6 hours of spraying weeds from an ATV in the hot sun took its toll today.
As a storm approached from the west, I knew spraying was over, but had a small window for shooting. No time for dry fire pregame warm up, just on to the main event. Winds 5-10mph from my 7-8 o'clock. 12" plates, PRS-type tie breaker stage.
Right target at 375 yards.
Center target at 380 yards.
2 left plates at 385 -- one for the PRS stage and one for group.
Rock River AR15 with Hornady 75 Black

So...10 rounds at 385. I held 2 MOA below the top of the plate, and a little left of the left edge -- depending on wind calls. Dipshit -- I threw the first round high, then settled down. I should have warmed up. All 10 rounds with a vertical dispersion of 4.7 inches. Rounds 2-10 have vertical dispersion of 3 inches.



OK, on to the PRS stage, Lewinski kneeling, with a wood barrier for support. Not my day -- I was the bug, not the windshield. I couldn't hit shit. So I decided to make a run from prone. Target order was:
R-C-L-C-R brief pause R-C-L-C-R. Must hit the plate to move on. IIRC it's 65-75 79 yards laterally from the Right to Left target, with the center target right in the middle.

It took me a total of 12 rounds to make the 10 hits -- 2 misses on the first five targets. 31 seconds for the first five targets, 24 seconds for the second five targets -- 55 seconds total. That's all for the day. Thunderstorm about to hit, and the cattle are wandering towards my shooting lane.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fritz,

Back again to the same shooting location and targets. PRS-type stage, but 385 yards to the only targets I shot at. I hung targets on Saturday, but no storms appeared and I worked all day. Sunday started cold enough to require a Gore-Tex shell over a denim jacket -- foggy, with 25-30mph winds. Then it got brutally hot. Later storms threatened. "It was a dark and stormy afternoon. Suddenly a shot rang out. A car door slammed..."

This time I tried the tripod, from reverse kneeling. Looking for better results than last time from the wood barrier. Winds were 10-15mph from 3 o'clock at the shooting location, maybe 5mph higher at the targets. Ugh, this isn't going well. Went to prone to confirm wind & elevation dope. Turns out the Hornady 75 black was impacting 3/4 MOA higher than last week. I don't often shoot these targets from this location, but it appears between wind effects from terrain, and bullet climb for a right twist into a right wind, POI was higher. Oh well.



The confirmation from prone, once I figured out the day's dope. 13 hits from 13 shots. POA 2 MOA below top of plate. 3.75" vertical and 6.75" horizontal dispersion. I was definitely holding off plate to the right, and trying to judge wind speed from the grass around the target.

-- (see the square plate on the right, below)

I walked to the prone target, doing weed work as I went. On the way back, the day's multiple rounds of severe storms started brewing. Yeehaw, perfect practice conditions. Wind speeds increased by maybe 5mph, intermittent light rain, lightning to my north.



Winds were too gusty to make the PRS-type stage reasonable -- alternating between the 3 targets of 375/380/385 yards, laterally separated by 79 yards. So I decided to go reverse kneeling from the tripod on one plate, hopefully minimizing the wind effects on me. I landed 11 rounds, missing maybe 4 or 5 times -- I didn't have a full 20-round mag. The misses were a bit challenging to spot in the grass, but they appeared to be level with the shots that landed. Winds were definitely causing my tripod-supported shooting position to wobble left and right. 6.75" vertical and 10.75" horizontal dispersion on the diamond target. POA was level with the 3 and 9 o'clock target points.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fritz,

On to using a tripod leg for rear support. I've done this regularly for some matches, but it turns out I was just a bit rusty. I used some duct tape to hold the buttstock in place while I took the picture -- my left hand has that duty while shooting. Wind in my face this time. I estimated it at 7-12 mph, varying regularly, fishtailing from 11 to 1 o'clock. This easterly wind was a precursor to the afternoon's thundershowers, which came in from the northwest.



I set five 12" plates. Left to right... 347 yards, 320, 306, 307, and 275 yards. From left to right is about 50 yards. The drill was to shoot left to right, one shot per plate, then back to the left target and repeat. I started with a single 5-target run. It didn't go well. Same with run #2. Missing targets left, right, and high. Ugh. Back to basics, I'll concentrate on technique and shoot just the 307 yard plate. 13 of 13 rounds, 6" vertical and 8.75" horizontal dispersion. Not my best results, but back to the 5-target array.

