If my mentors were to read this, they would probably shake their heads in disbelief and disappointment. In part of my training, I learned not to do what I’m going to tell you to do. I’m also going to tell you upfront not to do this, except in the beginning, for only new shooters because it can cause a bad habit, and I’ll explain why. I do this with every firearm for new shooters but will focus on bolt action rifles and reference pistols just to explain my point.
With any type of shooting/gun, it’s really easy to be off-center from where you’re aiming. Most people keep pulling the trigger and maybe hit Bullseye. But what did you accomplish or learn? Well, you shot all the ammo in your magazine, and maybe you learned you can’t hit the bullseye on purpose. What I’m getting at is make every shot count for something. Learn from every shot you take and analyze it. (I am being yelled at somewhere; I know it.) Load only one bullet into your magazine. (I do this for pistols also, so you don’t have a new shooter turning around with a loaded gun) Focus on your breathing. Once you are relaxed, take aim at your target. Line the cross-hair up and pause. Ask yourself these questions.
Am I at a natural point of aim?
Am I lined up with the firearm correctly?
Do I have a good sight picture/alignment?
Once all of these questions answers are yes, I want you to slowly press the trigger and focus only on the reticle. As soon as the weapon is fired, STOP! Don’t move. Don’t adjust your weapon or move your body. Let’s analyze everything.
First, check your trigger finger. It should still be held back. This is part of trigger control and follow-through. Is your sight alignment and sight picture still good? Are you still on target, ready to load your second round and shoot again? Most likely not if you are a newer shooter. Under recoil, the gun likely bounced because the energy transferred through the bipod or bag. We can help minimize this using recoil control. Now, check your bullet's impact. Is it exactly where the reticle was aiming at, or at least within 1 MOA of where you were aiming? If not, it's time to figure out why. Maybe not right this secound but log this information into you dope book and come back to it to analyze the data.
Let’s take a second shot following the same steps as before. Analyze everything again and compare the two shots. The reason for this is to analyze your fundamentals. If you’re jerking the trigger, on the rifle differently or muscling the rifle on target, this will change your point of impact. Doing DOT drills can help analyze your trigger pull. Another good exercise is to dry-fire your rifle a few times before shooting to warm up and check your fundamentals of marksmanship.
Recoil control is the next thing we need to apply to the firearm. This is to ensure that we are holding the rifle with the same pressure, the same way every time. You can have major impact shifts from holding the firearm a little differently for each shot. A general rule to give you an idea of how much pressure to use to pull the rifle into the pocket of your shoulder is holding the gun up by your shooting hand with the barrel pointing at the ground. The amount of weight pulling the rifle down is about how much you pull the rifle into your shoulder. Another technique I use while shooting prone is to dig a small trench about an inch deep to put the feet of the bipod in. This allows you to push your body weight into the rifle. During recoil, your body will absorb most of the push. This allows you to be perfectly on target for a follow-up shot. This is referred to as loading the bipod. If you’re in an unorthodox position or shooting from a bench, you can shoot off a bag or put the bipod legs into the strap of a bag or mat to load the bipod.
Next are three separate things, but I’ll cover them together because they are tied together, and one will affect the other. This is sight alignment, sight picture, and your cheek riser/cheek pad. Essentially, this is getting on the rifle, looking through the scope and at the target the same way every time. I covered this in another blog, so I won’t go into detail again. You should always be in a state of a national point of aim. I found the best way to be constant with this is during dry fire practice. Get on the gun, run the bolt, press the trigger, then stand up. Do this until when you get on the gun, you’re on perfectly within a few seconds. Take your time and analyze your body position. This is what focusing on the fundamentals looks like. Once you get the fundamentals down, continuously practice them through dry fire.
You can now focus on your impacts to analyze your rifle and ammo. I like to take a few shots, marking the impacts into my dope book. I will then use a ballistic calculator and change the data to match what I see on the target. Assuming I have my ballistic data (feet per second, trued data, drop charts, etc.) I can now see if I have incorrect environmental, incorrect dope, or made a mistake somewhere. I’ll use 1 MOA or less as a maximum error. This helps me determine if it's me, the gun, or the ammo that I need to work on. I will analyze each shot and learn something from every shot. Because I reload, I can make adjustments to my ammo if it's needed. This is also part of my data collection.
Now, I’m going to tell you to stop looking down range and analyzing everything. Run your bolt and get ready to take your next shot. With proper recoil control, you can shoot, run the bolt, and then watch your impact. As soon as the bullet hits its target (or misses), you are ready for a follow-up shot to make a correction before the wind changes. A good exercise for this is to shoot one target twice, fast. Shoot, run the bolt, get on target, and shoot again. This is what I consider running a bolt-action rifle correctly.
Unless you are coming off the gun or are finished shooting, you should always have your next round loaded and ready to shoot. Once you are finished, eject your round and leave your bolt open. This lets you and everyone around you know the chamber is empty. You don’t want to get sidetracked and pick up a loaded gun. Keep in mind most of these steps are more for a new shooter. You don't want to have a bad habit of being on the gun with an empty chamber, staring at a target you missed. I think this is also good practice because when you become a more experienced shooter, if you have an issue, it's much easier to troubleshoot and find out why you are missing.
Here are a few things to take with you:
If you have a 100% hit rate, you need to move further back.
If you have a very low hit rate, you need to move closer.
You should learn just as much from your misses as you do your hits.
The best in the world miss, so don't let that discourage you.
The Overwatch
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