What can I do at home with my rifle to get better. I live in a townhome so I don't have land to shoot on or be able to fire but does anyone have any suggestions on training or tools that will help with training at home?
What can I do away from the range to make myself a better shooter?
- Thread starter thebigbeardedchef
- Start date
- Remove all ammo from the gun and place it in another room.
- Set up something to simulate your normal shooting position,
- If you are concerned about dry fire, get a dummy round or make one.
- Dry fire till it gets boring. What you want to work on is coordinating your breathing with trigger squeeze so that the trigger breaks during the natural pause in breathing after an exhale without inducing strain from holding your breath. Breathe normally, don't gulp a deep breath and try to hold it, if you find yourself running out of air, release the trigger, take about 10 normal breaths and then get back into it.
- Once you get the breathing thing down pat, concentrate on a smooth follow through with zero movement of the cross hairs from point of aim. That and, as much as you can, keeping both eyes open through the entire firing event.
- You can also work on manipulating the bolt without disturbing your natural shooting position.
- Work on smoothly getting yourself on the gun in as close as possible to a natural, read that as neutral, firing position without having to go through a bunch of wiggles and waggles to get neutral. This sounds silly but it is key to all of the above. Think, for a moment, about doing a hand stand. You will never be successful if your mount into the hand stand does not immediately result in bone on bone support. This is no different from mounting the gun.
I'm in agreement with SubOptimal. I'm just a few years behind him in age, and have some cardiopulmonary issue that are currently being addressed through CP Rehab. Short story long, breathing is not just a ho-hum to me. Prone is something I'm trying to work my way back into. All I will say is that when you're shooting, do whatever you can to build up your Blood Oxygen level prior to taking the respiratory pause, it can extend it so that releasing the shot is unaccompanied by any outside distractions.
Separate from the marksmanship practice, the other important things you can be doing are to refine your knowledge of the Marksmanship Basics, and to take charge of the quality and quantity of your ammunition supply (i.e. get set up and proficient at handloading). If you are genuinely in the game for the long haul, both of these steps are essential. Key point; good marksmanship can only improve with the extension of its repetition, but only as long as what you practice is done right.
For the learning part, you already have an ideal source of info right on this site. LowLight's expanding library of articles and videos is the best I've ever seen. I have never found anything he prescribes to be in any way unclear, misleading, or incorrect.
I also strongly recommend Ryan Cleckner's book as a robust foundation upon which to build your skills; I buy and hand them out to close friends who want to improve their own shooting skills. His book is the one I might have tried to write, and would have been doomed to fail to do as well as Cleckner.
For the handloading part, there are a lot of side experiences that will each buy you better accuracy, but for my part, I keep it simple and concentrate on basic overall consistency over exquisitely perfect peak accuracy. I learned to reload from a Benchrest shooter (an Elder Brother), but what I do these days is not Benchrest shooting, and does not require Benchrest quality ammunition.. For me, the process consists of choosing reliable components, doing solid load development, and building ammunition in a consistent manner. I put a lot of my effort into getting good, consistent charge weights.
I find that with my own needs and abilities, good solid, reliably consistent ammunition supply serves my purposes better, allows more ammunition to be built in a given time, and may also keep overall shooting costs in a more economical frame.
In all honesty, I don't shoot well enough to justify all that extra painstaking effort. Moreover, many more may also be in my boat than may be willing to admit. Keep it as simple as your skills allow. I'd rather shoot more good ammo than waste more exquisite ammo. Gotta know my limits.
Greg
Separate from the marksmanship practice, the other important things you can be doing are to refine your knowledge of the Marksmanship Basics, and to take charge of the quality and quantity of your ammunition supply (i.e. get set up and proficient at handloading). If you are genuinely in the game for the long haul, both of these steps are essential. Key point; good marksmanship can only improve with the extension of its repetition, but only as long as what you practice is done right.
For the learning part, you already have an ideal source of info right on this site. LowLight's expanding library of articles and videos is the best I've ever seen. I have never found anything he prescribes to be in any way unclear, misleading, or incorrect.
