Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Practice: so you get can hit you deer..

The correct offhand shot is taken on the move and coming into the target.. Some folks can hold better than others in offhand, but no one is still, so you get used to it and fire. I used a PC trainer enough to tell you that even in prone slung up, I still have movement, along about half MOA with iron sights, almost none with a scope and a rest. But there is still movement.
I don't like offhand shots and never have. But the last big game I took was offhand and it worked out.

Practice, I'm with Las.... I used to shoot a LOT for many years. Once its learned its there. Most of it is mental after the fact, my simple thing is I don't press the trigger unless its all correct. That might or might not happen. I wont' just fling them in the direction like a lot of folks end up doing basically.

Clay targets scattered in safe areas mixed with a case of 22 through the year or steel reactive targets is always good practice.

To be honest ,right now in life I shoot to check sights and to hunt. I don't actually practice much if any. It hurts my ability to be good way out there, but say 400 and in, its all really easy.

Good point.
I think "kajillions of BB's and pellets" is somewhere near my totals also.
I have developed into a much more confident rifle shot in last few years by shooting pigs at each of our hunting places. Before I might shoot once or twice in a season at deer in hunting conditions. Now I shoot many times a year (year round) under every field condition from close range offhand to long distance from a rest. Usually .243's, I specifically target head,neck when possible. DRT

stumpy

Jeff -

I'm with you, I think a gajillion BB's downrange helped me, at least with moving targets. As a kid I put two sparrows in flight down with my Daisy as well as one pheasant in flight with a Ithaca M49 .22. (Yeah, I know it was illegal. I was rabbit hunting CRP land and the dang thing flew up at my feet. It was an instinctive thing that I immediately regretted.)

My hunting buddy and I like to shoot balloons offhand at 200 yards. Need to get him to the range more often.

I generally shoot whatever I'm hunting with at rocks, gongs, steel discs, paper, crows, whatevers open season, at close range to out past 400 yds.. I don't call it practice, I just enjoy shooting. Knowing what your gun does in your hands at every imagineable situation is far more useful than a BR gun and 1/8 min. accuracy.

Deer can be shot near, far or running. Helps to be prepared.

Once I have the basic zero and drop cards figured out I like using my hunting rifles in "tactical matches". Usually you are against the clock, slightly winded and hitting small targets from improvised conditions under all weather conditions. Until I commit to using a magazine fed bolt gun I will never finish within view of the top spot but I learn alot about my ability to perform under more realistic conditions.

Truckloads of .22 works wonders as well.

i reload for my 300 rum and my 300 wm and practice year round shooting hogs. we have feeders on pipe lines and senderos out to 980 yrds makes for fun practice when you can bbQ your target

I take a CZ 452 out in the woods at least once a week, with 100 rounds of 22 LR ammo..

I run 4 targets off of the internet on 8 x 10 sheets of paper, and staple them to a piece of cut plywood....

I lean the plywood up against something, and then walk 100 yds off, sit down and shoot 25 rounds at each target from various positions..

once you learn to coordinate your eye and trigger finger, the biggest challenge is to learn to control your breathing...

once a week of this will certainly improve your skills much more than shooting 100 shots a day at the range every day of the month...

I vary scope power from 4 to 6 power when shooting..

you will also be surprised how very fast this will tighten up your shooting skills!

Groundhogs during the spring and summer, squirrels during the fall....

If you can head shoot a squirrel at 75-100 yards, and make hits on groundhogs at 350-400, hitting a deer in the shoulders at anything under a quarter-mile is a chip shot.

That everything is set-up as close to same/same as possible, and wears like glass (fixed 6x) makes cross-training easy.

I shoot running jack rabbits as much as possible and dry fire off hand 20 to 30 times every day. I work out of my home office and have my rifles next to my desk.

I shoot archery deer targets offhand at 300 yards.

I don't think but once I've killed a deer standing still. Every big game animal I've ever killed has been moving.

+What is a Sage Rat?

I am blessed as I have 125 yds outside my front door with a half mile overshoot of my property and a half mile of crown land behind that. I am also blessed with a job that keeps me busy 4 days on (24 hours) and four days off. This year I have been able to shoot once on average every 8 days. I also do a lot of dry fire and target aquisition unloaded. I am just getting to know a new rifle and becoming familiar with it. Next week or so will see me practicing with sticks, and possibly bipod. I am getting ready for this fall, and next spring. I also agree the 22 is a great fun way to get in practice of sight aquisition and trigger control.

Randy

atkinson


I rarely disagree with you. This suggests the goverment would be involved. We have too much government already.

For practice, I dry fire. Its cheap and I see where the crosshair is when the gun clicks. Really builds confidence.

We just did some thing last week that was kind of fun 3 of us made a trail walk. We set up 3 deer targets from archery targets on card board and then we did a walk though and shot the guns we had targets set up to 250 yards and in we did it about 4 times so it was fun we shot off hand setting on the ground and on the long shots we used a bipods it was good practice and beat punching holes at the range.

Yesterday I stapled two 5-6" balloons to the center of NRA 200 Yard Slow Fire targets.

Took them out with consecutive shots.

Of course I cheated and used a rest, but the first was at 600 yards, the second a mere 500.

Ruger M77, .30-06, 168g A-MAX, 2688fps.

This has come up before.
I use the archery target of full-size deer printing on corrugated cardboard, which is brown like a deer and hard to see in most terrain. Put then in the woods on a hillside for a backstop. Walk with my son like we are hunting. When he sees it, he would decide whether to shoot from there, try to ease up to a tree for a rest, or stalk closer. It is pretend, but I think it builds valuable skills, including picking an aiming spot, instead of shooting at the whole animal.

Vermin control is my source of practice.

Striped gophers, p dogs, skunks, what have you.......

Aim small, miss small......

Boy, I used to love going to the city dump and shooting rats on the move at 25 to 100 yards with a .22 LR.

Or you could be more accurate and paraphrase me saying that if I was shooting out a rifle barrel a year, that I'd rather shoot less and use the saved money for hunts. That's where me and you differ. You like to dicker with rifles and WAY over complicate hunting. Me, I'd rather just go hunting...

PS- Why don't you give some elk hunting advice while your at it?

I dunno, nothing wrong with burning out a barrel or 3 a year....one can still go hunting.

I don't do that anymore as life has changed, but there was a time when I'd fire 8-10K a year of centerfire, plus untold rimfire and dry firing and a pellet gun, and still happily knocked over a handful of deer each year too.

Some like to tinker, others don't. Doesn't mean its wrong or right.

Jeff

CZ 452, set up a target 100 yds away from me on a piece of plywood, crank my scope up to six power.. set the elevation to be dead on... then shoot a 100 rounds off hand at it.. from various positions..

I dp this once a week, twice or 3 times, if I can get the time..

it is challenging ,but it sure keeps your eye and trigger finger tuned and timed together...

the hardest thing about shooting off hand in the field, is not so much your accuracy as learning to control your breathing or learn to work with your breathing patterns to coordinate when you pull the trigger...

a 22 at 100 yds, on an 8 x 11 target ran off the internet can go a long way in helping one get better... and once you start, improvements don't take very long at all... substantial improvements...

I favor moose. Haven't missed but one in 40 years.,,, You have to work at it....