Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Developing Marksmanship Skills

Jetblueman - excellent topic/question. I suspect there are a bunch of guys who have been hunting many years, bagged quite a bit of game, and never really got very good with their rifle.

Some great stuff I've picked out of the posts so far:

Be decisive - absolutely. See the shot, make it.

Use a .22, a lot - I go through thousands of rounds of the stuff every year. Rifle & pistol.

Get off the bench. Yes, yes, yes! I see too many hunters worrying about what .1 grain of powder may or may not do to their load, spending hours at the bench to produce "bragging groups." When what they ought to be doing is shooting from standing, sitting, kneeling and prone.

To Ingwe's keeping the scope low - I'd twist it a bit and say make the rifle & scope fit. I like the low scope myself, but others work well with a higher mounted scope.

I've trained a bunch of guys & gals for combat shooting and all that practice helps. One of my tougher students has been my own youngest son. He must have really listened early on about not rushing the shot, because now he tends to take forever to make a rifle shot. I work on that with him by using reactive targets, mostly with his .22 rifle. We shoot from a lot of oddball positions, but master the basics. He's getting pretty good anymore and it's a hoot.

One game we've played is to face 90 degrees from the target, then on command spin and hammer the paper plate. With .22's and hunting rifles. The paper plate is good up close, sometimes we substitute a steel gong for the longer ranges. Good stuff. Fun, and adds the element of speed into it, without ever sacrificing accuracy.

After the range sessions - get afield. Coyotes. Squirrels. Sage rats. Prairie dogs. Whatever smallish animal & fleeting opportunity you can come up with. Most of us don't get to spend weekend after weekend afield anymore - but that sort of thing will sharpen skills.

My apologies for jumping in on the Africa forum - never hunted there, but I do shoot a lot and love to practice improvised "field" shooting. It's been a huge help on bigger game.

Regards, Guy

Guy,
Thanks for that input! Very practical. Just with the qualifier that for the reader who is not as familiar with public or private shooting ranges, the 90* drill would make the range officer's blood pressure go up a bit! Good suggestion though!

Ya know, I bought a 22 Hornet for the practice gun, because I always wanted one, but a CZ in a 22LR might have been even wiser. Of course, I can always save up for a 22LR!

After reading this thread I "need" a 22 WMR bolt action. Single shot 22 and semi-auto 22 just isn't realistic.

A couple of differences I experienced (and no, my "experience" does not make me an expert) was:
1) Learn to acquire your target quickly, in an environment unfamiliar to you, and shoot quickly. Most of the time, we were tracking animals, and they didn't stay in one place for very long. I needed to find the animals, figure out which one was the "one", then shoot before they took off again. Usually, they knew we were on them and never tallyed around for long at any time.

2) I guess is really a subset of one, you are looking for animals you are not familiar with, in an environment you probably aren't accustomed to. Looking through the Mopani was much different for me than looking through rocks and ice or hemlock and spruce. Took me a while to "acclimate" to the distances, stunted Mopani and Acacia is different than towering spruce. Knowing the size of the animals is key to judging distances. An Eland is a monstoruous animal, while a Klipspringer is the size of a small dog... All are built differently than their corresponding sized animals in the US. An Eland is nowhere is "tall" as a moose, though can weigh roughly the same if not more.

After you do all of the above, practice shooting rapid fire offhand (3 shots) with full power loads at about 25 yards. Learn to operate the bolt subconsiously when you release each shot--without taking the rifle down from your shoulder. Rotate it slightly clockwise as you lift the bolt. Learn to lift it, not grasp it. Learn to come back to the same position. I found that I had a nasty tendency to shoot repeat shots low because I didn't come back to the same position.

American hunters have a nasty tendency to "admire" the first shot as the animal runs away. If it doesn't fall down dead, shoot it as long as you can. If it does fall down "dead," and if it's a dangerous game animal, shoot it again before you move your feet. Then reload before you move.

Make sure the scope is mounted as far forward as you can get it without vignetting. I've never had one whack me in the eyebrow.

And like the posters said, dry fire and shoot .22 a lot. By the way: Look at an object about 50 feet away, close your eyes, and mount your hunting rifle. It should point at the object without any fiddling around. If it doesn't, mount the scope differently or get a new stock. Fortunately for me, factory Model 70 and Weatherby stocks allow me to align perfectly.

Practice with shooting sticks. I found I had to rotate my body slightly from offhand to use them correctly.

After you've got a zero and reasonable (not the highest) velocity and accuracy if you handload, don't waste any more time shooting off the bench.

