Shooting assistance

[Rastoff]

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.

 

[JaPes]

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.

 

[cyphertext]

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

 

[Rastoff]

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.

 

[cyphertext]

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.

 

[Rastoff]

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

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

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.

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

 

[cyphertext]

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

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.

 

[rongarrett]

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}.

 

[Rastoff]

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.

 

[Skidi]

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.

 

[BillyJack2012]

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.

 

[harrym]

Was his name Quigley?

 

[WR Moore]

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.

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.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

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.

 

[Autococker07]

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....

 

[cyphertext]

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!

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

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.

 

[WR Moore]

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.

 

[Rastoff]

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.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

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.