There has been a lot of discussion about various aspects of marksmanship and we sometimes cover the same points again, in various threads. My motivation for starting this thread is to try to gather the various aspects of marksmanship into one thread dedicated to marksmanship; nothing to do with calibers, bullets, scope brands, rifle brands and so on. Here I want to talk about the nut behind the rifle and how to use that rifle.

I will talk from a prone competition POV as well as shooting from a bench but it would be great to have other positions discussed, sort of the Kama Sutra of riflery.

For the record, I am right-handed and right-eye dominant. Let’s begin.
Preliminaries
In order to get really good with a rifle, you need to have the interface between you and it down pat. What this means is that you have to adapt to the rifle or adapt the rifle to you. I find that it is easier to adapt the rifle to me because I am old and set in my ways. If you build a precision or match rifle, make sure you can adjust it to you. A hunting, or SD rifle is used much differently than a match rifle because its purpose is different.

Getting Behind the Rifle
For example, when I get down behind my rifle in a match, I will be shooting a minimum of 20 rounds in 20 or 30 minutes. Each shot will be scored and recorded and I will be expecting the maximum precision for each shot. This means I want to be comfortable lying down with my rifle for 30+ minutes, I want to minimize or eliminate moving around much and I don’t want to get hurt by the rifle doing those 20 shots. In a day match, I will do this three times. In a multi-day match, I will do this for several days, as well as other competitor duties. I do not want to be tired by each string and again, I don’t want to get bruised, because that will accumulate over the strings, days and so on.

I have nothing on the rifle that is not critically needed for that string (20 rounds.) I have cases behind me with all manners of tools and trinkets, etc, but the rifle itself is very uncluttered; no laser, lights, cappuccino machines, etc. The stock of my rifle has an extremely smooth satin finish. There is no glare or roughness anywhere. The stock has an adjustable cheekpiece that it set to interface with my face (get it?) We’ll be back to that shortly. The pistol grip is very large to match my very long fingers and allows me to grip the rifle with ease and can keep that grip for as long as needed. We’ll talk about that some more also.

The butt of the rifle is adjustable for length, height and angle. I’m a tall person and the length of pull is longer when shooting from prone, so that butt is adjusted for me and it does not suit a shorter person. This adjustment is extremely critical if you want to control the rifle properly during follow through.
In an F-Class match, I set up my position the same way every time and my rifle is on its bipod and rear rest before I get down alongside it. I lie parallel to the rifle with my legs straight back behind me. My ammo box is on my right just beyond the elbow pad and my spotting scope is on my left with the eyepiece a little further back compared to the riflescope.
My left arm controls the joystick of the Joy-pod or plays with the rear rest if I’m using any other bipod, that arm does not touch the rifle while shooting. I have other items that I use when shooting and we will discuss them as needed.
My right hand will only be used to load ammo and pull the trigger. Once I’m in position behind the rifle, I will not move from that position. If I do, something is very wrong.

Natural Point Of Aim
Let’s now talk about Natural Point of Aim (NPA). Try this the next time you get down behind the rifle. Close your eyes and then interface with the rifle and then just cozy up to it. Make sure you have it pointed in such a way that you can keep pointing it there, with little or no effort at all on your part. Get it in a position that you know you can hold for hours without any fatigue or shake. Then open your eyes and see where the rifle is pointing.

Before I start firing, I verify my NPA and then if I detect any tension in my body while looking through the riflescope in shooting position, I will fix it. You want to be totally calm and stress-free before shooting. If you have to pull the rifle, crink your neck or reach with the elbow, you need to fix that. The issue is if I have to strain anywhere at NPA, it’s not going to stay constant and it will become an irritant I don’t need. When shooting team, you have to be ready to break the shot on command and that can take some time. If you are straining, you will be tired very quickly and start shaking. That’s not good. If you’re shooting individual, you may be looking over the rifle, through the spotting scope or through the riflescope, but while YOU control the time to get the shot off, you do not want to be straining and holding either.

Looking Through the Riflescope
I’m a big believer in quality glass, as I explained in my riflescope primer thread, but one of the reasons I did not mention is less eye fatigue. When I spend a lot of time looking through a scope, if the image is fuzzy or dark, I find that my eye gets tired more quickly than when I’m looking through very nice glass. However, that said, I try to not stay focused on the crosshair and exact target center; every 4-5 seconds, I will let my eye roam around looking around the target, but not at it. It is critical that you keep breathing properly while looking through the scope. The way the eye works, if you stop normal breathing it gets affected quickly and we don’t want that. We will talk about breath control later, but for right now, just know that you must keep breathing normally looking through the scope. Take a break every few seconds to let the eye wander a bit, then come back to the target if you’re ready to shoot.

