rifle shooting pointers?

Question

Does anyone have any good rifle shooting pointers.( besides hold your breathe then let half out, Squeeze trigger, ect. ) I really need to improve my shot group with open sites and scope too.

Answer 1

Learn to center your aim on the target. When you are target shooting, adjust your body so that you are using little or no muscle tension to keep the cross hairs on target (obviously, this would require a rest of some sort). This will help by eliminating the tendency to relax and pull off target after trigger pull. In the prone supported position, this can be accomplished by adjusting the position of the body to compensate on target. (move right to move the sights left, right for left. move forward to move sights down on target, back to move up)

Follow through with the trigger...don't let up pressure as soon as the gun fires (this usually causes a bit of a jerk), but continue to pull through it as the gun fires.

Experiment with stances. The most accurate is the prone supported, so use this whenever possible. For this position, allow the weight of the gun to rest on a bi-pod or a rest of some sort. Use your non-firing hand to support the but of the rifle (it works well to make a fist or to use a sock filled with sand. You can squeeze your fist or the sock to raise the butt of the gun, or loosen to lower it.) Any supported stance is superior to an unsupported stance.

Use minimal pressure with your firing hand to hold the gun against your shoulder and make sure your trigger finger is only touching the trigger (it shouldn't rub against the trigger guard, or be in contact with the stock at all).

Don't anticipate the recoil, as it will cause your muscles to tense and your aim to suffer. If you are squeezing the trigger properly, you should almost be surprised every time the gun fires, not allowing you to anticipate the recoil.

Study ballistics. You can get basic charts at www.gunsandammomag.com.

Most of all, practice.

Good luck shooting.

Answer 2

1. Be physically fit with good aerobic conditioning. That way your pulse rate will be slow and you will have more time between each beat to line up the sights and shoot.

2. If you can not be physically fit, take beta blockers. They also will slow your heart rate down.

3. NEVER take a deep breathe and hold it. Your heart will make your arms bounce with each beat.

4. Get a rifle with either single or double set triggers. That way you can set the trigger and then just touch it to fire. Far less chance of missing a target because you had to use 4-8 pounds of pull to get the trigger to fire.

5. Get a laser range finder. It will eliminate one of the "guess" factors in distance shooting as you will know exactly how far the target is from you. (some scopes have range finders built in.)

6. Never loan your gun out. You can let a friend fire it if you are standing right there watching, but if you loan the gun out you have no idea what kind of dumb things got done to your gun and it may take you a while to get it back in shape.

7. Wear prescription safety glasses. Even if you do not need glasses to drive a car or read, you need glasses to shoot for safety reasons. Since you are going to have to wear them anyway, if you have even a slight vision problem the prescription will help.

8. If you are left handed get a left handed gun!!..... Look at the sniper in the movie SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. He is shooting a right handed gun left handed. He has to bring his left hand over the gun to work the bolt and he keeps hitting the scope with his hand. It is impossible for him to keep his sight picture which is probably why he missed some easy shots.

9. Use the proper powder if you reload. You do not want either smoke or a flash to show out the end of your gun. Both mess up your sight picture for the next shot. At night a flash will destroy your night vision.

10. Always remember. TREAT ALL GUNS AS IF THEY ARE LOADED. That way your dog will not accidental step in the trigger and shoot you.

Answer 3

This is easy to tell someone how to do it right and only takes a couple minutes to explain the fundamentals, but a lifetime to master them. It sounds as though someone has taught you some basics already. It is more complex with iron sights than with a scope becaue you have 3 objects to align and not just two as with the scope.

Your sight picture is a large part of getting that shot where you want on your target. To align all three the best way to explain it is that you want to focus on the center object to keep all three in line. The three objects are your rear sight, front sight and target in order from your eye outward. You must first align your rear sight with your front sight and then while keeping them aligned, place that on your target. If you focus on the front sight you can keep the sights aligned and still place them on the target properly. By practicing this and doing it the same every time, you can greatly improve your consistency and thus your shot placement.

