The rules at many ranges are a death to marksmanship. When you have to shoot off a bench it's hard to really learn how to shoot.
I have yet to have time for anything but a quick offhand shot when elk hunting. Granted the ranges in the dark timber are not great, but the idea of carrying a rest in that environment is laughable.
All things being equal, I'd always rather have a rest. I just don't find them very practical all the time. I did shoot off sticks for one animal and a fence post for another in S. Africa. The others I just shot offhand. Longest is a deer at 175, shortest is my elk this year at somewhere closer to 40.
The scientific method for summing errors is the Root Sum Square. If you have a 1" gun and 4" hold, you have a 4.12" solution. If you have a 4" gun and 4" hold, you have a 5.65" solution. Thus the idea that statistically there really is very little real world difference in .75" rifles and 1.5" rifles in real shooting circumstances. Yes, there is the one very rare occasion where the errors perfectly add up, but there is an equal percentage that the errors are actually cancelling each other out.
I have 3 blanks loaded up that I cycle through while sighting on various targets. Repeat a few times a night for a month prior to hunting and the sight picture really steadies out. Likewise, if I don't prepare, I know my shots will be further limited.
I have a lot of shootign under my belt. Wife does too. Lots of it was offhand but in competition which is not the same as hunting.
Over the years I found that if I really started looking and thinking, that while I was trying to solidify the standing shot and get it to calm down enough to break the trigger, I often could have found SOME kind of rest to help just a bit.
As to the errors.... I understand the math, but I run on worst case... which is why I'm pretty picky about shots and just dont' care if I go home empty, rather that than mess one up.... passed a nice bull moose once, stayed on him for almost an hour or so one morning trying to get a good solid shot... he walked off... I waited, actually until dark that night to see if they would come out of the thicket they went into... yes I had shots that morning, nothing I was 200% confident in...
At least in that case, 2 days later I had a mostly wide open 125 yard kneeling shot that took the neck. I'd have let him walk again if I had not had a clear shot in all the old burn timber too.
Re the dummy shells, that is one of the BEST if not the best idea for training to ever come along.
Thankfully I don't have to deal with ranges... that would suck. Though sometimes I want to be at a range during deer season to check things so I don't spook the deer off our place....
I have passed every shot at elk I've ever had, in timber, just nothing reliably comfortable.
