Advanced Marksmanship Vertical, Horiztonal, But Otherwise Tight From Weak Bipod

[Duckford]

For the last year or so I've been noticing a trend in my own shooting, insomuch that when I shoot bipod without a bag or rest I notice that my errors are following a strange and predictable pattern. When i shoot straight stock traditional rifle I will shoot extremely tight vertically but my errors will almost always be horizontal. I try to iron it out with plenty of dryfire and rimfire practice, but even with a low recoiling centerfire the errors, when they occur, are the same. I keep trying to diagnose it but the final answer seems to elude me.

The strange thing is that the opposite is the issue with vertical grip. My unsupported off a bag or bipod comes back the opposite, in that my horizontal will be very tight but my errors will end up being vertical. Same kind of dispersion in the same sense, with a straight stock it is a straight line left to right and with a pistol grip it will be a nice line up and down.

Sorry if I can't give you more information and it might be a long shot, but I figure I'd ask if anyone else has had anything similar to learn from. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jack Master]

Are you placing your Firing hand thumb differently? Are you full gripping the straight stock and floating the thumb on the vertical grip?

Typically, right and left stringing of shots are due to trigger pull inconsistencies. On a traditional hunting stock its its very difficult to get a 90 deg trigger finger and pull the trigger straight to the rear. If you are gripping the traditional hunting rifle with the thumb over the stock its likely your trigger finger is not at 90 degrees. Having a slight bend in the trigger finger will pushing the trigger to the side and change the effects down range. Try building your grip from the trigger back. Place you finger on the trigger, with a 90 degrees bend, and see where your rifle grip needs to land to get the correct trigger placement. If we move the hand far enough forward (bringing the thumb to the side rather than over) to the get the 90 deg bend we start to loose the full grip on the rifle and end up squeezing the grip between our 3 lower grip fingers and the palm of our hand with the knuckle area NOT touching the rifle. Build your grip from the trigger back to understand where you hand needs to be to get a good straight to the back trigger pull.

Vertical stringing is typically a breathing issue. You are not breaking your shot at the same place in your breathing cycle. But, if you want to talk about the grip, look how your different arm placement for this grip position could change how your support the rifle with your skeletal structure and how its related to your breathing. Grip wise: again, where if you thumb? It its wrapped around the grip do you have a sypothestic squeeze while pulling the trigger and when the rifle recoils? get the thumb to the opposite side and see what changes.

The nest way to diagnose what you really have going on, is to film yourself with each rifle and focus the camera on your grip area. Shoot a couple differnt ways and review the footage to see what your trigger hand is really doing.

@Enough Said just posted a great article on the sniper's hide page about the Mechanics of the firing hand the functions of it. Have a read there as well.