Again, I dont jerk the shot but I dont do the 1-2 second pull though after the gun fires simply because its a habit i cannot seem to get into doing. I could be wrong but I dont think this has any affect on my shots being I know i am not jerking ht eshot or flinching. I assumed this technique is more of a visual aid for instructors to ensure students are not jerking the trigger when shooting.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
