On another forum a guy said that he was able to hit a 10"x10" plate, at 400 yards, standing off hand, 3 out of 5 tries using his standard handle (iron) sights and without making adjustments to them. He then asked if this was good shooting, just average or if it were bad.

This of course sparked some debate as to shooting ability. Personally, I think that's good shooting.

Anyway, tomorrow, weather permitting, I'm going to try to duplicate this to the best of my ability. I don't think I'll succeed. I'm going to use a standard NRA 25 yard slow fire pistol target. It is about 10.5" wide and 12" tall. I will put it at the 300 yard range because that's the longest we have at the range. I will shoot 5 rounds and see if I can hit it while standing, unsupported.

Now, I'm not a rifle guy. Handguns I know pretty well. I'm not new to rifles, but I've never really worked at them. So, any suggestions on how to go about this? Stance? Support hand placement? Anything will help.

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I wish I could tell ya what works. I'm not a long gun shooter by any means. I'm primarily a handgun enthusiast. What I did was to search YouTube for off hand rifle shooting techniques. I just try to find what works for slow fire, standing, off hand.

I end up with my elbows very compact into the body. My support hand is bumped up against the mag-well, elbow down contacting the body. My trigger hand is where it normally is, and the elbow is touching my body. It's as if I'm trying to draw both elbows together across my body. I also end up with a little lean back.

Not my picture, but something like this but my elbows are drawn in more:



There are techniques on using a two point sling to stabilize the rifle, but I haven't tried them yet.

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-John

I would use a sling...

A tip from us old, crusty plinkers... although I'm not that old

About the 18:40 mark...

Field Shooting Positions: WWII Rifle Marksmanship Training - YouTube

I find this interesting. Two completely different ideas on how/where to place your arms and elbows. Both have the support elbow under the gun, but one has both clamped down and the other has the shooting elbow high.

As a shotgun shooter, I keep my elbow high. This helps develop a nice pocket for the butt stock.

Hmm, I wonder which will work better for me. Off to do some dry practice.

p.s.
I don't have a forward sling attachment yet.

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Elbow high was the technique with a full size battle rifle. Elbows in has come in with the carbine, as well as having a more square stance with the target.

Old school, high power positional shooting vs. new school tactical style shooting.

I use the hasty sling while hunting. You can make yourself an old school sling attachment with some paracord, or even a zip tie. It will work in a pinch.

Maybe it's more of a long distance precision slow fire vs close quarters, lots of movement, fast fire?

I've got some paracord and an el cheapo sling, hmmmm.....

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That could be part of it... the other part could be the rifle itself. There was not a pistol grip on the M1 Garand or the M14. The lower pistol grip on the AR lends itself to keeping the elbow lower.

Try it both ways and use whatever works. But I guarantee your accuracy will be better from standing unsupported with a sling.

The first thing you need to do is ask this guy to show you how he hits that target that far away consistently under stated conditions. Don't be too hard on yourself if you fail. Just saw a show on tv of a pro trying to hit man size targets at 400 yards with his carbine. Took him many tries to knock down all four targets in a row. Heck, at a true 400 yards that size target looks like a tiny speck with no magnification. Oh yea, I'm from Missouri, {the show me state}.

I just rigged my el cheapo nylon strap (sling) to my gun. It certainly does seem more stable with the sling wrapped the way they showed in the army film.

I remember doing that when I was 15 and first shot a .22 in the Boy Scouts. It was some kind of bolt action .22 with peep sights. We used the range that was in the basement of the high school. I'll bet they don't use that range now.

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Get right on top of that rear sight. Your nose should almost be touching the charging handle. Put your focus on your front sight. Get a good horse stance (your feet should be just past your shoulders) than push your butt out, this will stabilize you under the mid drift.

You can do it, you just have to have good form.

I don't think form would matter at all for my shooting. Standing, unsupported, with irons, out to 400 yards on a 10" plate........

At that distance, an 8" group is a 2 MOA shooter. I'm 2.5 MOA off the bench with XM193. And speaking of that, what ammo was he using and what do you plan to use? I'd think that match ammo would be a must.

Was his name Quigley?

This is whole lot easier to do with a keyboard than a rifle. I don't suppose he had witnesses? Didn't ever have to adjust for the wind?