Breaking the Shot
There’s an old saw about pulling the trigger until you are surprised by the shot. Don’t do that. Every time you break the shot, it must be at the precise time YOU want. The best practice for that is dry-fire. Dry-fire a lot. The dry-fire some more.
Here is my shot sequence: I’m on target behind my rifle and I have decided to take the shot. I close the bolt, and get behind the riflescope at the same time. My trigger finger is NOT in the trigger guard and has not been in there since the last time it pulled the trigger.
I finalize my hold on target with the joystick, still breathing normally, and then my finger goes on the trigger, making sure not to touch any part of the rifle. The pad is on the trigger. I am taking the shot. The rifle fires and my eye registers where the dot was when the rifle fired. I let the rifle push into my shoulder and then settle down. I’m looking at my target waiting for it to go down with my finger out of the trigger guard. When I see my target go down, I lift the bolt handle with my thumb and pull back the bolt with my thumb and then I pick out the case from the bolt (no ejector.) I put the case in my ammo box and pick out a fresh cartridge and deposit it in the action port. While I’m doing that, I am looking at the flags to see if anything changed. Then I transition to my spotting scope to check mirage and plan my next shot. When the target comes back up, I examine it and the results factor in my plot for the next shot and I start the drill over as my scorer calls out the value and the shot number.

Next we will drill down into various areas.

At the Bench

Setting up at the bench is a little different for me, and I don't have anywhere near the "trigger time" at a bench compared to shooting prone.

I actually have more difficulty getting setup on a bench for several reasons, one of which is that I am tall and benches around here are made for munchkins. Short ones. The stools usually available are small, short and wobbly to boot. However, once I work through the various contortions to get properly behind the rifle, things become familiar again, except how I use my spotting scope. Since I only use a bench for load development, the use of the spotting scope is not critical or even important.

Interlude
When I used to frequent public ranges, they all had benches and I noticed something that I found very strange. A shooter would get on the rifle properly, aim, fire and immediately look up to see the target. I could not understand why, because unless the shooter has telescopic eyes, there was no way to see the result on the target. Many would then get back on the rifle and gaze through the scope to see if they could discern something on the target. But they always popped up after the shot.

There is no way to do a proper follow through if you have trained your body to pop up immediately after taking the shot. As you pull the trigger, your muscles are already getting ready to pop you up. You need to keep your head down, don't move and let the rifle do its thing and then you do your thing. Follow through is critical to proper marksmanship.

Back at The Bench
Because my left arm is not on the ground, I wrap it around the rear rest or something. One thing I make sure is to not touch the rifle with my left hand in any way when I shoot. I let the bipod and rear rest hold the rifle. My shoulder is behind the stock and my cheek is on the stock and the right hand will pull the trigger gingerly.

Keep it coming. We're all sitting quietly waiting the next installment.

RMD

Great stuff Nikon as usual.

A question for you...

When firing from prone do you put the butt into the "pocket" of your shoulder or roll it up higher on to the top of your shoulder? What is your preferred spot for the stock placement?

Thank guys, appreciate the thoughts.

As for the stock's contact with the shoulder, that is one of the difference between shooting prone and shooting from a bench. I much prefer shooting my match rifle prone because it was designed and speced out that way. I have balanced perfectly on my bipod so that it slides nicely and effortlessly. The buttplate is adjusted and canted so that it fits me.

The butt is actually touching mu shoulder a little above the pocket. It's where the slope from the neck becomes flat, before the arm socket, on the clavicle.

I have the buttplate oriented such that the top part is actually canted away from me, That way it just fits me nicely and the rifle recoils straight back.

Next up will be more about setup and dry firing.

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
Keep it coming. We're all sitting quietly waiting the next installment.

RMD

Agreed!

Thank you NikonUser

I do the initial zero from the bench, then it is mostly prone, ain't no benches in the field.

Yes, I understand that. I do initial load development at the bench, because I have all sorts of junk around me when I do that.

Dry Firing or Developing Muscle Memory
Most of us have heard about the steps one needs to go through before firing, to make sure everything is fine and consistent. Some examples of this are “breathe in and out, hold your breath or release some or inhale more, check the rearview mirror, make sure you’re not moving, then start, squeezing keeping the trigger finger off the stock and find the release point, etc.”