Looking better, with 10 for 10. 27 seconds for the first five, 8 seconds to reposition the tripod and get back on the left target, 26 seconds for the second five. 61 seconds total. OK time, but not the best hit locations on all the plates.

Back to basics again, concentrate on technique and shoot just the 306 yard plate. 13 of 13 rounds, 4" vertical and 6.75" horizontal dispersion. Mo' better, but still feeling my technique needs some tuning. Hornady 75 black for all these shots.

On to pasture work for a while, then carried a plate out to 478 yards. I was out of Hornady 75, but had some FGMM 69. I burned 5 rounds on the 320 yard plate to settle down the barrel from an ammo change. Still using a tripod leg for rear support.

Winds were still likely in the 7-12mph ballpark, but the direction shifted a bit to my 10-12 o'clock. Clouds were definitely building. I held 1 MOA below the top edge, but rounds were centered 1/2 to 3/4 MOA higher -- just barely on the plate. Could be the MV issues of this barrel, but more likely just my typical error of sending rounds higher than POA. I landed 12 of 15 rounds, with the misses appearing to go left and right of the plate at about the same elevation as the impacts. I was holding off plate (to the left) for all shots. Wind calls were getting tough. 4.75" vertical and 10" horizontal dispersion.



I keep thinking this barrel could go tits up at any moment, but it continues to hang in there.

Alright, fritz is officially making me feel like a turd. Good shooting, sir. Motivating.

Well, fritz' motivation resulted in a typical humbling experience for me.

A somewhat recent outing taught me that the overwhelming majority of circumstances likely won't permit a nice prone position. Factors like terrain and vegetation will probably prohibit a line of sight from a prone position. No wonder those PRS guys shoot from all those funny positions!

So, since I am not about to shell-out for a proper tripod, I fashioned a packable tree trunk prop, using a ratchet strap and a bracket from a lawn tool storage rack.

I'll appeal to sigfreund's good nature, to get some pictures posted.

I established a 10rd course of fire consisting of the following: A target, 160M away, with ten ~1MOA aiming points. Five rounds fired from the kneeling position, and five from the standing position. Using the prop for both positions. The kneeling was on both knees.

My starting position was looking over the top of the gun, with the scope on its bottom end of 8.5x, at the target area. On the beep, I dropped into the scope, acquired the target, cranked magnification up a bit, and fired.

Times:

Kneeling
1: no time due to poor timer placement
2: 9.45
3: 10.05
4: 11.00
5: 8.62
Standing
6: 11.74
7: 10.25
8: 9.33
9: 9.18
10: 8.46

Hits were not good. As far as I can tell, the 7th shot was completely absent from the target; it was a big target. I was not using the rifle's preferred ammo, but that's no excuse for these results at this range.

More practice is in order, and I do think a better trigger starts to show more of its worth in these circumstances. Thank you, all, for the continued motivation.

Pictures for KSGM.

Thank you, Sir.

As you can see, performance on the target was poor. Certainly not precision.

I am really only guessing as to which shot is which. I know number one is correct, as I saw that strike in the bright tape.

The target was down in the dark pocket, off the right hand scope turret, in the image taken from behind the gun.

If they were all in the radius established by the second shot, I'd be happy. Got some work to do.

You’re welcome.

Although someone like fritz may chime in, I see that most of your hits were very low while some hits were dead on. My first thought, therefore, is that you’re pushing forward or at least tensing up to anticipate the recoil and thereby dropping the muzzle just as you pull the trigger. In my experience, just concentrating on good follow through can help with that. And by follow through, concentrate on pinning the trigger to the rear, and without moving anything else besides the trigger. Being on a balanced rest like that makes it easy to unintentionally rotate the muzzle down at the shot.

Pinning the trigger to the rear seemed to help me, and I believe the reason was that now I was concentrating on something that was going to happen after the shot rather than the shot itself.

Perhaps you’re already doing that, but if not, I recommend giving it a try. There’s nothing difficult about “follow through,” just recognition of what it is, and then focusing on achieving it for each shot.

And kudos to you for making the effort to become proficient shooting from an elevated supported position like that. As I’ve probably posted before, being able to shoot from the prone in any sort of field situation is usually impossible, and that’s why I practice so much using a tripod for support either kneeling or standing.