The late great Jack O'Conner took a gent who repeatedly boasted of his long range exploits to a range. When they pulled up to the 400 yard line the guy said something to the effect that he wasn't shooting anything at a half mile and left.

The high elbow is/was used to create the shoulder pocket for the buttstock in conventional target shooting. Doesn't work well with the in line with the bore stock and pistol grip of the AR series and similar rifles.

Right handed... Feet about shoulder length apart maybe a bit less. Left foot forward and pointed at the target. Right foot about 45 degrees. Weight forward. Standing relatively straight up (not hunched way over) Handguard held in close. Elbows tucked. Nearly NTCH. I can't hit anything, hope it works better for you.

Very doable with a rifle and a rifleman who knows what he is doing....

Do you have a 10/22? (any rifle will work, but the 10/22 is typically the favorite). Check out an Appleseed near you.....

Project Appleseed Home

4 MOA is (roughly) a 20" circle at 500 yards. With a weekend of effort, almost ANY rifle owner can gain this level of accuracy. 2.5 MOA is significantly better, but that is also very doable....

While I believe in Appleseed, this challenge is a little different. Appleseed targets kinda represent a human torso size target, scaled down to represent at 25 yards what it would appear to look like at further distances. You can certainly get a 2.5 MOA on a target such as this, however it is a larger target than just a 10" x 10" square.

Take that 10" square and scale it down for 25 yards, and you have a square that is 0.625". Standing, non-supported off hand and put 3 out of 5 into a .625" square and that is some good shooting! I would have to adjust my sights for a 6 o'clock hold, otherwise the front post would block the target.

This is the point I was trying to make in the Sport Accuracy thread. It is one thing to shoot a group that can be covered by your hand on a 8" x 16" target at 200 yards, but something entirely different for you to try to shoot a target the size of your hand at 200 yards. Simply stated, I can not put groups on a target that I can not see.

Oh, and contrasting colors to see that target at that range are a must!

This is at our club's 500yd shooting point (yes we have to close the road). See those little white specks down there? Cameras are kinda hard to give the same perspective as the eye but this zoom is close as I could get posted on a forum page.... looks a bit more distant than actual but you get the idea. Let's go for a ride down to the pits.. Oh! They are about 2' X 5' numbers! (I've never climbed up that hill which is about 30 yards or more behind the targets to measure). Now think about the guy shooting 400yds off hand with irons at a 10in tall plate which is about as tall as a 16oz diet Coke. I don't have the eyes for it. Need larger target to hold center on.

Sling use- the Marines teach the use of the leather sling set up so that the forward part of the sling can be used as a cuff type sling around the support arm bicep. Does steady the rifle wonderfully.

OK, I got out to the range this morning. The temperature was about 62°F and the wind was 0-.5MPH (I'm guessing, but it was super light if anything). The sun was out and there were about two clouds in the sky. I couldn't ask for better conditions than I had today.

I took two guns with me. Both are ARs. One is a 16" carbine with a 1:8 twist. The other is a 20" rifle with 1:7 twist. The rifle has a Leatherwood Hi-Lux CMR 1-4x24 scope. The carbine has an EOTech 556.A65 and folding BUIS (lower 1/3rd co-witness).

The ammo I was using was inexpensive On Target re-manufactured 55gr FMJ traveling about 3200FPS. I have found this manufacturer to be very consistent with their loads.

The goal today was to see if I could hit a 10.5"x12" sized target at 300 yards while shooting off hand. I had never sighted in the BUIS so, I started at the 50 yard range. It took me a little while, but I was able to get about a 1" group using the BUIS at 50yds, relatively in the middle of the target. I got just at 1" using the EOTech. With the rifle I got about a 1/2" group at 50yds on 4x magnification. None of this is impressive, but certainly good enough for me.

Then I moved to the 200yd range. This was my target using the carbine:

My spotting scope is terrible, but I believe the 8 holes on the right were all done using the EOTech. The group on the left, if you can call it a group, was done with the BUIS. For some reason, when I cropped this pic, I cut off two holes just above the paper. All shots were taken off a bench rest using sand bags.

This target was shot at 200yds with the rifle; scope set to 4x:

Also shot off the sand bags, I'm pretty happy with this group; ~5.4". I put a transparent red circle that represents what I see through the scope. The reticle has a 1 MOA dot and this is how much of the target it seemed to cover to me. This may not represent an actual 1MOA measurement at 200 yards, but with my eyes, this is what it looks like.

