Technique!
by Tom Gaylord
I was at the range today, not to shoot an airgun but to test a Ruger 10/22 for an upcoming Shotgun News article. The article is about potential accuracy and I'm pitting Ruger's 10/22 Target against my own custom gun that I built for this series of articles.
Anyway, I'm shooting 10-shot groups at 50 yards to get a true picture of the rifle's capability with each type of ammo, and suddenly I find myself in the middle of a pretty good group. With 7 shots fired, the group appears to be well under a half-inch. I don't have a scope level mounted, which is essential for the best accuracy, so I'm bisecting the bulls above and below the targeted bull with the vertical reticle (NRA 10-bull smallbore target). It doesn't matter whether or not the target is plumb - so long as every shot is fired with the rifle in the same attitude. Anyway, I notice that the vertical retical has rotated a small amount and THAT'S WHEN IT HAPPENED! I caught myself twisting the pistol grip to realign the reticle instead of repositioning it on the sandbag.
Fortunately, I didn't take that shot. I realized what I was doing and eased back off the trigger, then repositioned the rifle so the reticle was in the right place. When the group was finished it proved to be the best one of the day.
Had I taken the shot with the reticle twisted into position, the rifle would have thrown that bullet in the direction of the twist. If might have only been a quarter-inch, but this was a super-tight group that would have suffered from that small an error.
And thinking about that got me wondering how many airgunners pay little or no attention to their shooting technique. It makes all the difference in the world, yet to read the forums, the latest PCP from Sweden or England will make up for all your sins.
Well, it won't! Shooting technique is more important than the pedigree of your barrel. Only when you have mastered how to shoot are you ready to fully appreciate high-quality shooting tools.
And when I say "master," what I mean is know and understand. Because a lifetime of shooting isn't long enough to make any of it second nature. You have to work at it all the time. As I rediscovered today.
By the way, the group did not turn out to be under half an inch!
posted by Tom Gaylord @ 10:04 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I have a few questions; in terms of repeating air pistols is there any advantage to the S&W 586 when compared to other umarex automatic replics like the 1911? Is the double action of any one of these guns significantly smoother the other?
Last July you said you were testing the Tech Force 40. Have you come to any conclusions?
Thanks. I enjoy your writing.
tom I don't understand what you mean by repositioning the reticle by twisting and on the bag can you explain for a dummy like me
d.b.
The S&W 586 is significantly smoother in double action than any other Umarex airgun.
The Chinese sent me the wrong airgun. I did not get a B40, so I have not tested one yet.
I have been so busy that I let it slip.
Tom
Twisting,
I'll try to explain what I meant. By twisting the gun until the reticle was back in the right location (the center of the target) I put tension on the stock of the gun. When the gun fires, the initial impulses from the explosion of the gunpowder are redirected by the tension on the stock. A .22 rimfire bullet does not leave the muzzle before the gun starts to move from the impulse of the shot. That redirected force throws the muzzle in a direction it normally would not go, causing the bullet to exit the muzzle at a different place than all the other bullets have exited. That causes the bullet to strike apart from the rest of the bullets. The amount may be very small, but the group will grow larger.
What SHOULD be done is the rifle should be repositioned on the sandbag until the crosshairs rest on the bullseye with no extrenal pressure being applied. That is one trick of shooting technique.
The entire discussion of this technique is something I have labeled the artillery hold, because it is similar to a field artillery piece. When an artillery piece fires it recoils many feet backward, but as long as the gun carriage has not moved, the round will strike very close to all other rounds downrange. As a shooter, you become the gun carriage.
Tom.
The more postings about technique, the better, Tom. This is one of the most confusing areas in all shooting, and I for one try to get as much info as possible. Thanks for post and the thorough answer to the previous question (I was wondering about the twisting, too)
Okay, I'll keep that in mind.
Thanks,
Tom
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