Follow through

N

NorwegianInBaffinland

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I would like to get better at shooting. I want to get better at shooting so I can be a more effective hunter.

My most common positions are;

1. Off the windshield of my snowmobile holding the rifle snug by pulling on the sling.

2. Lying or sitting down resting the gun on my mitts on a rock or hill.

3. Knee.

4. Off the boat with the rifle resting on clothes.

When I target practice I usually go to position 2. At the moment I am shooting a 223 rem. After I fire my sight picture go to the side, usually left and up and I do not see impact at 100 yards with my magnification at x8.

I would like some pointers as to how I can improve my position for shooting so I can have what I believe is called a good "follow through"?

All tips appreciated!:)
 
Get a buddy to help you out. Get comfortable, line up the target and dry fire. Concentrate on holding the crosshairs on target the whole time. Then give your buddy the gun and tell him to give it back to you bolt closed, either loaded or empty as long as you don't know. Take a shot at the target. If the gun is empty watch to see if you hold on the the target. If does not stay on target you are anticipatting recoil. If it fires watch to see if it stays on target. Repeat this with your buddy randomly loading the gun. When you can dry fire and stay on target when you think the gun is loaded your groups will be tighter.
 
I would say you are already achieving follow through!
A quick way to describe follow through is to say the rifle must be on target, after, meaning as, it fires. If you can see your sights moving in a pattern, as you describe, the rifle must have been held steady and there was no yanking of the trigger as it fired.
I used to shoot a lot of one handed, 22 pistol bulls eye shooting. When I was doing a good release, I could see the sights rise on firing, as you describe. When I shot poorly, I could not see my sights rise in any type of pattern, which meant I didn't make a smooth trigger release.
 
Thanks for the confidence booster! It is just that I was out shooting yesterday, and the groups weren't as good as I hoped/expected. But it was pretty windy and cold.

I guess I will just keep shooting.

And the "buddy" trick sounds smart too. It's just that I am usually by myself when I target practice.
 
A good trigger and lots of dry firing ,lots and lots of dry firing.
Obvious ,but make sure your gun is empty and your neighbors can't see you.
 
NorwegianInBaffinland said:
Any tips for exercises for dry firing?
Click to expand...

Sure. Put a coin on top of the barrel near the muzzle and attempt to dry fire without disturbing it, start with a quarter then move to a dime. When you can dry fire a rifle with sporter weight barrel without disturbing a dime, you're doing very well.

Use just your finger tip on the trigger so that there is no contact between your trigger finger and the stock.

Work on your natural point of aim so that it feels right when you're in the field. The natural point of aim can be defined as where the rifle when held by the shooter lies in a direct line with the target, the shooter doesn't have to push it over to align with the target, thus only your bone structure is used to support the rifle, rather than muscles that tend to fatigue and return to their unstressed position, and move you off target. To check you natural point of aim, close your eyes, allow your muscles to go limp, then open your eyes. If you've swung off target, your position needs to be moved in small increments until you've got it.

Use a sling that is a combination shooting sling and carry strap, rather than attempting to use a carry strap as a hasty sling. Check out the Galco Safari Ching Sling, I like this sling a great deal and have several of them. You can order directly from Galco.

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Thanks for the tips!

I will check out that sling. Right now I just try to hold it down with my elbow when shooting off a rock, to hold the rifle more steady. It is just not very fast and sometimes it slides off and can not keep it snug enough to really hold the barrel still.
 
bad follow through often shows itself by poor scores combined with good 'calls' on the shot breaking.

A good dry fire exercise is to imagine the rifle fires a full second after the trigger breaks,
 
If you shoot off a rock, perhaps you could use a rear bag to support the back end of the rifle, that will certainly solidify the sight on the target, its not likely to be as quick as flopping into position and making the shot though.

Rather than attempting to make that sight rock-solid, just become comfortable breaking the shot within the wobble. Unless you double bag the rifle, it won't be rock-solid anyway. When you dry fire, if the sight covers your point of aim when the trigger breaks, thats where your bullet would have gone. If your sight covers something else, then thats where it would have gone in that case. Its a matter of timing the movement of the sight with the break of the trigger without anticipating the shot, some might call it a compressed surprise break. When shooting at live targets, you're always shooting against the clock. It your target is stationary for a moment, thats great, but it won't stay motionless forever. "Acquire your point of aim and press the trigger." It should take about as long to do as it takes to say it out loud.

You'll notice I said press the trigger rather than squeeze the trigger. Squeezing the trigger implies something we don't mean, as when you squeeze something it is under the force of your entire hand. When you press the trigger, only the trigger finger moves, the rest of your hand does not increase pressure on the gun stock, beyond the firm handshake grip you've initially acquired. If you hold your hand in front of your face, if you can't move your trigger finger about a quarter to half an inch, independently of the other fingers on you hand, that needs work.

Additionally to this, watch your breathing. Breath for each shot you make, then rather than forcing all the air out of your liungs make the shot on your natural respiratory pause. This will give you a bit more time to focus on the sight without loosing that sharp focus or feel like you have to rush the shot because your lungs are screaming for air.
 
I have always wondered how in the hell can you get anything to sit on top of a barrel.
Do you use chewing gum or ductseal?Octagon barrel perhaps.
Please make a video, all my change is on the floor.
Seriously ,I have tried this and its a fkn zen exersise for people who want to use their ninja skills to take down deer in hand to hoof combat.
 
