Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Calling shots

Hi friends. My knowledge in English is teasing me here so I hope you can help me, somebody. What does it mean when there is talking about "call the shot" during sighting in? I haven�t managed to get info about that in any written material.

Thanks, - Kakali

What it means is they recognize the fact THEY blew the shot and said so before looking to see where it hit... A combination between admitting a flinch and looking for an excuse...
art

art pretty well got it but I would add a mistake in trigger control. Sights will normally wander a bit on target and if the trigger breaks while they are off a bit you can "call" the shot as being off center.

BCR

You can call the shot when hunting too. The event of shooting an animal is sort of a slow motion event in the brain and a shooter can often recall the exact moment the gun went off and have a memory of where the crosshairs were on the animal. I have done this many times. After the animal was recovered sure enough the hole was exactly where I said it was.

Seasoned shooters know when whether or not they blew the shot without looking at a target or an animal. The can "call the shot".

Calling the shot on game as you describe it is the "Nirvana" all rifleman should try to acheive. If you can remember where the crosshairs were when the shot when off then you have good follow through and trigger control. It's what all rifleman should strive to achieve. Hard to explain, but if you've achieved this level of control you know it because you likely hardly ever miss. Great topic!

X-VERMINATOR

Calling shots during target practice is easy. It takes more discipline during the adrenaline rush of a hunt. I typically know exactly where the crosshairs were when the trigger broke. I lost a deer several years ago. When I replayed the scene in my mind, I couldn't "see" where the crosshairs were when the gun went off. Even though I found a significant amount of arterial blood, I'll place the blame on poor marksmanship not poor bullet performance.

every rifleman need to call every shot he makes. If you dont do it, your either flinching, blinking, or rushing the shot. do it when you shoot, do it when you dry-fire, do it when you hunt.

Burn what the shot is supposed to look like into your mind, and when you see it, the gun should automatically go off. there should be no thinking about your trigger squeese, the gun should just go off when you see your 'sight picture'.

when the rifle fires, you need to be brutally honest with yourself of where the crosshairs (or front sight) were when the shot broke. If you call every single shot you make, you will become a better marksman and hunter.

BTW kakali, If you want to read more about this subject go here:http://www.zediker.com/. I've read tubbs book and several other Highpower books and manuals, they go into this subject a little more in-depth.

This discussion bring to mind a situation in my son's gun safety class about ten years ago. The instructor told the class that they should slowly squeeze the trigger on the rifle and that every shot should be a surprise.
I can only assume that the fellow trained in the military on an 03 or similar weapon and had never broken a decent trigger.
Since I was only a guest in the class, I did not disrupt the class. But I did re-educate my son on the way home after class.
I explained to my son that I felt no shot should be a surprise. We discussed sight picture fluctuations and timing the shot to the perfect sight picture.
I really doubt that instuctor had ever been able to "call his shots".

I agree with the instructor to a certain extent. I dont think the shot should be a surprise, certainly if one is mounting a firearm and looking through the scope or sights at a given target, its no surprise the gun will be going off directly. However, at the same time to avoid a flinch and while instructing rookie shooters, I personally think his analogy of having the recoil of the rifle be a surprise is the best way.

Its basic as 1,2,3,

Mount the rifle, shotgun or handgun.
Obtain your sight picture.
Take a moderate size inhaled breath...exhale half of that.
Begin squeezing (or pressing) the trigger while holding your sight picture steady and dont anticipate the recoil which could cause a flinch, thus blowing the shot.

Its merely muscle memory, doing it over and over will allow you to become faster and proficient at the entire process. Whether I am shooting a stock Remington 700 factory trigger or a fine set trigger it makes no difference, the same procedure is followed.

When I speak of "calling the shot", I am talking about stating what the sight picture looked like when the rifle fired.

When teaching new shooters trigger control, this is one of the most imprtant facets of the disciplne. I constantly ask them, "Where were the sights when the trigger broke? Where were the crosshais when the gun went off?"

It is amazing how quickly a new shooter grasps this concept, while the old hand flounders about trying to do so.

One of the best ways to maintain "the edge" is to dry-fire practice a few dozen rounds a day, calling the "shots" each time the trigger breaks. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Ted

Yukoner:
I imagine you practise religously. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

But yes, I feel it is the same way I see it, when I sgueeze the trigger, I know without looking where that shot went.
My late brother was very good at it and made sure I learned it.
It is very good practise and helps when one gets to know intuitivaly where a shot went, especially in the field.
Bill

The most serious military shooters --snipers and competition shooters-- call every shot in practice and in the field so that it becomes second nature to know where each bullet goes. Instant reinforcement with someone as a backup using hi-rez optics mkaes for sure accuracy of that reading.

