TargetTalk

Hello everyone

I live in a remote part of Ontario and I have not been able to find any coaching within a days drive

As such the only coaching I get is books and videos and reading this forum religiously.

I'm looking for any advice or pointers based on this Youtube video of me practising this morning.

http://youtu.be/9Ew4tRqEjqM

The rifle I'm using is a modified AR2078 that has been weighted to match the rifle I borrow

The first thing I will suggest is that you be aware of your trigger finger. Be sure to keep your finger on the trigger. You may choose to take up the slack/first stage of the trigger, hold, and then execute or to keep a slow, steady constant squeezing motion untill the shot fires. Either way don't allow your finger to "bounce" on and off the trigger.
Next I might suggest that you widen your stance a little and be conscious of pressing gently but firmly down with your toes. You may find that you can minimize some of your front to back swaying by doing this.
While your follow through is ok it might not hurt to extend it a little and take time to form a thought as to where you think that last shot went. Comparing where you "called" the shot to where it actually went can help you determine if your natural point of aim is correct and/or if you are jerking the gun at the moment the shot is executed.

Good Luck.

Thank you for the pointers.

The trigger take up is partly old habit and partly an effect of the enormous first stage on this rifle. The second stage is very nice and adjustable but the first stage is what it is. I don't take up the first stage until my NPA has settled, this is what I was taught in the military rifle team. If I want to make a small rear foot adjustment I release the first stage, adjust, then take it up again. Is this a bad habit?

Thanks for the tip on planting the toes. I will practice that as sway seems to be my biggest issue. and I will open my stance. I have a strip of tape on the floor that comes marked in inches and my stance is 21" and I'm 6'. Is there a rough guideline?

SMP,

It6's hard to tell from the video, but you may also have a slight head tilt to the right. This can cause body sway.

You need to keep your eyes and ears level, which may cause you to have to cant the rifle toward your face slightly. Try aiming into mirror, and see if you are level or slightly tilted.

You shoe be able to feel the difference instability when you keep your eys level and cant the rifle.

Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone for the replies and PM's

I put in a long 5 hours today trying to put the comments into practice. I had glimmers of success but overall it was frustrating.

I know I'll have to work on it for some time

One thing I cannot seem to do is bring my left arm more inline/forward without my elbow popping off my hip. If I force it to stay put of course I'm quivering like a disco chicken.

Sean

SMP,

It is definitely difficult to get better without a knowledgeable coach watching your training. Be careful of the advice you receive through forums and other websites because more often than not those giving the advice might be sending you down a rabbit hole if they are giving you the wrong advice for the problem.

With that said, I watched the video and don't worry about the triggering everyone does it different. Don't worry about the head tilt. Some people do it including myself and I shoot 390's offhand in 50m.

The only advice you should be given is to be patient. Without pants and a jacket you loose all the support that helps keep that solid hold. In the position your in there are no glaring weaknesses or flaws. It will come down to excellent shot execution (smooth trigger, waiting for the hold to pause) that will help you get better.

A lot of times shooters will look for things to improve on and like I said before will work on things not needed. Time on the range and learning great shot execution will be your best friend.

Again, be weary of internet advice. You may find yourself in the rabbit hole.

Here to help,
Thatguy

Thank you, agreed not all advice is good advice and not all good advice works for everyone.

And I agree I need some face time coaching and thanks to this thread I may have a good lead. I'm stuck at about 8.9/9.0

I actually have a jacket but when I shot the video I was not wearing it. I get a clearer picture of what I'm doing without the jacket. Does that make any sense?

Big SIGH. Hard to coach from afar, and it's always hard when more than one or two people have opinions, but...you asked. Wonder how far you are from Sudbury; if there, your local Hydro is a customer.

Some thoughts.
1. I'd do away with the eye shade on the rear sight. It may help you with contrast depending on your lighting, but it will cause problems with eye relief and head position.

2. To position...make sure your feet are under your shoulders or slightly wider; the video may be tricking me, but you look "too skinny" and that will cause some wobble. Flat "frankenstein" shooting shoes (or something like that if too expensive) will help with stability.

