Some of the best shooting practice for hunting was when we used to shoot rats in town dumps. It taught us how to mount the rifle and shoot quickly, almost instinctively. There aren't any town dumps anymore, but shooting at .22 metallic silhouette targets are great fun. The ones that you knock down, then go down range to re-set teach you to hold carefully. The ones that reset automatically tend to be boring, IMHO.
suggestions for shooting offhand?
- Thread starter idek
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Best practice
I learned to shoot a .22 really well eliminating jack rabbits.
Twas mid and late 1970's in the San Joaquin valley in CA. The local fruit processing plant would store huge piles of pits from whatever fruit they were processing on their large property.
As long as we practiced safety us airmen were permitted to come in and shoot jack rabbits to our hearts content. Killed one heck of a lot of jack rabbits.
The fruit pits would create a population explosion, rabbits and unlimited food. Over time the food source would go away and a mass die off would occur.
A bullet beats starving to death.
I learned to shoot a .22 really well eliminating jack rabbits.
Twas mid and late 1970's in the San Joaquin valley in CA. The local fruit processing plant would store huge piles of pits from whatever fruit they were processing on their large property.
As long as we practiced safety us airmen were permitted to come in and shoot jack rabbits to our hearts content. Killed one heck of a lot of jack rabbits.
The fruit pits would create a population explosion, rabbits and unlimited food. Over time the food source would go away and a mass die off would occur.
A bullet beats starving to death.
While I think learning to shoot offhand without a sling is important, I also believe it is patently false that a hasty sling cannot help. As one poster said, do the "GI Wrap" where you loop the sling around your weak arm. Doing this and tucking the weak arm close helps form bone support.
Post #39 with the poster is a decent visual of a pretty good standing off-hand position without the aid of a sling. N4T is spot on above with the bold, eliminate as much "muscleing" of the weapon as possible. Go for bone support. In the poster, notice how the weak arm is tucked in and the elbow is supported somewhat by the hip. A hasty sling can replace this aggressive tuck somewhat, but you still want to tuck the weak elbow close to the body. Using the sling properly (as in tight enough that your weak arm is slightly uncomfortable) also almost forces your strong arm to hold the rifle down at the grip as the sling will act as a lever and will want to pull the muzzle down and force the stock up.
Other advice has also been great. Even with sling or hip support, you will notice a figure 8 pattern. Break the shot in the middle of the figure 8. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! This is where the .22 or a pistol caliber carbine with cheap ammo and low recoil shine. Also use natural point of aim. With your arms as relaxed as you can make them with you still holding the rifle on target, if you need to make gross side to side adjustment move your feet and not your hips/rifle.
The above illustration is good,it shows principles,but I'll point out the obvious.
There are a lot of variations on skeletons. My elbow reaches the bottom of my ribs. My hip bone is 6 in lower.I'd have to contort my bones out of a good natural stack to put my elbow on my hip.
I do benefit from having my upper arm rest on my ribs...but some shooting disciplines require daylight between the arm and the chest.
Folks,I don't even claim to be a good shot.
But note,in the above pic,the comb height,raised up to her face. The buttplate dropped,
She offsets her weight some to counterbalance the rifle, A more massive upper body would require less offset.
She still has her bones stacked natural,head and shoulders erect,nd the rifle is brought to her face.
My foggy brain might have this wrong...please set me straight if I am,but the folks who shot Scheutzen style,offhand,lead bullets,black powder,false muzzles,and muzzle loaded....Shooting with a Pope barrel,or a barrel made by a handful of men who were Pope's peers,
Were shooting in the range of 2 MOA at 200 yds.
There are a lot of variations on skeletons. My elbow reaches the bottom of my ribs. My hip bone is 6 in lower.I'd have to contort my bones out of a good natural stack to put my elbow on my hip.
I do benefit from having my upper arm rest on my ribs...but some shooting disciplines require daylight between the arm and the chest.
Folks,I don't even claim to be a good shot.
But note,in the above pic,the comb height,raised up to her face. The buttplate dropped,
She offsets her weight some to counterbalance the rifle, A more massive upper body would require less offset.
She still has her bones stacked natural,head and shoulders erect,nd the rifle is brought to her face.
My foggy brain might have this wrong...please set me straight if I am,but the folks who shot Scheutzen style,offhand,lead bullets,black powder,false muzzles,and muzzle loaded....Shooting with a Pope barrel,or a barrel made by a handful of men who were Pope's peers,
Were shooting in the range of 2 MOA at 200 yds.
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If you study photographs of top level high power rifle shooters you will see a very significant variation in their posture and exactly how they hold the rifle. Which stands to reason because we all have different builds, different distributions of body mass, different limb lengths, etc, as HIBC pointed out.
Most will find some degree of upper body lean back and away from the target beneficial. The center of gravity of the rifle must necessarily be in front of and towards the target with regard to our skeletal axis of support. Some degree of lean gets the rifle COG closer to that axis of skeletal support and makes the rifle easier to hold and level. But too much lean will place the combined COG of rifle and shooter too far off the skeletal axis of support and will, therefore, require more muscular support to maintain balance. Those with less upper body mass and a lower center of gravity, like the young woman in the photo, will likely find a greater degree of lean to be optimal.
The OP mentioned techniques applicable to Appleseed events in particular. Many rifle competition events preclude the use of a sling for rifle stabilization when shooting offhand. Appleseed does not, and most AS instructors tend to recommend the use of a sling in the "hasty" configuration when shooting standing, but it is not required.