I also strongly recommend Ryan Cleckner's book as a robust foundation upon which to build your skills; I buy and hand them out to close friends who want to improve their own shooting skills. His book is the one I might have tried to write, and would have been doomed to fail to do as well as Cleckner.
For the handloading part, there are a lot of side experiences that will each buy you better accuracy, but for my part, I keep it simple and concentrate on basic overall consistency over exquisitely perfect peak accuracy. I learned to reload from a Benchrest shooter (an Elder Brother), but what I do these days is not Benchrest shooting, and does not require Benchrest quality ammunition.. For me, the process consists of choosing reliable components, doing solid load development, and building ammunition in a consistent manner. I put a lot of my effort into getting good, consistent charge weights.
I find that with my own needs and abilities, good solid, reliably consistent ammunition supply serves my purposes better, allows more ammunition to be built in a given time, and may also keep overall shooting costs in a more economical frame.
In all honesty, I don't shoot well enough to justify all that extra painstaking effort. Moreover, many more may also be in my boat than may be willing to admit. Keep it as simple as your skills allow. I'd rather shoot more good ammo than waste more exquisite ammo. Gotta know my limits.
Greg
-Cardio
- With an unloaded weapon (assuming you have windows with a view of something further than the neighbor's house), look at an item somewhere out the window and that's your target. Set up in the room figuring out what position would work and build that as well as try other positions to get on the target, be steady and stay on the target. Breathe, get the range, adjustments on the turrets all while on the gun and go through the process of the first shot engagement, trigger pull, follow through. Rinse/repeat in different areas of the room/house on different targets outside - you can do this forever. The main take away you want from this is what positions work with what, how to better the position, how to be comfortable in holding it and how to work everything while in a position behind the gun (turrets, range, mag change, etc).
- With an unloaded weapon (assuming you have windows with a view of something further than the neighbor's house), look at an item somewhere out the window and that's your target. Set up in the room figuring out what position would work and build that as well as try other positions to get on the target, be steady and stay on the target. Breathe, get the range, adjustments on the turrets all while on the gun and go through the process of the first shot engagement, trigger pull, follow through. Rinse/repeat in different areas of the room/house on different targets outside - you can do this forever. The main take away you want from this is what positions work with what, how to better the position, how to be comfortable in holding it and how to work everything while in a position behind the gun (turrets, range, mag change, etc).
What can you do away from the range to make you a better shooter?.....simple....buy more ammo.
everything else is BS.
all the dry fire practice in the world is not going to make you a better shooter......sorry but thats the truth.
i will dry fire maybe 5-10 times when i get in a new shooting position, just to verify my position is good and im comfortable......but spending hours snapping away is a waste of time
Working on cardio will help some.....strwngthening your heart will lead to a lower resting heart rate, which is adventageous......but really thats all you can really do
everything else is BS.
all the dry fire practice in the world is not going to make you a better shooter......sorry but thats the truth.
i will dry fire maybe 5-10 times when i get in a new shooting position, just to verify my position is good and im comfortable......but spending hours snapping away is a waste of time
Working on cardio will help some.....strwngthening your heart will lead to a lower resting heart rate, which is adventageous......but really thats all you can really do
Say what you want about dry firing but there is a lot to be gained by it. I live in Michigan where we get snow that's balls deep on a 9ft Indian and can't even make it out to shoot for a good 3 months out of the year. I finally made a barricade to put in my basement and got one of those indoor optical aides for dry firing that lets you use full power on your scope at close distances. I set up the targets on my basement wall and just dry fired for about 15-20 minutes a few nights a week after the kids went to bed. All positional and barricade. didn't live fire the entire winter but when I went out to shoot in the spring I saw a drastic improvement in my shooting. Just work on building solid positions and get off your belly. Learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Dry fire is huge for improvement. Make your own barricade, use some furniture, buy an old crappy wooden ladder off craigslist, whatever. Just get something setup where you've got multiple heights to shoot from. Low kneeling/crouching, high kneeling, low standing, high standing. Transition between positions, fire two or three shots, transition, repeat. Run a timer and imagine it's a 90 second stage. Practice dialing between positions. Practice gear management. Watch your follow through in the reticle and score yourself on whether you got an impact or not. Jot down what gear works best for you. What can you transition the fastest with? What gives you the best hit percentage? Practice with lots of different options. How well can you shoot with no support gear? Do some offhand, crouching, kneeling, sitting positional practice. IMO I wouldn't even bother dry firing prone if you're doing the above, other than maybe some drills to get in position and on target quickly.