The EOTech is similar, but with my eyes it seemed to cover the whole of the black part.

The BUIS were quite difficult to use. I cannot focus the front sight clearly. Here are pics of the sights:


The rear sight is one that I got with the rifle upper. It has clearly been around the block, but I like the small aperture. In fact, if it were normal size, I couldn't use it at all. Even with this small size, the aperture is blurry. The front post covered the entire width of these targets. Add to that its being a little blurry and I'm glad I could hit the paper at all; even from a rest.


After having fun with these 200yd targets and off a rest, I decided to try the 300 yard challenge. I used the carbine, turned off the EOTech and wrapped the sling around my arm like it showed in the video. I had stapled up two targets, one right above the other. Looking at them through the BUIS, I could only just make out the two black dots and trying to put the front post on them was very difficult, if not impossible for me.

I would post a pic of the targets, but there was no point in taking the picture; there were no holes in either target. There were some holes in the plywood backer, but I couldn't tell what was mine and what came before. Yes, as you can see in the pic, I even adjusted the rear sight to the 300 mark. I needed every advantage I could get and it didn't help.

I learned a few things today:

• My days of using regular iron sights are over. I could use them as back ups in an extreme emergency, but only reliably at 50yds or so.
• I can only barely make out a 10" target at 300 yards. Even 200 yards is difficult for me. We don't have a 400 yard range, but I wouldn't even attempt a 10" target at that distance. Hitting it would only be blind luck (emphasis on the "blind" part) without a magnified scope.
• The mil-spec trigger is TERRIBLE! There is so much creep that I actually had trouble keeping an even pressure on the trigger all the way through the press. A new trigger is in my future.
• I am not a rifle guy. Well, I could be, but it will take some time.

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The 200yd offhand with EOTech and irons are perfectly acceptable. Forget the left right between the two sights, thats just a minor sight adjustment. All those shots represent one less bad guy in the fight. Well done.

If that is the distances at which you practice, then you will have success at that distance.
Much of this will depend on eyesight, and plain old consistency more so than the perfect stance, and the ammo won't even be that big a deterrent.
When you qualify for rifleman, you are shooting to 300yds. For marksman, you are out at 500. Iron sights, and xm193.
I will equate this to shooting your 22. At 100yds, you get to a point where you can just plink, and plink and plink a rather small target once you get spot on. With my ancient 22, with many, many miles on it, the same holds true, with iron sights out to 150, 175 yards. Once I get on target, I can repeat. (Granted, it takes me a bit to get things dialed, as I don't change the sights, but rather adjust my aim point.)

The 223 will carry this same concept out to farther distances, and if you get comfortable doing it, you will wind up repeating some amazingly long shots. (Older eyes really rob you on this....... the eyes of a 19yr old recruit are often hawk-like compared to the rest of the range. My eyes, full of visions of explosions, welding, and dust, metal shavings, etc. are not so hot anymore. Good, and reliable..... but no longer surgical.....)

I refer you back to my post. The 200 yard targets were shot off a sand bag on a bench. The only off hand shooting was the 300 yard target.

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I can speak to NRA High Power Rifle competitions only. The 200yd standing offhand shooter loads one at a time, the shooting jacket is tight and hard, which lets you actually "hang" the rifle on the shooter/jacket for support, it's not like you're actually holding it up, you are hanging it on the jacket. VERY well supported. The national match sights have a smaller aperture, and a narrower front post. The tiny aperture actually helps to keep the front post in focus, kind of like a pinhole camera lens. The 6 o'clock hold is used. The sling is not allowed to be used for support in the standing position.
These all help to make the 200yd target easier to hit offhand. I don't shoot at 500yds except with a tactical target .308 with scope, but the NRA High Power prone is shot at 600yds. For some perspective, the aiming black is 3 feet in diameter and it's just the tiny black dot sitting on your front (National Match) sight post.

500yds with the naked eye on a 10" target would be quite a feat, offhand, with iron sights. I am not saying it can't be done, I'll bet Jerry Miculek could do it with an LCP, upside down, but then he's not human.

