Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best articles on shooting technique?

I have a really weak spring-type BB pistol with a horrible trigger. It's so weak you can see where the BB goes. Shooting at tin cans tack welded to pole barn nails (various sizes, various pleasing plonks and plinks) and home made swingers off the deck has taught me more about trigger control than anything else. It's handy, cheap and fun so you practice more. Good practice for sight alignment and using iron sights too.

Check this out Waders.

http://www.ontariooutofdoors.com/hunting/firearms/?ID=232&a=read

Jerry

Wade,
Find a mentor.
Someone who can watch you shoot, see the problems and then be able to teach you how to get better.

If not, go to one of the shooting schools.
The one I am most familiar with is Holland's in Oregon, because I help teach there every spring.
Most shooting is done from the prone position in this four day school made for hunters.
You can PM me if you want more info.

Good point. The kids I coach at trap are often unaware of problems until I point them out. In fact it's not that I'm a particularly good coach but I can see what's going wrong. Flinching is a classic. I get the, "Yeah, right." look until there's a misfire (or a dummy shell). Then I get the sheepish, "Maybe the old fart does know what he's talking about." look. It's a hoot!

I need a coach too, but with adult egos sometimes it's hard to find someone willing to speak up. You can usually figure it out yourself, eventually, but a coach saves a lot of time, powder and frustration.

NO, it the THE reference on field shooting, bar none. Gunsite 270 is the boltgun course. Thunder Ranch does something similar. Randy Cain of Cumberland Tactics has been the rangemaster for a couple of Gunsite 270's and teaches a 3-day class called Practical Rifle. He'll turn you from zero to hero pretty quick. When I attended there was a guy there for his second time. He lived in FL and had gone elk hunting for the first time a couple of months after attending Cain's class. He described taking a knee and quickly finding his natural point of aim and making a shot on a bull that was getting ready to bolt. IIRC he said the range was 200+ and prone was not an option. He said had he not been to that class, he'd have just watched it walk.

The Gunsite 270 course is something I would love to do but haven't yet.

dry fire dry fire dry fire

You need to get extremely familiar with your weapons and develope good form before they go bang. If you are making mistakes with live ammo, you probably will never know it.

Also, you want to put down as many rounds down range as possible.
This is where 22s, 223s, 38s and a good reloading press come in handy.

The Gunsite 270 course is the real deal. The manual that comes with that class is awesome -- kind of like outline version of Jeff Cooper's book - If you could get it that would help you a lot.

If someone really wants to do Gunsite one way to go is to do a "Tutorial" - you can design your own course -- say 2 days of rifles and 1 day of pistols. Then invite several like minded friends who are willing to go and its not much more than a standard course. Il Ling New, an instructor at Gunsite, is the the best for that kind of thing.

Craig Boddington's book "Shots at Big Game" is also pretty good.

I can sure relate with Mule Deer on shooting Varmints. The mindset sure does change when shooting live targets rather than paper or steel. I shoot rockchucks every spring and from a number of rests at 200-300 yards. Seems like even when shooting off my somewhat shaky portable bench, I can squeeze off a shot at just the right time. The most important item, is the trigger on my varmint guns. With out excellent, light triggers, my success would be limited.

In addition, I generally shoot sage rats off the hood of a vehicle and most times they do not give a shooter much time. Have been doing all of this for years, and have found it easy to adjust to fast, accurate shooting.

Art of the Rifle

Check out this relatively new blog: http://artoftherifle.blogspot.com/

This blog expands upon Cooper's book and has the best instruction and video on bolt manipulation I have ever seen. He goes into detail discussing various shooting positions and the use of a sling. I think it is the best thing available on the internet regarding practical rifle shooting.

That was a good link. Good stuff on that blog about practical reality off the bench. A pair of good book reviews as well.

Hey Mr. Fred:

Where do you find rats on the hood of a vehicle?

Do you ever hit the hood or just crease one?

Sorry, I know what you meant BUT I just had to ask!!

Any kind of vermen can make EXCELLENT practice for game hunting.
Jerry

Waders - There have been some really good suggestions offered.

Something else I do is, fill small plastic bottles or jugs ( quart oil bottles for example) w/water. First, set them at known ranges. Start NOT TO CLOSE, depending on your skill.

Second set them as far away that you ? you ability & at UNKNOWN distances.

Use different positions, sticks, whatever. If you hit one you'll know w/o having to go look at a target.

Third - pick up the trash and take it with you.

This has helped me & it's fun.
Jerry

Hunter's Guide to Accurate Shooting by Wayne van Zwoll has sections on shooting technique. He apparently has associated with some top shooters along the way.

Wayne van Zwoll was a competative shooter from a young age.

I still suggest you find an Appleseed event.