Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Bench rest techniques for an ARshooting them off sand bags.

I am relatively new shooting ARs and I cannot seem to get the hang of shooting them off sandbags. I've been shooting bolt actions and single shots off bags with pretty good success for 40 years.

How do y'all do it?

Round fore ends or picatinny style with crap hanging off are not conducive to repeatable results. Round ones roll and the others catch the bag and interrupt the recoil cycle. I attach a plate to mine that fits the front bag and keeps it from rolling. I've also had decent results using a Bull's Bag and kind of locking the front end in the bag and use a firm hold.

Get square behind the rifle, lean in, and follow through.......follow through.......follow through.

Good info so far.

Being that I tested our service rifles off the bags, the handguards were not all that slick....

I ended up best with the front rest soft, and up against the mag well basically.

Wrap up wiht the gun, get square behind it, and don't worry about the tip of the trigger finger, put the finger where it rests naturally, wherever that is, and squeeze the trigger and ride the sights back to the bull...

Granted getting groups under .5 moa ish was a tough chore, but I think thats pretty good for service rifles.

I finally had a test bed upper made, slick flat bottom, to put new barrels in, do the load work, then reassemble...to service rifle, it usually told the truth too and was much easier to shoot.

BTW if you are shooting ball FMJ off the bags, there is your problem.

Half inch groups with service rifles.....wow!

No hardball, just soft point reloads. I have to admit I'm curious why that would make a difference.

I have a 24" CMMP varmint 223 and a 16" no name 300 BO upper on a Hughes Precision lower. Both have fully floated barrels and collapsible stocks. I have managed to shoot nice groups with each at times, but I cannot consistently get either of them to settle down on the bags.

Rost, I like the idea of pushing the front bag up against the mag well. That should help. I think figuring out how to anchor the butt of the rifles with the collapsible stocks is the biggest problem. Putting them on a sand bag and making it consistently stable has been impossible so far. I even tried putting the handgrip on the rear bag with no improvement.

I'm sure there is a good way to do this, but I haven't figured it out as yet.

FMJ (Hardball) bullets are simply not manufactured to the precision level of target or hunting bullets. FMJ will typically only hold 1-1/2" - 2" at 100 yards, even from a match barrel.

What is meant by "follow through"

What happens after the shot, and being consistent with what happens after the shot each and every shot.

I think the collapsible stock hurts my bench rest shooting. I am thinking on my 18 inch Noveske barreled gun to go to a fixed stock. What kind of stocks are on your rifles Jeff??

RE other post, I would NEVER put the pistol grip on top of a bag. Has never worked for me.

RE follow through, as noted above in another reply, its simply continuing to do it all the same after the bang.

Follow the scope back to the bullseye... and when you get really good at it, which way it recoils, tells you which way your bullet impacted.. IE bang, and it rises and comes back down on the right side of the aiming point, thats generally where your bullet will also be.

That indicates muscle tension thats not consistent or its pushing the gun consisitently to a side... how you work that out varies, but it should recoil up and then come back to rest basically left and right in the middle so to speak.

Any adjustable stock that doesn't lock up tight is going to hurt repeatable accuracy to some extent. Probably won't take a 1MOA rifle to 3MOA, but it isn't going to help when you are going for absolute best group size such as on a varmint or Highpower competition rifle.

If it's loose, I guess that could cause some issues. If you have one that locks tight to the RE, I seriously doubt a new stock will change anything. The one thing I like about rifle stocks is most tend to ride bags better than the pointy collapsable ones. However, neither have anything to do with mechanical accuracy.

If you want to save a lot of time and frustration buy a Caldlwell lead sled solo, it's made for AR style rifles and will work with others also. I have one and it's one of the best investments that I have ever made when it comes to shooting accessories.

I have never had a collapse stock... I run whatever I need in fixed.

If the stock is loose, it certainly could cause accuracy issues, but they would be minor accuracy losses overall due to the stock. I doubt more than .2 moa difference IMHO.

I think the best hint I've heard so far is to get rid of the collapsible stocks. I only have them in case the grandkids wanted to shoot them. So far, they have been pretty uninterested in either AR and concentrate on the youth stocked rifles I have for them. Go figure....I would have thought they'd be rockin' and rollin' through every reload I had every time they showed up.

Sand bagging a solid buttstock should steady things up quite a bit.

And Rost, using the bottom of the grip was a desperate move....and it didn't work.

Love the avatar, wareagle700!

I have a precision AR that until recently had a Magpul CTR adjustable stock on it.
I replaced it with a Magpul PRS fixed stock and haven't noticed any increase in accuracy.
I replaced it because the CRT stock didn't provide a high enough cheek rest.

If you push hard against a collapsable stock, to lock it from any movement, it'll shoot the same every time basically.

As noted I doubt you are loosing much accuracy to them. Probably more so by no solid cheek weld and so on, rather than them causing any issues.

I don't like the rattle traps that I used to see, maybe they are better now, but never had kids, won't at this age and so I"m good with A1 and A2 stocks all day long.

The Magpul CTR stock does have the extra lock to snug it up on the buffer tube.

My bench rest groups got consistent with a hard hold and a more rigid buttstock.