Obviously this is geared toward PRS style competition shooting, not sure if that's your end goal or not. What I will say is that if you can do the above well, showing up and shooting off a bench or prone seems stupid easy.
And to the comment that this won't help, I'll just say that doing this has made a huge difference from me. Went from a mid-pack shooter last year to being top 5% in my region this year.
Obviously this is geared toward PRS style competition shooting, not sure if that's your end goal or not. What I will say is that if you can do the above well, showing up and shooting off a bench or prone seems stupid easy.
And to the comment that this won't help, I'll just say that doing this has made a huge difference from me. Went from a mid-pack shooter last year to being top 5% in my region this year.
this right here IMO is the biggest improvement most people can make...learn when/where to use push vs pull, bag vs no bag, etc...dont fall in love with one approach and only practice it, because it works best...you might find a time where its not possible...you should be able to find a way to hold 1-1.5 moa from almost any type of supported position...once you find what is stable, THEN work on speed...i usually tell newer guys if you arent hitting 70%+ of the shots youre taking in a match, you should be slowing down and working positions...if youre not shooting a match with time pressure then that % should go way up to 90%+
Alongside that, also telling the newer shooters that just because a stage is LISTED as 10 rounds, doesn't mean that THEY should rush through things and try to SHOOT 10 rounds. It is much better for a shooter to take 4 well-placed shots and hit 2-3 (hence the 50-70% of the shots they are TAKING) than to take 10 really fast shots and zero the stage. This helps to build confidence and increases the "fun factor" for newer shooters. Speed comes later after working on and developing building good positions quickly.
To the OP, for your situation (a townhome), you may find beneficial:
* An IOTA (Indoor Optical Training Aid) - Here is a link for a post with more information on how to get one:
https://www.snipershide.com/shootin...ent/57639-i-o-t-a-indoor-optical-training-aid
* Some 3x5 cards with little dots on them that you can tape up around the house
* Then just practice setting up on whatever you have around the house - a ladder, chair, couch, whatever - would be great - and work first on building solid positions (re: the Accurate Ordinance article mentioned above), then as you get better at it, work on getting into and out of that stable position taking less time.
1. Work on first building the stable position, then
2. Work on replicating it every time, then
3. Work on replicating it faster
Hope that helps.
There are people who are supremely better in their chosen shooting sport than you are at yours that have proven that what you say is false. The first one that comes to mind is Ben Stoeger.
Originally posted by mcameron View Post
all the dry fire practice in the world is not going to make you a better shooter......sorry but thats the truth.
Match in ABQ this spring. Saturday night, my buddies is a hotel room with a bunch of guys drinking beer. One guy is dry firing on the little table in the room. He won the match. He's won a lot, if I posted his name you'd know him. Just saying.
all the dry fire practice in the world is not going to make you a better shooter......sorry but thats the truth.
Match in ABQ this spring. Saturday night, my buddies is a hotel room with a bunch of guys drinking beer. One guy is dry firing on the little table in the room. He won the match. He's won a lot, if I posted his name you'd know him. Just saying.
Great advice. My instructor, USMC sniper, Army sniper instructor as well as a contractor. I trust he knew what worked. My father was an NRA instructor and was not a fan of dry firing so I wasn’t “brought up” doing it, but it certainly helped me “groove”.
Exactly. Never saw or heard of one breaking first hand... snap caps are cheap anyway.
If you've got 20-25 yards in your backyard, get a good, accurate PCP Air Rifle and practice drilling hole into hole at 30 yards or less. All fundamentals come into play - breathing, NPOA, wind (you'll miss the hole if you don't recognize a few knot change) and trigger control.
IMHO, for me, it's built a solid foundation & it shows at the range.
IMHO, for me, it's built a solid foundation & it shows at the range.
Revisiting; things to add/revise.
To shoot better, shoot more. I shoot as much as I can handload, no more, no less, and I've been handloading a lot this past year.