3. You look as though you could either use a stock riser between the stock and your fist, or a riser under the sights. That will bring your head up slightly and improve your sight picture, your wobble, and you won't be as tired, either.

4. A shooting coat is also going to provide you with some stability, or at least guide you to a more comfortable position. With the coat on, you won't feel your hip anymore, so just concentrate on bringing your arm into your body and bring your fist in like you already are doing.

5. Work on your sight alignment. Once you have your head up higher and the eye shade pulled off, you can work on what feels better and I'd bet your sight picture becomes a bit easier to see, too.

6. Do you wear shooting glasses? What kind of prescription do you have for the glasses you wear in the video? I'm in my 40s and wear bifocals - and they are terrible to shoot iron sights with! With a slight cant, the bull looks like an oval inside the front aperture. Using a single vision lens (I'm nearsighted), I have bent the lens holder on my Jaggi shooting glasses slightly so that the optical angle for my glasses is quite close to parallel to my rear sight aperture. My eye rotates just fine into position, and then the lens does its job in helping me with the sight picture without distorting.

7. Your length of pull (from the end of the stock to the trigger) is slightly shorter than it needs to be. If it was an inch or two longer, it would help your trigger finger as it would rest at a proper 90 degrees versus the trigger shoe. An alternative would be to add riser height to the sights and lower the stock adjuster at your shoulder until your finger is at 90 degrees.

8. Something you might have but we're not seeing is an offhand rest. This allows the shooter to prop up the rifle from the forestock while still using the trigger hand to hold the rifle stable. The rest permits the shooter to relax their support arm between shots and adds to stability.

I think I've hot everything I saw from your video, you did a great job in capturing what you are trying to evaluate. If I had an afternoon to work with you, I think we could get you into the nine ring repetitively!

By the way, what is your typical offhand score?

Todd Ellis

1 Is yr left leg (knee) bent? Cant see. Should be straight.

2 Looks like yr foot/leg position is 'open'. That is, they're not 90 degrees with the line of target. I always learned to start the position on the targetline. Than put yr hindfoot a tad backwards .
But maybe you nééd this open position for yr zero position, I dont know.

Use a mirror; most common fault is the rifle nót being over the middle of the foot but over the toes, which causes front-back whiggling.

Yr resting the rifle off-centre on yr glove. Dunno wether than influences anything, just a notice.

Also, when you wear a sweater and get it up like you did on yr right arm, you might not get consistent shouldering (folding sweaterstuff underneath). All should be smooth

Thats all I could see so quickly.

Thanks for the replies. Here is some more details to clarify things

I live in the area of North Frontenac, Land O Lakes region. I'm about 1 1/2 hrs from Ottawa.
Todd
I've shot 530's for awhile now and I'm stuck.

1) I've taken off the eye shade. It does catch on my glasses

2) I wear skater shoes when I practice in the basement. They have a very flat bottom. My stance was 21" when I shot the vid. I find that the more I open my stance the more problems I have keeping my rear leg straight. My NPA moves right and there is a lot of tension in the right inner thigh. My knee wants to bend to counteract that.

3)Sadly I need to get a new rifle period. I think I have exceeded the abilities of my "practice" rifle. The front tunnel is identical to an FWB 300 and you can't add a riser. I had made a deal with myself that I would invest in a rifle when I hit 550.

4) I have a coat. I'm not wearing it in the video for a couple reasons. The "ways" says to build up a position then add a coat. I think I'm still building. second reason is I'm standing beside the furnace :)....And it's bloody hot.

6) I'm in my 40's as well and I am very far sighted. I can shoot without glasses but I lose the crispness on the foresight...target actually gets sharper.

7) LOP. Thats been mentioned three times now. I will add a 1" extender for a few practice sessions then maybe add a bit more.