For us amateurs shooting w/o backup, there is a lot of head bobbing from rifle scope to another device if shooting samll caliber and low power scopes or open sights.

1B

When I say "called the shot," I mean that I knew where the crosshairs where placed at the instant the rifle fired and therefore I knew where the bullet "should" have hit. A "called shot" could be a dead center hit or a complete miss. Where the crosshairs were actually at makes no difference in whether or not the shot was "called," but it's simply the fact that I knew where the crosshairs were when the rifle fired.

Also, I "call" every shot I make (silently to myself of course <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />), whether it was a shot at a target, a tin can, or a game animal. On the rare occassion when I have no idea where the crosshairs were when the rifle fired, I most likely flinched badly and probably never got anywhere close to where I had been aiming.

As for whether or not a trigger break should be a surprise or not, my personal opinion is that you should know "exactly" when the rifle is going to fire. If the trigger break is a surprise, I instictively jump a bit because I wasn't expecting it to go off that soon, and of course when I yank the rifle suddenly, proper follow-through certainly isn't there and I end up with poor accuracy. Personally, I shoot best if I know the "exact" point when the rifle is going to fire.

Hi res optics and a spotter have nothing to do with calling shots. you can do it with a 50ft smallbore target, a brick of ammo and a 10/22, (or even an Anschutz). Shoulder the rifle, aim and shoot. Then tell yourself, out loud, where the bullet went. For instance:"That was a 6 O-clock nine", Only then do you look at the target to see where the bullet actually hit.

It's best to practice with 22's or real light ammo, recoil hides your mistakes. I usually shoot a shot, then dry fire one or two shots. Then shoot another, calling aloud where every shot went, even the dry-fired rounds.

I can ususlly call my offhand shots within about 1MOA. I'm not saying I have a 1Moa hold, but I KNOW where eack bullet hit within 1MOA. (With iron sights). For long range shooting, 600-1000 Yds, If you cant call at least 1/2 moa, you wont know if a bad shot was from you, the wind, the rifle, or a light change. Basically, If you dont call your shots, you will never be able to read the wind or tell wether your gun is shot-out.

As far as trigger control goes, offhand shooting or a moving target should be a controlled jerk. Snap the trigger as aggresive as possible, without causing the rifle to move in doing so.

Stroker,
My problem with the instuctors concept of trigger control is the assumption that one can hold a proper sight picture for upwards of a second or more while one takes up the slack in a crappy triger. This is what he meant by a surprise, you just keep pulling and pulling on the trigger and eventually it will go bang.
If you have a decently tuned trigger on your rifle, there is no slack to take up. You see the sight picture become correct and apply the proper pressure with the trigger finger, and the rifle fires NOW.
I simply can not stand a trigger with creep in it. I do not want to feel the trigger move forward if I release pressure from it without firing the rifle. My hunting rifles were tuned to remove creep and these were the ones I trained my son to shoot. This is why I told him that he should be able to know exactly when the rifle would fire, that it would fire when he thought it should fire. Not at some point in the not too distant future.

I understand what you are saying, my rifles are tuned as well, however I would guess that most hunters rifles are not. We who frequent these types of sites are a small percentage of those who are out there hunting with factory rifles and triggers. I would assume that the instructor in the instance above was most likely dealing with the common hunter or beginners.

Not as much as I should. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Ted

I always recommend dry firing to new shooters. Also, I tell them to contact the trigger before they start to squeeze. A lot of novice shooters jerk the trigger. I tell folks to squeeze the trigger means to add pressure slowly and think about the blood draining out of the tip of your finger from the pressure added.

My 17 year old daughter shot her first deer this year and when the deer did not dropon the spot, her first thought was "I can't believe I missed." I asked her about the shot, and she said the cross hairs were behind the shoulder in the lower third of the deer. She said, "I squeezed the trigger the way you told me to." I told her if that was the case, she hit the deer. We found it a few yards off, shot right where she said. Although she did not have the confidence to "call her shot", she really did call the shot. I loved it - one shot at 190 yards with a 30-06. Shot right where she was looking. There is a hunter in the making.

I always try to call my shots. As mentioned previously on this thread, by dryfiring and calling the shot, keeps the edge honed. As Jack O"Conner once wrote ""When you have learned to call your shots accurately, when your fours at nine o'clock are fours at nine o'clock and your pinwheel fives are pinwheel fives,you're on your way to becoming a crack shot" If you practice always calling your shot it becomes second nature and the improvement in your shooting will be dramatic.