My rifle versus my ability to shoot

powmia56

powmia56

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Was at the range recently with a friend who is a recently returned sandbox veteran. Airborne Ranger, Sniper school, Falujah veteran, etc. The man can flat out shoot. I, on the other hand, have never been a very good shot. I was captain of the NROTC rifle team at college because I was a good leader and a good adminstrator. I left the good shooting to the rest of the team and I had fun and did my bit.

So having built my own M-14 on a Norinco receiver, with help from GG&FB and 45ACPKING, I have never really been sure whether it was any good or not. I mean, I could, at a hundred yards, generally put all the rounds in the same general area, but I could probably do that with a rock and a stick.

Back to the range. My friend is shooting his SKS and a .22 he picked up. I offer him my 14 which he eagerly accepts. He then proceeds to put twenty rounds in a perfectly straight line (and I mean perfectly) from the four ring at 1:00 all the way to the bull. He hands me back the rifle and says, with a straight face, "Your scope is off. I had to walk it down to the bull. You need to adjust it."

Great. Now I feel inadequate, but at least I know my rifle shoots damn well. Wish I'd kept the target.
 
All things considered , he is probally be right and dont feel in inadequate this guy is the real deal as far as shooting is considered and being where he was you might want to go out and buy this fella a beer or two for being a hero . ;)
 
Comments on rifle accuracy

Accuracy is based on a 3 legged stool-the rifle,the ammunition,and the shooter. If one of these three legs is off,then the other two will not compensate for it,no matter how good they are.

Shooting skills can be improved with coaching and practice(a function of time). The rifle's performance can be optomized by selecting the best possible chassis(a function of money) and then tweaking it to get the best results. Superior ammo performance can be found by selecting more expensive match grade ammo (again a function of money) or by careful development of handloads to find the right combination of propellant,bullet,case and primer. The big thing for all three variables is consistency/repeatability from one shot to the next. For the shooter this means working on things like shooting posture,sight picture and trigger squeeze. For the rifle it means a smooth trigger mechanism,repeatable sights and correct bedding. For ammo, handloads will ensure consistency in all critical aspects-case weight,case length,flash hole/primer pocket uniformity,primer seating depth,charge weight and bullet seating depth.

One of the best ways to improve shooting skills is by dry firing. There is nothing which illustrates incorrect hold and trigger squeeze more than seeing the crosshairs jump off target when the hammer falls on an empty chamber. Time and concentration will certainly improve this. After a certain point your rifle and sighting system are what they are and no further improvement will be found in them. Handloading pays quick accuracy dividends because you can tailor the load to your rifle and minimize the inconsistencies which are inherent in factory loaded ammo-especially in cheap,high volume produced MILSURP ammo.

It is a real eye-opener to pull down a batch of MILSURP ammo and check the variations in the weights of cases,propellants,and bullets and then compare this to the consistency which you can achieve with high quality components in precision handloads. Even the best ,most consistent MILSURP ball is only capable of 2 MOA accuracy - although the gods of random bullet dispersion will sometimes surprise you with a smaller group. My BS meter really gets to ticking when I see stories of consistent MOA or better accuracy using this or that stripe of MILSURP ball in various tarted up M14 clones. If you want to get an idea of what MILSURP ammo will do,then shoot a bunch of it off the bench in a control rifle like a heavy barrel M700 Remington with a good quality high power scope-a much better test platform than an iron sighted,whippy barrel gas gun with all it's metal in motion when a shot is fired.

Please don't think that I'm being too hard on what one's accuracy expectations should be with military pattern rifles and MILSURP ammo. I have shot and do shoot many different types of military rifles in issue configuration,incl Garands and a very accurate HRA M14, and I can realistically predict an average 1.75 MOA accuracy from a number of them with handloads(after a certain point issue iron sights will simply not allow you to resolve your sight picture to do much better). I've now reached a point where I exclusively shoot handloads with the occasional use of MILSURP ammo to illustrate the accuracy advantages of handloads.

Good luck. The quest for rifle accuracy never stops. One of my resolutions when I retired from the Army 13 yrs ago was to put 5 bullets in the same hole using a military rifle (come close,but no cigar yet).
 
good to hear she's shooting fine ....... I almost have all my paper work in order and I'll be comin down for a visit Cal. I can't bring my norc but i don't mind shootin yours hehehe
soon marstar will have those italian m14's , I'm buyin one, just so it can cross the border with me :D
 
powmia56 with all the rounds you blast off at the range you still can't shoot!
:p
Maybe I'll bit 45ACPKING's tire and come down there and show you how quality out ways quantity any day.
:nest:
;)
 
I always try to seek out those better than me at things I want to improve at. Its the only way to learn. I echo the comment above about the beers and then ask him for a couple of tips.
 
I would estimate that he was shooting about 1MOA with the rifle. It is a good build. Again, wish I'd kept the target.

As far as the theory goes, I have it down. Rifle team captain, certified JROTC air rifle instructor, years of shooting, etc. It is me. I am just not that good at stuff that requires fine muscle control. I guess. Maybe I am not patient enough. Maybe I need to go to sniper school and shoot five hundred rounds a day for a couple months. Wouldn't that get boring fast?
 
C Broad Arrow said:
I always try to seek out those better than me at things I want to improve at. Its the only way to learn. I echo the comment above about the beers and then ask him for a couple of tips.
Click to expand...



IMHO, Controlling your breathing is always your first step.
Good breathing = well placed rounds... especially from the standing or knealing positions.

I had my first experiance with fully automatic weapons at age 16 in the army reserves in NS. Back then, and to this day the most very basic of shooting techniques still apply. The days i scored the highest with the c7 (AR15) were when i was realy concentrated on my breathing....and since it was a pass/fail situation, i realy had to think it through.
 
Patience and focus are very important in facilitating the "3-legged stool analogy". Last weekend I was trying to sight in my M14 for deer hunting season next week at our local range (100 yd), stupid ARMS18 rail was too low and causing a jam every round with the mounting bracket I was using for my Trijicon sight, so rather than scrub the whole day, I decided to sight in the irons instead (gonna try irons for hunting this year). Much to my pleasant surprise, I was able to shoot 3 MOA with irons near dusk with some Israeli surplus. Very pleased with the group, but honestly, the grade of ammo and the slow patience and careful breathing combined was the ticket. In comparison, using all the patience and focus I could muster, the South African Surplus I had been using to get on paper earlier was shooting 10 MOA, while the Remington Core Lokt 150 gr hunting ammo I finished off with (and plan to use for hunting) was mustering 1.5 MOA with irons. So, YMMV. :)

I should also mention that I've got a friend who loves to mooch my ammo and blast all 5 rifle rounds down range at about a round per second. Needless to say, his groups blow.
 
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