There have been many good ways suggested over the years to improve marksmanship. Almost any type of shoot practice will pay dividends in the field. Here are some things that have helped me become a better shot in the field.

Dry Fire- Advocated by none other the WDM "Karamojo" Bell, the great elephant poacher and renowned shot. He contended that constant dryfire, practicing gun mounting, sight acquisition, and trigger control was indispensable in becoming comfortable with your rifle and making the shot offhand automatic. I will add that dryfire using various rests and breathing control is excellent practice. It is also a way to get rid of a flinch.

Practice with a .22LR- You can fire lots or round for little money. Low report and no recoil. Practice from the bench, with a rest, and free standing.

Quick Kill - A shooting method used in Vietnam to train some troops. It involves hitting round disks of ever decreasing diameters thrown into the air just in front of the shooter. A Daisy BB gun is used without sights. This teaches instinctive shooting. I had a SF instructor teach me quick kill. In one afternoon, he had me shooting dimes out of the air with regularity. I witnessed him shooting BB's out of the air with this method! It gives you absolute confidence. I was a terror on the skeet range for some time after that. It sure is fun to boot.

The Cordoba Method - I named this one. Go dove hunting in Argentina, where the targets blacken the sky. Three days of dove hunting will make you a master with a shotgun. You'll instinctively understand lead, swing and trigger pull. Running shots at big game will be easy, and certainly you will have no nervous trepidation about moving shots. Lots of trigger time.

One of the trues of axioms is that you will do under pressure what you have practiced. I was told the best piece of accrutemont was a waist high pile of twice fired brass. Feild position practice positions and rapid target acquisition will speed the shot and increase the accuracy so much more than a jerking of the trigger.

Repeated practice with target acquisition and trigger squeeze as soon as target is aquired nets speed over time. I dry fire a lot with snap caps to familiarise myself with the rifle, but live fire is the only way to prove that when the crosshairs are on target and the trigger is squeezed, the bullet will travel to the crosshairs. I am a proponent of using the .22lr to practice, but do not often enough take my own advice.

I found that shooting every day in small amounts is better than a lot in one sitting. I find squirrel hunting to be the best warm up for deer season that I have found. 22's head shot only, teaches you to take your time. Also here in CT, the limit on Squirrels is 40, so I try to collect my 40 with just one box of 50. That is a lot harder that you would think. The best I ever did was 36 for 50 shots, I think I lost a couple of cartridges that year. When you don't shoot for long period of time your skill level drops off quite a bit. It comes back fast enough. The other thing is keep the scope power to reasonable levels Fixed 4 or 6 is more than plenty for big game hunting, shoot a reasonable cartridge in a rifle that fits.

Attend Randy Cain's Practical Rifle Course or Gunsite 270, or both.

Many...I won't say 'most' guys born within the last 40 years basically KNOW NOTHING about how to use anything but a scope to shoot with and frankly....if I were hunting Africa....to hell with that! I guess I'm a member of the Ole Timers Club because my rifle would be a Double...in probably a .470 Evans with NO SLING ATTACHED! Barrel sights are...in my opinion...the fastest thing to use for dangerous game and very accurate if used and practiced with!

Sharpsman FWIW...all the rifles Ive taken to Africa had iron sights( sighted in), no slings attached when hunting, no slings ever attached on Big Game, and I must be old enough because again FWIW Ive made three safaris with irons alone...( when my eyes were still able...)
Now the rifles have scopes( but still all have sights, sighted in )




Oops...I AM old...forgot one...I took a Model 7 CDL on the last trip, no irons, and shot a warthog with it....

There are men, lots of men (we pay their salaries and buy their ammo) who kill other men regularly when they aren't training on the range with shooting timers that measure reaction time to the hundredth of a second. These same men figured out long ago that iron sights were about 35-40% slower than dot(Aimpoint type) sights. Less failure prone, perhaps, but not faster.

Take a knee,

I am sure I understand what you mean - and most likely agree - but wanted to be sure to ask. Which 'iron sights'in the sentence is to be substitute?

If it were me...... I would load up a bunch of reduced loads for the particular rifle I were taking and shoot it as often as I could mantaining proper shooting fundamentals. If you are using irons remember concentrate on the front sight, everything else should be slightly out of focus. It works for me when I need to qualify with my duty pistol. I also keep both eyes open when shooting however it may be difficult if you have one eye that is overly dominant over the other. Not sure what you will be hunting and what time of day it would be but irons may be the best way to go. I shoot irons well and love them but where I hunt the game only comes out in fading light so a scope is a must unfortunately.