Several things happen when you do this.
You get better at handloading, and will usually take the time to see if the loads can be further refined, but simplifying the handloading process is also a valid goal.
As muscle memory gets refined, the mind can actually put better effort into the final four; breathing, sight picture, shot release, and followthrough. Eventually, it becomes sight picture and shot release, with the breathing and follow through becoming automatic.
All of this repetition will fill in the blanks involved in observing conditions and gaining intuition about how the bullet negotiates the transit from muzzle to impact. Sometimes, it can help to just carefully observe the conditions and just aim straight on and see how each environmental indicator translates into shot deviation. Intuition is what we're really trying to acquire where wind skills are concerned, no discrete calculation is ever going to be quick enough to keep up with the conditions. The end goal has got to be to see the conditions, make the call, apply the Kentucky windage, and urge the shot to release.
Seriously, I don't believe that it's actually possible to perform the repetitive firing that good marksmanship training requires and also make the break of each shot an actual surprise. I just don't think those two things can coexist. If you truly know your firearms well enough, and it is imperative that you do just that, then there are simply no surprises.
What I work to achieve is the natural expectation that noise and recoil are just another part of the process, and that the rifle can only hurt me if I let it. If one allows the rifle to recoil freely, it will slam you, and that's precisely why you pull the rifle into the shoulder, eliminating that space the rifle can use to take a run at your shoulder. Instead of taking the slam, you ride 'em cowboy. I love shooting my Garand, and it never beats me up. I handle it with close respect, emphasis on 'close'. The goal here is to unlearn the flinch. Knowing what's coming gives opportunity to gain familiarity with the sound and the force of recoil. One becomes that "leaf on the wind", prepared for the ride, smoothly and deliberately entering into it, relaxing, and letting it happen. If you're getting abused by your rifle, you're doing it wrong.
Stop trying to find things to blame. You are the master of your experiences, and as such, the blame always stops at your door and nowhere else. It's not about what happened, it's about what you allowed to happen. When folks give advice, a) it's seldom requested, B) it's equally seldom done with malice, and C) their suggestions are telling you what they think they should do in your place. In response, A) be grateful that they took the interest, B) consider the information objectively, and C) bear fully in mind they they are not you, and their info can be helpful, but most advice usually only works for the person offering it, based on their experience. As a trained counselor, i was instructed to never offer advice, mostly because of (C); but rather to elicit possible strategies from the subject, based on their own experience. So, the answers need to come from you, not someone else, and need to be centered around what you think you can realistically accomplish, and your own degree of confidence in the effort. Then do it, and assess whether progress is actually made. Progress, not an ideal solution in a single step; they may be out there, but I can't point to any at the moment. To do this well, find a spread of options and give each an honest opportunity to work. Some will, some won't, but an effort tried is never wasted; it just becomes another mile marker along the road to success.
Home runs are not made by swinging for the fences, they are made by refining the process of contacting the ball properly, what happens after that is just physics. True progress is made in increments, perfect solutions are infinitely elusive, and we settle for what gets the job done in the allotted time; perfection is something that may come at a later date, but usually never.
What we do is either a job or a recreation. If it's work, it's a job; if it's enjoyable, it's a recreation. Know the difference because it's going to color your entire outlook about what you do, and you get to decide which it should be.
Greg
To shoot better, shoot more. I shoot as much as I can handload, no more, no less, and I've been handloading a lot this past year.
Several things happen when you do this.
You get better at handloading, and will usually take the time to see if the loads can be further refined, but simplifying the handloading process is also a valid goal.
As muscle memory gets refined, the mind can actually put better effort into the final four; breathing, sight picture, shot release, and followthrough. Eventually, it becomes sight picture and shot release, with the breathing and follow through becoming automatic.
All of this repetition will fill in the blanks involved in observing conditions and gaining intuition about how the bullet negotiates the transit from muzzle to impact. Sometimes, it can help to just carefully observe the conditions and just aim straight on and see how each environmental indicator translates into shot deviation. Intuition is what we're really trying to acquire where wind skills are concerned, no discrete calculation is ever going to be quick enough to keep up with the conditions. The end goal has got to be to see the conditions, make the call, apply the Kentucky windage, and urge the shot to release.