Another important part of hitting your target consistenly and accurately is your position itself, whether it be off hand, sitting, kneeling, prone or whatever. The main part of a correct position is getting into the desired position, being comfortable and relaxed in that position and then checking your natural aiming pont in that position. That is the position that once you hold the weapon in position, that the weapon naturally points to. This is extremely important, because if your natural aiming point is the center of your target, your body will naturally return to this position after each shot, making it much easier than fighting the weapon to get it centered back on your target.

Your breath control and trigger squeeze are also imporatant as it sounds you have been instructed on these already. You should breath normally between your shots, then when about ready to begin squeezing, exhale about half a breath and hold. Once you hold your breath you should take up any slack in the trigger and begin your steady squeeze until the weapon fires. If done correctly it should be a surprise to you as to when exactly it fires. If it doesn't surprise you, you jerked the trigger or anticipated the shot which will destroy your group as well.

The main thing is consistency and the only way you will obtain consistency and thus improve your shooting is going to be practice. Snap caps and dry fire exercises using the above methods are a cheap and yet effective method of applying these principles and will give you confidence in your methods when you hit the range also.

|Good luck, and practice, practice practice.

Answer 4

First off, own a gun. Hard to get better if you use your bud's gun every so often. Best thing is to know your gun. How much kick does it have? What kind of range does the caliber have? The ballistics of the bullet from certain distances. Practice with iron sights first until you can do it well from 100 yards. Then move to the scope. Know all the different positions. Standing, benchrest, kneeled, proned. Learn how not to fear your gun. It's gonna kick, learn to love it instead of fear it. Keep your eye on the target, after the gun is shot, try to maintain a view of the target for a follow up shot. Now, with the breathing, you kinda have it wrong. You don't hold your breath and release half way. You actually let out "ALL" of your breath, which means you totally empty out your lungs. Why you ask? Cause when you do this, it relaxes your thoratic cavity so its only muscle there instead of muscle and air (that can resonate movement). Now, to really shoot good, if you have a scope on your gun, and you mastered holding totally still, look in your scope, you can actually see the cross hairs twitch with each beat of your heart. If you shoot while your heart is beating, your shot will be off. With this you shoot in between each beat. So have to you see the cross hairs twitch, that is when you shoot. Also, you don't need to go lift a hundred pounds for your muscles to hold your gun, it does help, a little, but what really helps is a lil cardio. Helps to maintain a slow heart rate. But when it comes to shooting "MUSCLE MEMORY" is what is really important. That's why practice makes perfect. I hope this helps.

Answer 5

This is how we do it in the army.... we call it PABS.... Position, Aim, Breathe, Squeeze....

Get a comfortable firing position..... if you are not comfortable you will not fire goos shot groups

Aim..... aim center mass on your target.... hold your weapon tight to your body and as steady as you can....

Breathe..... in hale then exhale..... dont hold your breath but exhale as soon as you exhale.....

Squeeze the trigger with the tip of your finger.... use your finger tip because the tip is the most sensitive part of your finger..... squeeze evenly so that when the weapon fires it surprises you.

I have seen most people wrap their whole finger around the trigger and jerk the trigger, this pulls the weapon and you will not hit what you are aiming at..... try what I just suggested.... this is what we use to train new soldiers every day. I have been doing this for the past 11 years.

Answer 6

close your eyes before you shoot then take a few breathes. this will slow down your heart rate and pulse. relax the shooting shoulder and flex your bicep with other arm at the same time keep hands firm but fingers loose. practice loading while eye kept on target with snap caps; with this you can get an idea on how much you move after every shot. there is a method which takes lots of practice and good timing. when you fire weapon move back with the recoil so the shot wont rise this takes a long time to master. keep practicing

Answer 7

Sight alignment, Sight Picture

Slow steady squeeze

Proper Bone support

Breath control

Join the Marine Corps and go to boot camp.... The PMI will teach you everything you EVER wanted to know about placing rounds on target!

One shot, One kill!

Answer 8

Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze, Fire.** It does not matter what position you are in you have to master the fundamentals listed.*

Answer 9

keep the scope on tite and make sure you don't put your eye to close to the scope or you mite loose your eye at any time.