Who has time for this in a competition? So many things to check and you get them out of sequence and restart, or you fumble something. What you’re doing is consciously set up every shot and micromanage the whole operation. What you’re not doing is paying attention to the conditions and the target so everything is jerky.

We’ve all heard the expression, “smooth is fast.” What that really means is that actions taken by muscle memory are smooth and efficient. You need to develop muscle memory for your basic marksmanship so you can concentrate on the things that require higher brain functions to do, such as reading conditions.

The most efficient way of building muscle memory is to dry fire. A lot. It is best to dry fire from the position in which you will be shooting, but any position is better than no dry-firing. You start by just dry-firing the weapon (any firearm,) and get to know exactly when the trigger will release. When I shot revolvers a lot, I could easily pull the trigger in DA and hold just before it released the hammer. I can still do it even 25 years after I stopped shooting revolvers in competition. Once learned, it stays with you unless you work at replacing it. (You walk without consciously controlling the movement of your legs.)

This is why people have a tough time breaking habits, once they are ingrained or learned, it’s difficult to change them. Not impossible, but difficult. It has been said that in the military, they have an easier time of training somebody to shoot well if that person has never shot before. That’s because they don’t have to unlearn stuff.

So if you want to be a top shooter, you need to learn or relearn how to do this, and it’s easier if you have someone watch you while you’re doing it and point out things you do wrong. But you can train on your own. After all, we here at SigForum are all expert shooters from birth. (Huge chuckle.)

To train on your own, you have to be very analytical and very self-aware. That’s difficult, I’m here to tell you; it’s much easier and more efficient with a teacher or a trainer. There’s a reason these training programs exist.

In F-class, especially at the local club level, we help each other and we exchange ideas and concepts all the time. I’ve lost track of the number of times, I’ve noticed something being done by a shooter and before I critique, I ask if he or she wants to hear about it. The answer is invariably yes and then we just discuss it matter-of-factly. I have had others come to me and point things out that I am doing wrong. Being on a team helps a lot. If you have ego problems, take up golf.

So after you get familiar with your trigger, get on the ground and develop your position. If you’re going to shoot with a bipod and a rear rest, bring them out. If you have a mat, bring it out also. If you’re shooting with sling and coat, ditto. You want to start doing dry fire exercises in the position that you will be using. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR AMMUNITION IN THE NEXT ROOM OR FARTHER AWAY.

So set up on the ground or a table and aim at the wall or whatever object you can distinguish in the scope. Next slowly go through your pre-shot regimen, whatever you think is best. Think about every step, monitor what you’re doing and just do it. So, get behind the rifle, find the most comfortable position and establish your NPA. Aim, and do whatever breathing thing you want while watching through the scope and when you’re ready to shoot, put the trigger finger in the trigger guard and press the trigger as you now know to do so that the firing pin moves at the exact moment you want it to. Hold that position for 2-3 seconds and then operate the bolt and repeat. Do this slowly and make sure you do all the steps you want.

Rinse, reload and repeat. A lot. If you find there are somethings you can do to economize movement, look for them and try them out. I mentioned earlier that I can open my bolt with the back of my thumb and then pull it back the same way. This way, I don’t have to get on my elbows to do all this, I just slide my hand back. Like a very lazy person. Economy of movement. Smooth. Depending on your sport, do this drill for the duration of the timeframe you will be doing it for real. For me, that would be 30 minutes at a time. If you detect some discomfort, figure it out and fix it.

Do this every night and twice on Sundays. Always the same way, slow and methodical. At some point you will stop thinking about all the details and you will be able to concentrate on holding that reticle on target and breaking the shot exactly when YOU want and do your follow through.

Let me add another twist. In F-class, we have to clear the firing line when we are finished shooting and we have 3 minutes or so to setup before shooting starts. If your sport requires you to walk 200 yards and take some shots, start doing the same thing (Biathlon anyone?) What I’m getting at here, is that you may be out of breath or harried or tense from pre-firing activities. You need to practice the way you will be shooting.

After decades of competition, I find that my heartrate and breathing automagically calm down when I get behind my rifle. It’s nothing that I control consciously, it was learned. I just noticed it at some point. I don’t think about it, it just is. The fastest way to get there is to do the same thing every time, before, during and after. Over and over again.

