More info on Hard Hold?

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Gun-Handling for Long-Range Benchrest by Jason Baney

Just as every rifle is unique in its load requirements and bedding preferences, one must also hold the rifle the way it likes to be held. You can shoot free recoil, hold hard, or anywhere in between. The Hoovers have a fairly distinctive two-handed shooting style that has proved extremely sucessful for them. But as John Hoover says "this style works great for us, but many great shooters use a different method. You need to try different styles to see the hold best suited to you and your particular rifle."
Basically I see four ways to hold a rifle riding sandbags, but each can be modified to suit your situation.

Free Recoil (FR): finger on trigger only with little or no pressure from your shoulder on the buttstock. The rifle moves on its own, with guidance from the bags until your shoulder resists it enough to stop rearward movement.

Thumb Pressure (TP): In this case, shoulder position is the same as free recoil, but you apply light, consistent pressure with your firing hand thumb. This helps tame a little more recoil energy than shooting FR.

Hard-Hold One-Handed (HH1): Here you have firm contact with the entire shooting hand, and shoulder. Most long-range BR competitors shoot this way. It allows bag-squeezers to reach around and adjust the rear bag with their off hand. This hold will lessen felt recoil more than FR and TP.

Hard-Hold Two-Handed (HH2): I don't think this exists in short range BR, but several successful shooters in long-range BR use this method. This is the same as HH1, with the addition of hanging your non-firing hand on the fore-end. Due to the amount of contact with the stock, this style is undoubtedly the most difficult to do consistently.



Selecting a Shooting Style--Adapting to Stock Design, Balance and Recoil
How you hold your rifle also depends, to a great extent, on the balance and recoil. A rifle that is barrel-heavy and doesn't balance well on the bags will probably not work shooting FR, and will most likely give vertical stringing. Basically FR and TP will be most affected by rifle balance and recoil, while HH1 and HH2 will be mostly affected by shooter consistency. Many folks find it easier to shoot FR (or barely touching) with a low-profile stock with a low center of gravity, such as a Shehane Tracker, Kelbly Klub (Adamowicz design) or the Terry Leonard benchrest stock Joel Kendrick is using in the picture below.

"Free Recoil" probably conjures an image of a nearly flat, low-riding 6PPC with a flashy paint job, but this style is present in long-range BR as well, with more conventionally-shaped stocks. I like to shoot this way, as I want to take out as many variables as possible. It just so happens that my 1000-yard BR rifle also likes to shoot this way, even with a fairly conventional Tracker-MBR stock. The flat in the underside of the stock does help stabilize the rig on recoil.

The best way I have found to discover your optimal hold for maximum precision is to set up a target at several hundred yards (my test was at 400) with several aiming points oriented vertically. This is done so you can dial the front rest up to the next point and fire another group as fast as possible.

I start with a few sighters to get the zero where I want it (just below POI). Then starting with the least contact (FR), shoot a 3-shot group at the bottom (or top) target. Then dial to the next target in line and go to the next hold (TP), then HH1, and HH2 on the remaining targets.

When finished, you should have four 3-shot groups, all with different holds, and should be able to clearly see which hold your rifle likes best. When in doubt, or if two groups are similar, my next step would be to move the targets further out, and shoot more shots in a group to decide between the holds that gave similar results. Try this exercise, and you may find your rifle shoots even better with a different hold!
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Hard-Hold One-Handed (HH1): Here you have firm contact with the entire shooting hand, and shoulder. Most long-range BR competitors shoot this way. It allows bag-squeezers to reach around and adjust the rear bag with their off hand. This hold will lessen felt recoil more than FR and TP.
Click to expand...

This is the most common hold found in Tactical/Sniper style shooting whether off of a bipod,pack, or similar rest.

this is the method myself, and most of the shooters I compete with use.

SKBY.
 
Hard-Hold One-Handed (HH1): Here you have firm contact with the entire shooting hand, and shoulder. Most long-range BR competitors shoot this way. It allows bag-squeezers to reach around and adjust the rear bag with their off hand. This hold will lessen felt recoil more than FR and TP.
Click to expand...

i am not a "tactical" shooter yet or at least not as good as Skullboy and the like, but this is the way i was taught when i was first learning as a kid. i find it is both the most comfortable and stable
 
This is something that I need to try now with my T3 off the bench. The factory stock (synthetic) is pretty easy to twist around, I wonder how it will perform with a solid rest... also waiting for low rings to help solve the cheek weld issue. Right now my sight picture looks a lot like Mel Gibson's perspective after interrogation from Patric Stewart in Conspiracy Theory!
 
Interesting read. So with the normal "hard hold" the non-trigger hand hold the sand bag and squeezes for adjustment. What's the point in having that notch behind the pistol grip on A5 style stocks? I often use my free hand infex the notch to push the stock back and into my shoulder.

Will give the "hard hold" as defined above on the next range trip and see how things go.
 
I usually hook the notch with the web between my thumb and index finger and the bag in the palm of my hand. You get the best of bother worlds then.
 
How hard of a grip is too hard? I know this is a subjective question but I was using the "hard hold" while shooting probe today and was trying to figure the optimum amount of grip. Let's say 10/10 is white knuckle death grip and 1/10 is holding a fly without crushing it.
 
You'll have to figure that out for yourself. An important aspect of any type of hold is making sure you are still very relaxed. So I would just figure out what firm but relaxed is for you and go from there. If any part of you is tensed then your probably holding to hard. Pay close attention to back and shoulders.
 
That makes sense. I started holding harder and harder after my POA moved to the left after each shot off the bipod.

I'm shooting a .223 of a simple bipod and was having trouble keeping my eyes on targe to watch the impact at 200m. The rifle wasn't actually jumping with recoil but it certainly wasnt aming at the same spot after each shot.

I am new to the bipod thing though.
 
I'm having a hard time envisioning what the "hard hold" actually is.

Is it something like this? With the other hand tucked underneath the buttstock to steady/control the rifle/bag?

dsc01412a.jpg
 
Tikka223 said:
That makes sense. I started holding harder and harder after my POA moved to the left after each shot off the bipod.

I'm shooting a .223 of a simple bipod and was having trouble keeping my eyes on targe to watch the impact at 200m. The rifle wasn't actually jumping with recoil but it certainly wasnt aming at the same spot after each shot.

I am new to the bipod thing though.
Click to expand...

The reason things are jumping around a lot it because you are probably angled off behind the gun too much. If you are right handed think about keeping your left leg parallel to the axis of the barrel/bore. Meaning if you extended the barrel back towards your feet, your left leg would be running parallel right beside it. This will put more of your body behind the gun and prevent your rifle from jumping off to the sides during recoil. You'll get back on target quicker, you will be able to see your splash easier and when you get really good sometimes you can even watch your own swirl go into the target.
 
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