I just got back from a 50+ round session shooting a 22LR rifle at small steel “egg” targets from about 35 to 100 yards using a tripod and Arca head clamp. In the past I’ve usually added support by bracing the stock at the rear with shooting sticks. Today, though, I decided it was time to follow the example of the USSS snipers and use only the tripod for support. Of the five 10-shot strings I fired I got nine of 10 targets once and all 10 targets with 12 rounds once. So keep after it.

I will definitely apply the trigger-pinning follow through on my next go-round. Thank you.

I am not going to shoot this rifle from the prone again. I have proven its accuracy and gathered my DOPE. I will only shoot from alternative positions for the foreseeable future, as I believe it's much more relevant practice.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KSGM,

So, out of curiosity, I performed the same drill with my "general purpose carbine". I hope y'all can help me make sense of the results.

My times were about 65% better. This is no doubt influenced by the lack of magnification manipulation, and the more rapid acquisition enabled by 4x with a wide FOV.

The precision was apparently worse. All ten shots were accounted for, but they look more like a shotgun blast on the target board, where the .308 hits were more-or-less "linkable" to their POA.

The apparent lack of precision could in-part be an effect of the more obtuse crosshair in the Elcan Specter.

The purpose of my upping the magnification before the shot, with the .308, was to simulate what I thought might be a realistic practice in a longer range engagement. If I am overlooking a certain area of known distance, scanning both inside and outside the glass, I think I'd have the magnification set low, to give me a wider FOV. If presented with a target, I think I'd want to zoom in a bit, to make better use of my optic's potential, for the shot itself. Is that right, in your experience?

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
A somewhat recent outing taught me that the overwhelming majority of circumstances likely won't permit a nice prone position. Factors like terrain and vegetation will probably prohibit a line of sight from a prone position. No wonder those PRS guys shoot from all those funny positions!
So, since I am not about to shell-out for a proper tripod, I fashioned a packable tree trunk prop, using a ratchet strap and a bracket from a lawn tool storage rack.

It's good to get outside of our comfort zones, and that's often when we find areas that can be improved upon.

How's the stability of that Rubbermaid (I think) hook & strap system? I might consider that for shooting from a few telephone poles that cross my primary shooting pasture. Barrier types are limited more by our imagination than our pocket books. Much can be done with trees, rocks, berms, and left over whatevers.

The best PRS-type shooters have developed very solid shooting fundamentals. They are so consistently accurate from prone that match coordinators had to throw in increasingly funky shooting stages to separate scores for those at the top. Especially for locations where wind and terrain variations aren't part of the mix, shooting from less-than-stable positions and tight time windows have become the norm. Allow these guys a prone position on a 500 yard target and the question isn't if they'll hit the plate, but rather what part of the plate they want to hit.

As we move away from stable prone & bench shooting positions, fundamentals become increasing key in our ability to reliably hit targets.
- Natural Point of Aim. Align rifle to target, align body to rifle. 1st test is closing your eyes, going through a couple of breathing cycles, open eyes, and see if reticle remains on target. 2nd test is dry firing. Does the reticle remain rock solid on POA at all times.
- Sight picture. Eye in center of eye box -- no shadowing. Parallax is set as best as possible.
- Breathing. Break the shot at the brief respiratory pause at the bottom of the breathing cycle. Not always possible to do, but a good place to start.
- Trigger control. Break the shot straight to the rear, without causing any movement in the rifle.
- Follow through. Pin the trigger to the rear throughout the recoil cycle. Keep the sights exactly on POA throughout the recoil cycle.
With less-than-stable positions, it becomes harder to accomplish all of the above fundamentals. But the closer we can get to accomplishing them, the more likely POI will equal POA.

I don't recommend eliminating stable shooting positions from your mix going forward. Stable positions are where the fundamentals are first perfected. From there, we can adapt to increasingly more challenging positions.

I suspect you're trying to make too large of leap all at once. Eliminate the time requirements for now. Eliminate futzing with the scope. Add dry firing to the mix. Lots of dry firing. Get comfy with one variation (standing, kneeling, or whatever), and produce some repeatable results. One step at a time.