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Interesting, on TV I just saw Jerry Miculek shoot off hand with his special S&W AR scoped at 400 yards hitting four pepper poppers and said it was his greatest off hand shot (Of course he did it in about four seconds)

This answers my question as to why the AMU member in the photo that JaPes posted wasn't using his sling.

Rastoff, you were trying a very difficult shot. The paper may be 10.5" x 12", but the black is quite a bit smaller. If the whole piece of paper was black, or hi vis orange, it may have made it a little easier to see.

It's not that I couldn't see it, it's just that it was tiny. I first thought to put the targets on backwards so only the white was showing. Then I thought better of it and left them front out so I could train on the dot.

The biggest problem I had was with the blurry front sight post. Trying to hold that still enough to get it on the target was a chore. Further, the post was at least twice the width of the target. This made matters worse because when you add the blurry post with how fat it was in relation to the target, you get a really tough sight picture.

Then add a 47 year old who only just started to get serious about this. I haven't even tried to shoot off hand at this distance, well, ever. As I stood there, sighting on the target, I had to stop to breath a couple times. Trying to hold on that small point was an exercise in futility. Even if I had tried it with the scoped rifle, I don't think I could have been still enough to hold it on the target. Add the ****** trigger to that and you have a recipe for missing.

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The front sight needs some spray black.

Just in case anyone wants to see it, here is a pic of the 200 and 300 yard targets I was shooting at. It's a pretty good representation of how it looks without magnification.



The red arrow is 200 and the green is 300. You can just make out the targets I stapled up; one on top of the other.

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I enjoy bullseye shooting because I feel that there are good skills to be learned from it. At the distances pictured above, shooting off hand with irons I'd be happy to be minute of bad guy accurate.

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-John

I hear ya John, but as a civilian, there are no bad guys at that distance.

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Tell ya what. I will provide you the best area suppressive fire you've ever seen.

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-John

I'm sure you would!

My point is, if they are that far away, they can't be much of a threat unless I'm in a war; I'm not.

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True, our country isn't being invaded at the moment nor is anyone invading my home at the moment. But is that really the point?
Don't many of us here buy guns, both handguns and long guns, and practice for that which is very unlikely to occur in our lifetimes?
Besides...  what are you going to do, target practice with your AR at typical civilian self defense distances of less than 20 feet?

Back on topic... 2-3moa is about right with cheap reloads or even cheap factory ammo. Looks fine to me. In any event, you got the EOTech for offhand shooting not precision bench work, right? I mean... the usefulness of fast target acquisition from the bench with bags at a piece of paper in front of you is a bit overrated.

Well, the truth is that I got the EOTech and the AR because I'm a gun geek and have always wanted one. I may do some competition shooting with it one day, but all these things are really just toys to me if I'm being honest.

Yes, this whole shooting, off hand, at 300 yards was just an experiment. If I really want to do long range precision stuff, and I do, I'll use the .308Win bolt gun. For me, the AR will be used at 100 and closer. I think there's a requirement to shoot 200 yards at a practical rifle class I want to take, but I can shoot that prone.

Another thing about the EOTech is just visibility. As some of you know, I've been trying to learn about the whole red dot thing because of my aging eyes. I don't really like the HWS any better than an LED red dot. It was just what I saw at the right price.

I think I said it earlier, but if I didn't, I'm perfectly happy with the groups I got at 200 yards with these guns. I'm sure I could get better, but those are close enough.

You are also right that even the games we play at are born from practicing for real world situations. So, minute-of-man accuracy is good enough.

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Don't be afraid to put a one or two foot black dot on those distant targets. Then you can SEE the target, use a 6 o'clock hold. Set the sights so that at that distance, with that size aiming dot, you hit the center of the one or two foot circle. It's not point-of-aim aiming. Look at the Benchrest targets, they aim at one part of the target, to hit another. This saves the aiming part for aiming, as the impact area deteriorates into a cloverleaf of holes. Ideally, of course!

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Rastoff:

Personally, I think your targets are pretty darn good shooting, especially for sort of just getting into rifles.

I would suggest you get the book "Art of the Rifle," by Jeff Cooper. It is, or should be, "required reading" for anyone interested in rifle shooting.

Shawn

As an Eagle Scout - I follow the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. You never know what can happen. If people get so pissed off with government - there could be things that happen here and shooting 200-300 yards isn't out of the equation. Doesn't hurt to practice!