Sorry, got up to get a beer, red dots are 35-40% faster than irons, and that's comparing the Aimpoint to decent ghost rings. Partridge type sights are even slower. I'll likely never own a 470 double rifle, and if I did I'd leave the express sights on it, but they are not faster than a dot, or a good 1-4X scope set on 1X.

The purpose of this thread is to get advice for proper marksmanship skills specifically to prepare for an African safari including: Cape Buffalo, Kudu, Eland, Gemsbok, Zebra, Impala and Springbok. I will be using a CZ 550 American 9.3x62. I chose that over the .375 H&H I used to own as it is a handier rifle for everything. I handload and plan to use 286gn Swift A-Frames or Nosler Partitions. My rifle has a Burris 1.5x6x40 Illumidot mounted in the supplied CZ mounts/rings and it fits me and the rifle perfectly.
I appreciate all of your advice from various perspectives and experience. It is all good stuff and I've found that staying humble and learning from others makes me a better person, and in this case, marksman.

[quote=ingwe]Sharpsman FWIW...all the rifles Ive taken to Africa had iron sights( sighted in), no slings attached when hunting, no slings ever attached on Big Game, and I must be old enough )




Oops...I AM old....... [/quote

Nyalubwe,

You're so old you went before smokeless powder was invented.

Yep...and Selous really was a cool guy.....

Send me an e-mail and I will forward a couple of articles I've written on the subject. ggrod at msn.com

Many years ago, I shot competition, and I was fortunate enough to get to shoot in matches with the AMU shooters at Fort Benning.

They were very helpful with their tips and advice to civilian shooters.

The most important thing you will ever learn is sight alignment and trigger control. That means, align your sights with the target, and squeeze of the shot while the sights are aligned with the target.

It does matter if the sights are iron, scope, peep, red dot, or anything else. The basic principle is the same--line them up with the target and keep them aligned while you squeeze.

During the time I shot competition, I lived in a subdivision, so shooting high power or any live ammuntiion was out of the question.

I purchased a BB gun and made a backstop from a cardboard box stuffed with magazines. The principle is the same, whether shooting a BB gun or a .470. If you do not have your sights aligned and control your trigger, you are not going to hit your elephant with the .470, nor will you hit the pin head target with your BB gun.

A good pellet gun might work better. I have used both. When I could, I would go to a remote area and practice sight alignment and trigger control with my .22 rimfire.

I did very little dry firing. Dry firing to me is one of the most boring things I can think of.

Practice for field shooting differs in certain ways from competition shooting. You would practice differently for a 1000 yard Wimbleton match or an Olympiac tryout match than you would for a field shot on a deer, but there is one thing they both have in common-you have to align the sights and control the trigger.

The BB gun and pellet gun and .22 are much cheaper to shoot that a highpower rifle, and you can practice in your basement, if you have one. Distance and target size does not matter. With the BB or pellet gun, shoot at a target about the size of the period at the end of this sentence, from a distance of about 25-30 feet.

For the .22, 100 feet to maybe 50 yards, depending on your sights and and target size. Something about 2 inches in diameter, like the end of a coke can layed on it's side is pleny good enough.

Also, if time and distance permits, pract sight alignment and trigger control with the rifle you are planning to hunt with.

Sometimes, practice can get boring, so I used to do some trick shooting. I would shoot at empty .22 cases, washers, shotgun shells laying on their side, anything small and very difficult to hit. Trying to shoot through the tab hole of the coke can was good practice. I also liked to stand a playing card with it's edge facing me and try to split it at a range of about 50 feet.

It is difficult to do, but it breaks the monotomy of shooting at a bullseye target over and over.

Sometimes, with the BB gun, I would pitch a BB or small rock into the air and shoot at it. With practice, it is possible to become profficent at hitting small aerial targets.

As for positions, I am mainly speeking of standing. In actual hunting, the terrain and woods conditions, such as thickness of brush, would determine your actual position, but after learning and mastering sight alignment and trigger control from standing, using a rest or any kind of brace is a cinch. Just do not become overconfident and complacent when using a rest and think, "hey, this feels great. This is much steadier and I don't have to concentrate as much on sight alignment and trigger control." WRONG.

Learn to call your shots. Remember where the sights were aligned when the rifle fired.

There are shooting manuals available on the internet and in many books and magazines. I have talked about basic markmanship principles, something you are going to have to learn before you learn anything else. Yeah, I know, sight allignment and trigger control.

The books and magazines will demonstrate various field and competition positions, but hitting the target from any of these positions requires one thing. Guess what it is.