Seriously, I don't believe that it's actually possible to perform the repetitive firing that good marksmanship training requires and also make the break of each shot an actual surprise. I just don't think those two things can coexist. If you truly know your firearms well enough, and it is imperative that you do just that, then there are simply no surprises.
What I work to achieve is the natural expectation that noise and recoil are just another part of the process, and that the rifle can only hurt me if I let it. If one allows the rifle to recoil freely, it will slam you, and that's precisely why you pull the rifle into the shoulder, eliminating that space the rifle can use to take a run at your shoulder. Instead of taking the slam, you ride 'em cowboy. I love shooting my Garand, and it never beats me up. I handle it with close respect, emphasis on 'close'. The goal here is to unlearn the flinch. Knowing what's coming gives opportunity to gain familiarity with the sound and the force of recoil. One becomes that "leaf on the wind", prepared for the ride, smoothly and deliberately entering into it, relaxing, and letting it happen. If you're getting abused by your rifle, you're doing it wrong.
Stop trying to find things to blame. You are the master of your experiences, and as such, the blame always stops at your door and nowhere else. It's not about what happened, it's about what you allowed to happen. When folks give advice, a) it's seldom requested, B) it's equally seldom done with malice, and C) their suggestions are telling you what they think they should do in your place. In response, A) be grateful that they took the interest, B) consider the information objectively, and C) bear fully in mind they they are not you, and their info can be helpful, but most advice usually only works for the person offering it, based on their experience. As a trained counselor, i was instructed to never offer advice, mostly because of (C); but rather to elicit possible strategies from the subject, based on their own experience. So, the answers need to come from you, not someone else, and need to be centered around what you think you can realistically accomplish, and your own degree of confidence in the effort. Then do it, and assess whether progress is actually made. Progress, not an ideal solution in a single step; they may be out there, but I can't point to any at the moment. To do this well, find a spread of options and give each an honest opportunity to work. Some will, some won't, but an effort tried is never wasted; it just becomes another mile marker along the road to success.
Home runs are not made by swinging for the fences, they are made by refining the process of contacting the ball properly, what happens after that is just physics. True progress is made in increments, perfect solutions are infinitely elusive, and we settle for what gets the job done in the allotted time; perfection is something that may come at a later date, but usually never.
What we do is either a job or a recreation. If it's work, it's a job; if it's enjoyable, it's a recreation. Know the difference because it's going to color your entire outlook about what you do, and you get to decide which it should be.
Greg
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Excellent response Mr. Elder.
I’’ve asked just about every question you can ask at the range, from people who shoot quite well, and RARELY get the same response. I’ve found that even “well established” fundamentals like finger pad position, appropriate stock to shoulder pressure, cheek position etc. vary considerably among shooters. I’ve given up finding the Holy Grail of accepted principals in favor of shooting the shit out of my rifles.
Over the last year I’’ve shot upwards of 10,000 rounds and I’’m just starting to settle into a repeatable groove. I am beginning to settle into a natural, repeatable point of aim and seeing consistent results.
I no longer focus on where my trigger finger is or how hard I’’m pressing the stock into the shoulder - unconscious adjustments over thousands of attempts to print 1/4”” groups on a piece of paper have slowly cemented all this into my muscle memory.
Lastly, start with top notch equipment. Eliminate the variables that aren't you.
Now I can begin to take the environment into play. A whole nother game!
I’’ve asked just about every question you can ask at the range, from people who shoot quite well, and RARELY get the same response. I’ve found that even “well established” fundamentals like finger pad position, appropriate stock to shoulder pressure, cheek position etc. vary considerably among shooters. I’ve given up finding the Holy Grail of accepted principals in favor of shooting the shit out of my rifles.
Over the last year I’’ve shot upwards of 10,000 rounds and I’’m just starting to settle into a repeatable groove. I am beginning to settle into a natural, repeatable point of aim and seeing consistent results.
I no longer focus on where my trigger finger is or how hard I’’m pressing the stock into the shoulder - unconscious adjustments over thousands of attempts to print 1/4”” groups on a piece of paper have slowly cemented all this into my muscle memory.