Beyond Muscle Memory
Please make sure that you are doing everything you think needs doing except for actually getting the rifle to fire and push back into you. Doing all this above present the real danger of developing a bad habit and you’ll have to unlearn it. A good way would be to video an entire session and then study it to see if you’re moving your legs or bobbing your head or some silly things. Address it and solve it.

I had one guy who always lifted his left leg when he was getting ready to take the shot. I had another who was doing deep breathing exercises just before the shot. I had yet another who grabbed the joystick just as he broke the shot. They never saw it, but others including me, did. When told about it, they worked on getting that fixed. I’ve had to remind them several times before they cured it.

When you look at a top F-class or sling shooter (and probably a sniper), if you didn’t hear the muzzle blast and notice the recoil, you could not tell that they took the shot, until they start moving to reload.

Great information. I'm curious if on the bench do you get "behind" the rifle just like when prone or do you sit somewhat perpendicular like I see some doing?

I try to get behind it as much as I can. Anything else feels "weird," and that impacts performance.

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to tweak my prone setup based on your thoughts above. I find myself using the bipod and rest to get in the general direction then it's more of a balancing act of squeezing here, forward pressure there and timing...followed by fingers crossed.

For many years, my bipod was a regular model without the joystick, so I was constantly squeezing the rear bag. But I was very good at it; my left arm was under my chest and I used two fingers to squeeze the ears. I learned to time my squeezing of the left hand with the squeezing of the right hand and could freeze for the shot.

When I got the Joy Pod, I actually stopped using it for 6 months because I was having problems adjusting to it and the Nationals were coming up. After I shot the Nationals, I got the Joy Pod out again and learned to adapt to it. After a while, I caught on.

The Proper Task for the Proper Hand.

Earlier I mentioned eliminating any tension that you identify in your body in order to get the most consistent shooting posture. I forgot to mention that this goes double for the hands. When I shoot prone, the only task my right hand is doing at firing time, is pressing the trigger; it is NOT involved in any way in aiming the rifle or holding it on target.

The left hand placed the sights exactly where I want them to be and if I'm using a Joystick, my left hand is flat on the ground, no longer touching the Joystick. If I'm squeezing a bag, the left hand just froze in place while the shot takes place.

This is going to be difficult to learn because it seems so weird and counter-intuitive but after a while you will learn to relax and freeze on the rifle and even though you have a full grip on the rifle, it's as if you're holding a bird.

You also want to be "on the rifle" so that it doesn't slam into you when you fire. Yeah, yeah; a .308 is tame and you're just a wuss afraid of a little recoil. I am here to tell you that when you're shooting from prone, you get the full recoil, far more than shooting from standing, sitting or kneeling. I shoot 210gr bullets at near .300 Win Mag velocities and yes, the rifle is heavier than a regular rifle, but it's not that much heavier and it's not just one round or three. It's a minimum of 22 per string. Recoil accumulates and you want to eliminate or at least, reduce it. Recoil fatigue is insidious.

Attitude is Critical

When you get to a certain point in your marksmanship training/education/formation, you begin to rely on your last sight picture to inform you as to where the impact will be. It doesn’t happen all the time, or some days, not even most of the time, but after a while you discover than the shots are going pretty much where you think they were going to go. When you get a surprise on the target, that’s when you face the possibility that you either did not see a condition change or something else went wrong. Let’s deal with the second option here, because the first one falls under conditions reading and that’s a whole ‘nother subject, as they say.

For the second option above, the issues could be: inconsistent ammo (scary,) something you did and did not discern at the time of the shot, or “just one of those things.” I said the first one was scary because that calls into question all your loading regimen and if you can’t trust your ammo, you’re done.

If it’s something you did, you need to figure it out and deal with it. By this time, your body should be on automatic, unless you forced yourself into doing it consciously. If you think you did something wrong, correct it but don’t break your current method. This can be very difficult, but you have to be smart about this. Don’t change your entire body position for one shot, but record it in your mind for future reference. This is complicated to explain, but you need a lot of self-awareness and that’s something most people do not have in large quantities.