Notice the high comb riser in the photo that allows the shooter's head to remain upright, the importance of which has already been mentioned. But most stock rifles are not going to have a comb of that height. Fortunately, the recoil of .22 LR rimfire rifles and .223 Remington center fire rifles is quite light. This allows the rifle to be held high with only a portion of the butt stock supported by the shoulder. In fact, if you look at high power shooters with AR type rifles in the standing position, only the very tip of the butt stock is usually in contact with their shoulder. The NRA and CMP high power rules require that at least some portion of the rifle butt must be in contact with the shoulder. If they did not, I suspect you would find some shooters holding the rifle with the tip of the stock riding on the top of their shoulder.
When the Appleseed concept got started, surplus M1 Garand rifles and surplus 30.06 ammunition were much cheaper than they are today and a lot of shooters used them at AS events. With that much more powerful cartridge, having only the very tip of the rifle butt in contact with the shoulder was not very comfortable. A lot of AS instructors will still teach shooters to hold their strong side elbow up at 90 degrees to the vertical in a "chicken wing" position. This will deepen and define the "shoulder pocket" that the rifle butt fits into which allows for potentially greater consistency in rifle stock placement and more comfortable recoil absorption. But it is unnecessary for managing the recoil of a light recoiling cartridge, and with an unmodified rifle stock, it usually requires dropping the head forward onto the stock comb in order to align the iron sights and achieve a good cheek weld, both of which are counterproductive. And holding the strong side elbow up at 90 degrees introduces muscular tension in the shooting arm.
So a particular position or technique that is beneficial in one way can be detrimental in another. Each individual shooter will likely need to experiment extensively to refine their position and achieve the optimal balance for these various nuances of technique.
Most will find some degree of upper body lean back and away from the target beneficial. The center of gravity of the rifle must necessarily be in front of and towards the target with regard to our skeletal axis of support. Some degree of lean gets the rifle COG closer to that axis of skeletal support and makes the rifle easier to hold and level. But too much lean will place the combined COG of rifle and shooter too far off the skeletal axis of support and will, therefore, require more muscular support to maintain balance. Those with less upper body mass and a lower center of gravity, like the young woman in the photo, will likely find a greater degree of lean to be optimal.
The OP mentioned techniques applicable to Appleseed events in particular. Many rifle competition events preclude the use of a sling for rifle stabilization when shooting offhand. Appleseed does not, and most AS instructors tend to recommend the use of a sling in the "hasty" configuration when shooting standing, but it is not required.
Notice the high comb riser in the photo that allows the shooter's head to remain upright, the importance of which has already been mentioned. But most stock rifles are not going to have a comb of that height. Fortunately, the recoil of .22 LR rimfire rifles and .223 Remington center fire rifles is quite light. This allows the rifle to be held high with only a portion of the butt stock supported by the shoulder. In fact, if you look at high power shooters with AR type rifles in the standing position, only the very tip of the butt stock is usually in contact with their shoulder. The NRA and CMP high power rules require that at least some portion of the rifle butt must be in contact with the shoulder. If they did not, I suspect you would find some shooters holding the rifle with the tip of the stock riding on the top of their shoulder.
When the Appleseed concept got started, surplus M1 Garand rifles and surplus 30.06 ammunition were much cheaper than they are today and a lot of shooters used them at AS events. With that much more powerful cartridge, having only the very tip of the rifle butt in contact with the shoulder was not very comfortable. A lot of AS instructors will still teach shooters to hold their strong side elbow up at 90 degrees to the vertical in a "chicken wing" position. This will deepen and define the "shoulder pocket" that the rifle butt fits into which allows for potentially greater consistency in rifle stock placement and more comfortable recoil absorption. But it is unnecessary for managing the recoil of a light recoiling cartridge, and with an unmodified rifle stock, it usually requires dropping the head forward onto the stock comb in order to align the iron sights and achieve a good cheek weld, both of which are counterproductive. And holding the strong side elbow up at 90 degrees introduces muscular tension in the shooting arm.
So a particular position or technique that is beneficial in one way can be detrimental in another. Each individual shooter will likely need to experiment extensively to refine their position and achieve the optimal balance for these various nuances of technique.
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If you're shooting for fun and practice, perhaps not toward formal target shooting, it doesn't matter much if you miss a few shots, so practice shooting quickly, but smoothly, as the sights cross the target the first time.
You'll find that you'll be able to make a SMOOTH, but quick squeeze (not a jerk reaction) as the sights near the center of the target. If you do it correctly, your misses will be very close and if not at the target center, a bit before crossing the center.
It takes practice and if you have a bolt rifle, even remove the bolt to practice getting to the target center and squeezing smoothly and firmly near target center. You'll probably find that, without the expectation of the rifle firing, your smooth, but fast squeeze will get you within the "kill zone" about every time.
Practice, especially perfect practice improves your skills, whether actually firing or not.
You'll find that you'll be able to make a SMOOTH, but quick squeeze (not a jerk reaction) as the sights near the center of the target. If you do it correctly, your misses will be very close and if not at the target center, a bit before crossing the center.
It takes practice and if you have a bolt rifle, even remove the bolt to practice getting to the target center and squeezing smoothly and firmly near target center. You'll probably find that, without the expectation of the rifle firing, your smooth, but fast squeeze will get you within the "kill zone" about every time.
Practice, especially perfect practice improves your skills, whether actually firing or not.