8) Yes I have one it's just pulled out of the way for the vid

Yana

Yes you are right my position is "open". I always have a right biased NPA. Without a slightly open position I'm shooting at my neighbors target. I need to be slightly open and adjust my rear foot (toe swivel left) to have a solid NPA.
I've been doing daily stretching to help correct this.

Same with the glove. I need all the left I can get.

The sweater I'm wearing is microfleece underarmor. It has really nice friction similar to my coat for sticking the elbow.

Very good on your responses. N Frontenac is definately in the Great White North, eh. I grew up and started my interest in smallbore shooting down in Rochester.

Yes, you sound like you are at a plateau where adding money to the equation will probably allow you to rise to a 550 score. You are at a point where adding some fine tuning through sight risers on a more ergodynamic rifle platform will help you. That and a jacket, although I can certainly understand the heat issue. You could always move outside!

You might also try wearing some hiking boots (snow boots would be too hot) that provide some ankle support.

Another thought is to add an adjustable rear iris for different lighting environments. If you are always going to shoot in the same environment, perhaps that would not be a good investment, but in my case, the only part of my 1913 that I routinely adjust is the rear iris.

Once those major changes are made and a month or two of sorting out those changes occurs, you might want to consider an adjustable set of shooting glasses to parallel the rear sight. This may help crisp things up and eliminate any distortion that may be fooling your brain.

Telecomtodd wrote: although I can certainly understand the heat issue. You could always move outside!

The heck with that... It was -21 yesterday :~) Lol

Couple thoughts.
Hard to tell when you are getting into the final hold. But it appears that you are holding a LONG time. I was counting about 10 seconds. I would try to get the shot off about 5 or 6 seconds after going into the hold. My wobble gets worse and worse the longer I try to hold.

When you set up to shoot, you naturally wobble then the wobble settles down then increases again.
Have you observed when the wobble is at its least amount? That is when you want to shoot.
For me it is about 4 or 5 seconds after settling in the final hold.
My wobble gets worse and worse the longer I try to hold much beyond that.

Out of curiosity, have you bench rested the rifle and shot for group size?
The idea here is to determine if the pellet/rifle combination (w/o your hold affecting it) will give you a tight group. If the group is not tight, then you are already starting out behind the curve and are giving up points. You need to find a pellet that will shoot the tightest group in your rifle.

Yes I have noticed that my wobble settles then rises again.

Some of those long holds are due to me adjusting my rear toe to get my NPA on target. Unfortunately the lens does not have enough angle to show my feet.

I come from a light benchrest background. The rifle is a cheap knock off but it's pure custom inside.
It has a custom made regulator
velocity adjuster
Walther Lothar barrel

I have tuned the velocity and harmonic to Meisterkugelns which were the best of test.

It's far from a match gun in every way but it will shoot a 10 every time...unfortunately I can't :(
Further developments:
I practiced yesterday with my rear foot further behind my forward foot. Almost inline with the instep and that seems to have helped my right biased NPA and added stability. Mechanically that doesn't make sense as moving the rear foot back should bring me more to the right but it's working.
Today I will add a 1" LOP extension that I milled last night

I actually have a similar issue; my zero is always too far right. I díd notice however, that a large parts is caused by the way I hold my left hand under the rifle. When its positioned straight, my zero changes with it.

About yr hind knee bending. This usually happens when you dont keep yr upper body in line with yr under body. That is, yr hip turns ín wíth yr upperbody. Than its nearly impossible to hold yr hind leg straight. You can prevent yr hip from moving with, by putting tension on yr buttocks when you turn in yr upper body.(and let go afterwards)

As for the tension in yr inside leg; try and play with yr leg/foot stance. Wider, smaller, foot more straight forward, or less..
Yes, moving the rear foot backwards adds stabilty cause it makes yr underbody make a countermovement vs yr upperbody. So to speak..

Also, VERY important I noticed regarding holding still the rifle: NO tension in yr left arm! Let the rifle rest bone on bone!
When you build up yr stance, check for any strain that should be there and let it go.

Also good for practise: train yr balance with a balanceboard or something.

Hope this helps.