There are so many little tricks ivolved and yes, your mind does play a part, a major part.
When I started shooting one handed, bullseye pistol shooting, I did a lot of shooting before I could put all ten shots into the black aiming mark on the slow fire targets. So aggravating to get nine, then miss the last one.
So, I told myself, hell, just hitting the black is no good, you can touch the black and still only score a seven. I'm going to aim to hit the little ten ring, which can't be seen, but of course is in the middle. Thus I concentrated on just hitting the middle, where the ten ring is and I immediately upped my score, regularily getting all ten in the black aiming mark!
Same thing applies to any type of rifle or pistol shooting, including shooting game. Don't just aim to hit an animal in the ribs, let your mind's eye see a little tuft of hair, tight behind his shoulder. Concentrate on hitting that little tuft of unseeable hair and you will make a very good hit.
 
H4831 said:
There are so many little tricks ivolved and yes, your mind does play a part, a major part.
When I started shooting one handed, bullseye pistol shooting, I did a lot of shooting before I could put all ten shots into the black aiming mark on the slow fire targets. So aggravating to get nine, then miss the last one.
So, I told myself, hell, just hitting the black is no good, you can touch the black and still only score a seven. I'm going to aim to hit the little ten ring, which can't be seen, but of course is in the middle. Thus I concentrated on just hitting the middle, where the ten ring is and I immediately upped my score, regularily getting all ten in the black aiming mark!
Same thing applies to any type of rifle or pistol shooting, including shooting game. Don't just aim to hit an animal in the ribs, let your mind's eye see a little tuft of hair, tight behind his shoulder. Concentrate on hitting that little tuft of unseeable hair and you will make a very good hit.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Aim small, miss small.
 
A lot of the people who just got PAL's and didn't grow up shooting focus a lot of the trigger break, whereas I find it doesn't affect a lot of the older guys. For me, it's mostly the size of the grip on the stock, the fatter it is the harder time I have compressing my hand and the shot goes to the right. This is why I hate fat grips and checkering. My personal favourites are the No.1 Enfield, CZ858 pistol grip, and Win94 lever grip. The No.5 Enfield Jungle Carbine has a slim line stock, usually blonde, which is great to deal with. Those Monte Carlo moulded stocks are the worst, same with the bulgy Marlin 336 slanted style grips.

There has been talk before about putting stuff on the barrel to see if it shakes when dry firing, or trying to hold the gun for 45 minutes to build arm strength etc. There are good intentions in that kind of advice, it's just misguided and ineffective. Put a laser boresighter in the end, and let that show you what's really going on when you dry fire

One thing to look for, and you see this all the time at the range, is people compensating for recoil. You'll see people jerk down with the gun when they pull the trigger, not knowing that they're empty. You're supposed to embrace the recoil, make love to it, don't fight it. Recoil is the best part of shooting at the range, and trust me, when you're shooting an animal you don't even notice it. If a gun is beating you up, like a 3" magnum slug, don't shoot it first thing because it's going to make it harder to shoot the other calibers. Once you start craving the recoil is when you get great follow through, because your instant reaction to flinch is gone and consistency will improve.
 
jeff270 said:
A good trigger and lots of dry firing ,lots and lots of dry firing.
Obvious ,but make sure your gun is empty and your neighbors can't see you.
Click to expand...

Exactly jeff, with a safe rifle loaded with preferably snap caps for your .223Rem, practice dry firing across you house with your scope on say 4X and holding on a small cut out from a magazine of the game of your choice. I would take small ad photos of Buck Deer and paste them the lenght of the house. Knowing the relative size of the tiny picture versus actual range, I usually tried to duplicate 350-400yds, a good shot prone under field conditions with no bi-pod.

If you lay prone and squeeze properly and relax your hold, you will amaze yourself how after a few weeks of say 20 minute sessions, your sight picture will stay on the target animal at exactly the aiming point as the rifle fires, and after it does demonstrating to yourself your follow through is good as well.

Now when you shoot at real game, ..that learned hold, breath, squeeze and follow through will improve your hit probability by 400%. Remember, if the sights are moving from aiming point on dry firing, where do you think the bullets going during live fire.

Many months of this very dry firing practise years ago, brought my prone shooting form reliably engaging a small size target at 100yds, to not being itimidated with same target out to 250yds, and probaly nearly the same hit ratio.

Practise makes perfect, but with center fire rifles and a place to do it all year round and the huge expense,.... DRY FIRING is your friend. It will keep you in the game, when you can't get to the range.

Everyone's technique, no matter what position they are firing in, or what rifle they are shooting, is a learned balance between you and your rifle to have the sight stay on the Point of Aim at the moment the firing pin detonates the primer and of course you follow through. Dry firing also helps overcome a twitch or flinch developed from recoil or muzzle blast sensitivity. It's funny,.. I find once your relaxed and have absolute no flinch during squeezing while dry firing, it will follow you to the range with live ammo as well.

Give it a try, it costs nothing only your time and patience.
 
jeff270 said:
I have always wondered how in the hell can you get anything to sit on top of a barrel.
Do you use chewing gum or ductseal?Octagon barrel perhaps.
Please make a video, all my change is on the floor.
Seriously ,I have tried this and its a fkn zen exersise for people who want to use their ninja skills to take down deer in hand to hoof combat.
Click to expand...

I'd do that for you, but my video camera got into a snit with my computer and they won't talk to each other anymore. If the coin on the barrel thing doesn't work for you, concentrate on the sight and see if it moves off target when the striker falls, if a coin won't stay on the top of the barrel I bet it does. From here you'll have to find the balance between your position, your hold on the rifle, the trigger break and follow through. Set your rifle up on a front and rear bag, put a coin on top of the barrel near the muzzle, then without touching the rifle other than the trigger, squeeze the trigger between your thumb and finger, this will prove to you that it can be done, even if your rifle has a very heavy striker spring.
 
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