*******
I haven't shot for the past couple of weeks at our ranch, even though I packed a rifle and had some targets set up. It's high weed control season and time is of the essence -- play time took a back seat to work. But I did finally set up target T-post locations for barrier practice, even sending a few rounds on steel with a 22lr to confirm locations. I will dedicate this area for 22lr and 9mm PCC practice. This is a 22-foot-long trunk portion of a large tree that snapped from a spring storm. The log is 24" high on the right side where it's on the ground (out of the picture), and maybe 10' of the tree trunk is still standing. The top left side is 54" off the ground, which is just right for a standing position. I sunk 7 short yellow T-posts for steel targets, with distances to the trunk of 38 to 88 yards. From where from I took the picture, I believe 5 T-posts are visible -- mainly over the left third of the log. Depending on the which part of the trunk I might shoot from, only 2-5 targets are visible.

I'm looking forward to barrier practice here. Low noise from subsonic suppressed ammo. Many variations on shooting positions. Many shot-and-move options. I can hang relatively large targets and work on speed. Or I can hang relatively small plates and work on accuracy. Fairly quick setup & tear down -- especially compared to setups of targets hundreds of yards out.

June 2024, 50 yards, concrete bench, heavy front rest, rear squeeze bag
Anschutz 1913 with Weaver 6X24 fine crosshair 1/4 min dot on 24X,
Walther KK200 with Leupold 6.5x20 with fine crosshair 1/8th min dot on 20X,
old ( > 20 years) Lapua Multi Match Ultra L .22LR, ten round groups except as noted

With 1913, bright morning, calm wind, temp in 90's, very humid:


With Walther KK200, a week later, slightly overcast, calm air, 90's, very humid:
1st target, sighters only 5 rounds

Second target

Wow! Those are some nice groups, especially for 10 rounds.

I watch a lot of videos of people shooting different guns and 22 Long Rifle ammunition, and those are at the top of the best I have seen.

Thanks for posting.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
June 2024, 50 yards....

Some very fine shooting.

Finally, a short break. Prone with bipod & rear bag. Started with winds of 5-15mph from my 6-7 o'clock, varying constantly as usual. 320 yards, 2.75" vertical, 10 rounds. Holds varied from center of plate to the 9 o'clock point. Maybe 4-5 rounds of dry fire to warm up, but otherwise straight from 1 & 2/3 days of ranch work. Cold clean bore.

Shooting from barriers sucks. This one from 29" high on the barrier, reverse kneeling, no bags, pulling back on the rifle -- using the bipod legs as a stop.





The clock wasn't running, but I didn't have long pauses between shots. Just concentrating on technique and breaking shots when they felt right in breathing cycles. 320 yards, FGMM 69, 12 rounds with 4.5" vertical. Pretty much same wind conditions as the prone shooting above.

My bad tendency to shoot high from barriers is evident here, and I even dropped the turret's elevation a bit.

More manual weed work, then back to shooting. Winds now shifted to 7-8 o'clock, still 5-15mph, and I know I will be holding off-plate at times. From the 22" high ledge -- down & right of the last shooting -- sitting, no bags, and again pulling back on the rifle, bipod acting as a stop. 320 yards, 10 rounds, 4.25" vertical. I reduced elevation on the turret a bit more.

Then...more weed work, and I'm getting tired. From the same 22" high barrier ledge, no bags. This time Lewinski kneeling, pressing forward on the rifle, with the magwell serving as a stop. This is a position often used in PRS matches when the ground is sloping upward -- say, from a simulated roof peak. And if possible, with a pump pillow bag or similar for rear support. The ground is sloping downward here, no rear bag, and I'm quite fatigued. Practice what you suck at.

So....the results aren't as good. Lots of vertical scope wobble, mainly from breathing, but with "help" from tired arms & back. But things were going OK for awhile. I thought I counted 11 rounds of acceptable results, and figured why not go for a dozen. Turns out I had already fired 12 rounds, with the "just one more" being number 13.

Here's a classic teaching moment. We're shooting groups on paper from a bench rest. 4 rounds are in a nice tight group, and we're uber certain we can sneak shot #5 right in the middle of that purdy cluster. We go brain dead, thinking about the anticipated results instead of consistently applying shooting fundamentals. Bam -- the last shot goes into the next county. Craptastic. Well that was me. 12 challenging rounds with 6" vertical, I go frickin' brain dead, slap the trigger on #13 during vertical wobble, and send the round high. Yep, see the paint chip on the right edge of the 12 o'clock point -- I barely nicked the edge of the plate.

There we have it. 13 rounds with an ugly vertical variation of 8.5". The first 12 rounds with an acceptable (all things considered) vertical variation of 6". Dipshit.

Thanks for showing what can be done, fritz, and for showing how things can go awry.
Inspiring results.