quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I’m not sure about the bipod. It was packaged with Rifle. It appears to be a Harris 1A2-BRM, or at least very similar. Dumb question time: the build should be mounted so it folds forward, right? I get what you’re saying that the recoil can move the point of POA/POI, but by the point recoil happens the projectile is already on the way downrange.

I get the “loading” thing, but the rifle is so light I’d think the bipod will just slide forward without a ledge or something to hold it in place. I fire sure need to work on the consistency of body position. I know that varied a lot.

I should have looked at your rifle picture when enlarged -- yes, it does appear to be a Harris. It looks correctly mounted, as the feet fold forward. You can put a lot of forward pressure on a Harris, but doing so may cause it to slide forward. I see you are placing its feet on your ground cloth, which looks to be smooth and slick. I recommend placing the feet in the dirt, forward of the cloth. In both of my pictures above, the bipod feet are not on the ground cloth. In the upper pic, shooting a Harris from smooth concrete can be hard to do without bipod hop. In the lower pic, I dug my Atlas bipod feet into the dirt a bit, then was able to load the bipod without its being able to move forward with the loading.

Place your bipod's feet in the dirt forward of the cloth. Move the bipod around a bit to make divots in the dirt, then add a little forward pressure on the rifle. At first the rifle may just slide through the divots, but if you dirt is somewhat solid, the feet will dig in slightly with some resistance to moving further forward. That's what you want.

Understand that an Atlas bipod has some play in the legs -- essentially a fore-aft wobble. This makes the loading process easier, as the gun can move aft a bit during recoil without moving the feet's contact with the ground. A Harris bipod has almost no fore-aft play, and thus aft movement with the rifle translates to the same aft movement with the bipod. If the bipod feet move/jump/hop to the rear, the POI will likely change from the POA.

*****
The projectile is not yet out of the barrel when much of the recoil process occurs. This is why all the fundamentals of marksmanship are so important. To obtain accurate and repeatable shooting results, the rifle be rock solid for a relatively long time after the trigger has been pressed.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
I should have looked at your rifle picture when enlarged -- yes, it does appear to be a Harris. It looks correctly mounted, as the feet fold forward. You can put a lot of forward pressure on a Harris, but doing so may cause it to slide forward. I see you are placing its feet on your ground cloth, which looks to be smooth and slick. I recommend placing the feet in the dirt, forward of the cloth. In both of my pictures above, the bipod feet are not on the ground cloth. In the upper pic, shooting a Harris from smooth concrete can be hard to do without bipod hop. In the lower pic, I dug my Atlas bipod feet into the dirt a bit, then was able to load the bipod without its being able to move forward with the loading.

Place your bipod's feet in the dirt forward of the cloth. Move the bipod around a bit to make divots in the dirt, then add a little forward pressure on the rifle. At first the rifle may just slide through the divots, but if you dirt is somewhat solid, the feet will dig in slightly with some resistance to moving further forward. That's what you want.

Understand that an Atlas bipod has some play in the legs -- essentially a fore-aft wobble. This makes the loading process easier, as the gun can move aft a bit during recoil without moving the feet's contact with the ground. A Harris bipod has almost no fore-aft play, and thus aft movement with the rifle translates to the same aft movement with the bipod. If the bipod feet move/jump/hop to the rear, the POI will likely change from the POA.

*****
The projectile is not yet out of the barrel when much of the recoil process occurs. This is why all the fundamentals of marksmanship are so important. To obtain accurate and repeatable shooting results, the rifle be rock solid for a relatively long time after the trigger has been pressed.

I'll work on this, thanks. As well as body positioning. I appreciate all the feedback!

As usual we are fortunate to get good advice from fritz who has helped me with my own precision rifle shooting.

But about shooting from a firm rest that eliminates the human factor as much as possible, it’s not only about achieving tiny groups we can hang on the refrigerator to admire later. Although that may be satisfying, a more practical reason is to ensure we know what precision the rifle and ammunition are capable of when we’re shooting under less than ideal conditions.

Pictured are three groups I fired today with my Ruger 10-22 and CCI Standard Velocity ammunition.

The groups were fired at 50 yards from a bench rest. The scope on the rifle is a Leupold 2-7× and that has a traditional Duplex reticle. A magnification of 7× isn’t any too much for 50 yards, but the diamond shape targets allow pretty good confidence that my points of aim for the series were consistent. The front rest was a couple of soft bags that I squashed down pretty firmly, and again I didn’t feel that that affected my shooting consistency.





Based on crude measurements, the three 10-shot groups ran about 1.4 - 1.5 inches center to center, and what does that tell me? It’s not about being able to brag about what a fantastic rifle I have, but what I should expect from it. These days I’ve been trying to improve my marksmanship kneeling or standing using a single tripod for support by shooting dot drills at 50 yards. If, however, I were using the 10-22 and CC Standard Velocity ammunition to shoot at 1 inch diameter dots and I missed a shot, I wouldn’t know for certain if the fault was mine as the unskilled shooter, or the limits of the rifle and ammunition being used.

I have rifles and ammo capable of hitting 3/4" dots at 50 yards with boring regularity, and if I miss a dot with that combination then I know it’s my fault, and not the rifle’s. On the other hand if I’m trying to hit a 0.75" dot with a gun only capable of 1.5" groups, then I can’t know. The ability to call my shots by where the reticle was pointed when I fired helps, but not as much. I still might fire dot drills with the 10-22, but I’d use targets sized appropriately for its level of possible precision. The rifle might be capable of better precision with an aftermarket trigger, more powerful scope, and better ammunition, but that’s not what I used.

All that may seem obvious when we think about it, but I believe it may emphasize why we want to know how precise are the groups we can get with our rifle and ammunition before we start blaming everything on our own lack of skill.

Anyway, I’ll second the advice to push yourself to be able to shoot well from different positions and not just rely on methods that take most of the human factors out of the equation. Not only is that much more likely to be of practical use if we ever need the skills for something besides punching holes in paper, I find the challenge to be a lot of fun and far more satisfying when I do well.

As another aside, yes, the recoil starts as soon as the projectile starts moving. It’s not much with the 22 LR cartridge, but I believe that one of the reasons why 22 LR rifles can be challenging to shoot is because of the longer time the bullet remains in the barrel as compared with most centerfire cartridges.

It would be interesting to see what the rifle is capable of, at some point... I just think it is clear that, at this time, the limiting factor is me and not the platform. I imagine that with regular practice the moment will come where I am confused at groups and their size given where I knew I was aimed when the shot breaks. However, I'm not there yet.

I just ordered another thousand rounds of the CCI Standard... I've still got a couple thousand on the shelf but it might take a while before I start feeling more comfortable. Perhaps it would be good to bring the target closer to maybe 25 yards for a while to make the aiming portion of it easier?

I do think I found a way to fund a new scope... probably in the $700 ballpark... I'll need to look at options there, as well as mounting options, but we can save that for a different post.