And finally we get to “just one of those things.” Here’s a short story for you. At the last match, a short 600 yard F-Class, I was shooting on my target and my scorer was droning on, “10, five on;” “X, six on;” “10, seven on.” In my scope, I’m holding at 10 o’clock, 2 lines out, and the shots are going in the X ring and the 10 ring, also at 10 o’clock. The wind was a little tricky, going back and forth and I was riding a condition. (The X-ring is 3 inches in diameter and the 10-ring is 6 inches in diameter.) The all of a sudden I hear “8, eight on.” Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, I was sure of my sight picture, when I broke the shot and I checked in my spotting scope after I fired to make sure the conditions had changed. The wind had lessened a bit, so I was not sure if the shot had not sneaked into the 9-ring, but the scorer said 8. I placed the cartridge in the action and looked through my spotting scope. There was an 8 at 4 o’clock. Completely away from when I was shooting. This was completely against the conditions and that would have meant I had broken the shot way down and to the right, full 2 MOAs or more away. I have totally faith in my ammo and equipment, the conditions had not changed and I did not think I had baubled the shot in any way. “Just one of those things.” I put all that aside and resumed shooting, aiming at the same place as before. The target went down.

When it came back up, it had two spotters and the scorer for the shooter beside me was calling for a mark on his shooters target. I looked through my scope on his target and sure enough his last shot was on the right. What had happened is that the other shooter had crossfired on my target right at the same time I shot my round and the person in the pits had seen his round and impact and had marked that one. He was only looking for one hole and he marked the first one he saw. When I shot the next time, he saw my shot and since my prior one was right next to it, he saw that one also and marked both, which is what you are supposed to do. The two holes were so close together that the spotters overlapped each other. One was a 9 and the other a 10, but at 10 o’clock. That explained everything.

I resumed shooting and continued holding in the same spot going back and forth between one and two lines out, stopping when the wind was turning and blowing much harder. It was a nasty day but I escaped with a 195. A few years ago, that 8 would have put me in a bad mood and may have affected the rest of the string, but now it doesn’t anymore. It’s very important to develop a positive attitude and develop skills on which you can rely. If you’re always worried about your ammo, your scope, your rifle, and the rest of your equipment, you’re fighting against yourself.

You need to set incremental goals that you can reach, master and then up the ante some more. As you reach these goals, you develop a self-reliance that will enable you to keep progressing. Sure, there are setbacks; everyone can have a bad day, but if you’re confident in your equipment and you marksmanship you regroup and move on.

Here’s a trick on attitude. As I explained earlier, you will reach a point where you know where the shot will be on target, so now you need to start visualizing Xs and 10s in your mind. When you break the shot, your mind sees the spotter in the X-ring and your eyes record the last sight picture. It’s crazy, but it helps. Some days I get “in the zone” and I don’t even know what’s going on around me. I am focused on conditions and target, everything running on automatic. I’ve had the scorer stop me because I had shot my 20 for record, but I was zoning and shooting.
Other days, I’m counting each and every shot and it feels like work. Those are bad days. There aren’t as many as there used to be, but they are not all gone. And that will be the subject for another post.

Nice.

Thanks,

RMD

Yeah, I'm getting a bit esoteric here and getting into the competitor mindset a bit too much I think. But it was fun to write.

Excellent. I'm soaking it up. Thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
Yeah, I'm … getting into the competitor mindset a bit too much I think.

As another member here likes to note about handgun shooting, a gunfight is a “competition.” I believe it can be reasonably claimed that anytime we’re trying to hit a small long distance target, that’s also a competition—against ourselves and all the variables the gods throw at us if nothing else.

Some of what you discuss, such as long strings of fire, may not be completely relevant to other types of shooting that don’t involve bull’s-eyes and formal scoring and rankings, but I am grateful for every bit of the information you provide, and however you present it. Please keep it up!

How was your score affected by the guy putting one of his rounds on your target??

When I was an instructor in the service, IF I or the coach saw the offending round happen and could show on the other guys target missing a round from his target...I would give it to the shooter-meaning I would disregard the errant round out in left field...

Thanks for the nice thoughts guys, I appreciate them.

MikeinNC, very good question. This was in a monthly club match and while I should have challenged the score when the 8 first showed up, I elected to not do that. The puller is 1800 feet closer to the target than I am and it would have slowed up my rhythm and maybe miss the condition. When I fired again, by the strict rules I had accepted the score. When the target came up with the two spotters next to each other and we finally realized that the scorer for the guy next to me had been asking for a mark for a few minutes already, realization set in and my scorer changed the score of the prior shot. In a big match, I might have done something differently, but this was just a club match. It can't affect my NRA rating as I'm already High Master in MR and have been for years. This was really a non-event, scorewise, but it did reinforce that it is critical to believe in your equipment and yourself.

I have challenged scores in the past, so I am not shy about doing that, but I certainly do not make it a habit. In several decades of competition, I have challenged a score less than a dozen times. Heck, I can't remember the last time I did, but it was within the last few years.