Lastly, start with top notch equipment. Eliminate the variables that aren't you.
Now I can begin to take the environment into play. A whole nother game!
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Buy a 6ftlb air rifle with a moderator/ like a suppressor, and have at it. Sure beats dry firing as far as the fun factor goes.
Tomorrow I'll be training with my 6ftlb PCP air rifle in my own yard. I'll use the same obstacles as we'll be using in our NRL22 match the next day and the steel will be at reduced distance, both scaled down almost exactly from actual.
Having a PCP biathlon trainer air rifle to train for my 22rf biathlon rifle is pretty neat, I gotta say!!!
Tomorrow I'll be training with my 6ftlb PCP air rifle in my own yard. I'll use the same obstacles as we'll be using in our NRL22 match the next day and the steel will be at reduced distance, both scaled down almost exactly from actual.
Having a PCP biathlon trainer air rifle to train for my 22rf biathlon rifle is pretty neat, I gotta say!!!
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Darkside-Six , I'm in New England and far enough north to get snowed in often, which I'm sure is coming soon... Could you advise on these "optical aides" that would allow me to work on dry firing a short action bolt with a 4.5-27x and a small frame AR with a 1-6x? I'll be working from prone to standing with no basement, just a lot of discretion!
If you're not in the basement and can look out your window with the rifle (discreetly) you need nothing else. If you're aiming at something indoors............https://www.reddit.com/r/longrange/comments/4ts5ts/make_your_own_iota_indoor_optical_training_aid/
Dry Fire is the "Kata" of Marksmanship. Eventually you have to put it into practice with live ammunition but thousands of reps of The Basics drilled bone deep, often, and correctly will advance any Art.
VooDoo
VooDoo
Dry fire positional stuff. Especially less-than-supported positions. I would even go so far as to say dry firing standing unsupported has more value than any prone position. It's good for building muscles, coordination, and calling shots (when the firing pin falls, you should have a snapshot of exactly where the reticle was-- this is a valuable skill for live fire, too).
I started my shooting hobby with military surplus rifles and ambitions to participate in NRA highpower or CMP service rifle competitions. I taught myself positions and fundamentals from an old USMC shooting manual and dry fired the shit out of an M1 garand for hours on end in highschool. I never made it into the highpower arena, but did join the USMC infantry and kind of got the flat/square range experience on the KD portion of our rifle qual. Anyway, the main takeaway is that hours of holding a 10lb rifle in standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone unsupported positions and getting to the point that I could deliver accurate shots like that paid off. USMC rifle quals landed me company high shooter a few times, and PRS stages with wobbly supports or goofy positions don't daunt me like a lot of guys I watch who waste a ton of time getting comfortable or are just unsure of how/when to make the shot because it's not 100% stable and they're not used to it.
The harder you make it, the better you will end up being. Slings, tactical body pillows, tripods, bags, etc... make things easier, but don't necessarily make you a better shot.
Practice the fundamentals WELL as a step-by-step process until it becomes second nature. Then at some point it becomes natural, you don't have to think about breathing mechanically every single shot, it just happens.
I started my shooting hobby with military surplus rifles and ambitions to participate in NRA highpower or CMP service rifle competitions. I taught myself positions and fundamentals from an old USMC shooting manual and dry fired the shit out of an M1 garand for hours on end in highschool. I never made it into the highpower arena, but did join the USMC infantry and kind of got the flat/square range experience on the KD portion of our rifle qual. Anyway, the main takeaway is that hours of holding a 10lb rifle in standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone unsupported positions and getting to the point that I could deliver accurate shots like that paid off. USMC rifle quals landed me company high shooter a few times, and PRS stages with wobbly supports or goofy positions don't daunt me like a lot of guys I watch who waste a ton of time getting comfortable or are just unsure of how/when to make the shot because it's not 100% stable and they're not used to it.
The harder you make it, the better you will end up being. Slings, tactical body pillows, tripods, bags, etc... make things easier, but don't necessarily make you a better shot.
Practice the fundamentals WELL as a step-by-step process until it becomes second nature. Then at some point it becomes natural, you don't have to think about breathing mechanically every single shot, it just happens.
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