Is the problem the equipment....or you?

[Nhoro]

I start with me and work back to equipment. My guns are all more accurate than I am. And no matter how many times you have shot your rifle, you will be faced with an odd situation and have to do your best. I had a hunt in April where we came around some bushes and 3/4 behind me in a clearing was an impala. I twisted around and fired offhand at about 60 m- hit the liver so about 3 or 4 inches behind my aimpoint. Simple basic marksmanship teaches you to be naturally pointing at the target, not coiled up like a spring.

 

[NIGHTHAWK]

I don’t enjoy range shooting. I generally go to confirm my rifle is shooting where I expect it to. If my rifle has been cleaned, which I rarely do. End of season usually. Then I’ll foul it in with a couple shots, then look for a predictable group. What I’ve learned to do is eliminate possible errors in equipment or set up. That came at an initial investment premium. Time, money, and effort. Including custom match ammo. On the other end, it eliminates uncertainty. When I get to my hunting destination, I’ll check my rifle by shooting “my” 100 yard zero. I’ll consider a couple factors, elevation being one. That said, even my reloads are set to an original recipe and I don’t mess with that because I’ve proven that they work with many hunts and kills. If my zero is off, I use a “one shot Zero and don’t screw around with too many factors. The only thing I want to concern myself with is being relaxed, calm, controlled and making my best shot.

As far as distractions go, I don’t want to be rushed or distracted with unnecessary duress from other influences. @NZ Jack will confirm, when the outfitter came along while we were setting up for a shot on a big stag that was moving with 3-4 others and he started giving Jack (unsolicited) instructions on identifying the “right” Stag to shoot. I’m shooting prone at 160 yards uphill, not too steep, Stag group moving right to left, stiff cross wind! Probably 20 knots… Jack calls range at 160 yards. I’m set, starting to put pressure on the trigger, Then we hear “Jack, make sure he is on the right stag”. I take my finger off the trigger, the I tell my outfitter to “ STOP TALKING”! and the Stag shift left 60 yards and further uphill! Jack and I quickly get up, run at a steady crouched pace 50 yards, set up prone, Jack gives me new range 225 yards, I send a double lung shot and the Stag goes down! BTW, at this point in the hunt, we had already taken 2 other monster stag, a Tahr, 3 Fallow Buck , Alpine Goat, and a Ram… No unintended animals were shot, and every animal went down and was recovered in short order.

 

[steve white]

IMO proper technique should be used at the range and then in the field. Increased range magnifies faults. Questions might remain: what is the best technique to use with an ultralight rifle--some even advocate placing the hand on top of the scope with no fore end grip and only bag support. Will that translate to good shooting in the field? What about shooting off the sticks--is there any rubber at the connection, or should you place your hand UNDER the fore end rather than resting it directly on the crossed stick, with perhaps the fingers holding both fore end and junction of the crossed sticks. Do some rifles just shoot away from any solid rest harder than your hand--my drilling sure does, it's hand only. If bench rest was automatically easy, everyone would be a trophy winner....
Don't even get me started on pistols!!!
Appreciate the tips on field conditions so far.

 

[375Fox]

I always think once is me but twice is the equipment. I do a lot of dry fire practice on dummy rounds so my brain thinks gun is loaded. I have a problem with trigger control I know I have to focus on at all times. I have had two very notable scope failures on rental rifles. First we had difficulty sighting it in in field, so we went to a proper range. I hit the first roe buck I shot at but not where I was aiming. I shrugged it off. I missed the next roe buck 4 times under 150 yards. Shot at target. Scope had moved up about 10 inches. They took rifle to range again around lunch and let me shoot at target that afternoon. It didn’t hold up to the drive. It drifted way up again and I switched rifles. That was a very nice Leica scope. The second instance was with fallow deer. I was not permitted to shoot rifle at range but my guide did in front on me. I missed my first buck next morning about 100 yards. I shrugged it off again. I missed 2nd buck at maybe 60 yards. I told guides I have to shoot this myself at a target. They grudgingly agreed assuming it was me. There was a 3rd buck on way to target. He said it isn’t rifle and take the shot maybe 50 yards. My confidence was somewhat broken at this point and I thought maybe guide was right. I missed again. At target, the shots went maybe 12 inches high off target and a few inches to the right. I’m grateful it was off so far or I easily could have had wounded bucks. That was a very nice Swarovski scope. I switched rifles and went 3 for 3. The second instance taught me something. I won’t get pressured into a shot again if I don’t trust the equipment.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I will swim against the current here. I spend as little time as possible at the rifle range. First, I don't enjoy shooting paper. Boring, time consuming, and hard on my hearing and wallet. Too much time at the range can also develop a flinch, especially shooting my thumper 404. I know I can make the shot if the opportunity presents. Confidence is paramount. For me, overthinking the shot has always been more of an issue. My PH once said he was of the opinion I probably shoot better offhand fast than settled on the sticks. Similarly, I shoot skeet and clays low gun (as in at the waist when target is pulled). If I start to have problems busting clays it's either because I'm on the shotgun too fast (= too much time to shoot = overthinking) or opening both eyes (left eye does not track properly due to surgery).

Anyway, field hunting and range shooting are apples and oranges. How many times have I seen guys who can shoot sub MOA or a hundred straight skeet but can't hit water if they fell out of the boat when hunting. There is no substitute for field experience. Reading a lot of books or thousands of rounds at the range won't make the hunter an expert. Get the guns zeroed and then listen to your PH or mentor. Or spend thirty years hunting and learning from trial and error.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

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[JoninCO]

What have you got to offer in terms of adjusting "the nut behind the buttplate"?

I come at this from a different perspective than many hunters.

I spent 16 years in our special operations forces during the GWOT. When we weren't conducting operations we were training on a wide variety of tasks. Train train train...do do it for real....then right back to an endless training cycle. When I got injured overseas I spent a couple years running the training courses at an institutional level, and I continued with firearms training for high-level users after I retired for a few years. Some people have delusions of grandeur where they think they'll hyper focus and pull something off in real life that they haven't trained for...they fail at best and die at worst. Confidence without skill is called hubris, and it's never an enabler. So we train. It's not called "safe game" for a reason, right?

Performance is byproduct of training. Shooting is pretty simple in concept...apply the fundamentals for a given discipline. Pull the trigger without moving the sights til the bullet clears the muzzle. Given the right equipment (a zeroed rifle capable of your required level of accuracy) you'll hit your target. All we are doing in field conditions is making the application of these fundamentals more difficult to apply. Could be stress, could be fatigue, could be environmental conditions...whatever. Field shooting and range shooting are symbiotic. You have to do the exact same baseline things to make accurate shots. The better you are at it on the range, the better you are at it in the field, they are inextricably linked. It's just more difficult.

You have to train smart. Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent. So if practice makes you worse you just don't know what you're doing and you need to go back to the fundamentals. You've built a mansion on a cardboard foundation. Only perfect practice makes perfect. I would, of course, rather be walking around Africa with my gun than practicing mounting my rifle on sticks for three hours. I would rather be glassing for sheep than generating data and dialing in guns at the long range. Shooting a brick of .22LR a weekend out of a small-bore analog of my 500 Linebaugh hunting handgun is tedious during the summer, but I do it.

I've never once thought "I spent too much time getting really good at basic shooting" when it was time to take a challenging shot, and my life and livelihood have revolved around shooting for three decades at this point.

 

[BryceM]

After my first less-than-stellar performance in Africa I decided it was finally time to actually LEARN how to shoot. In those days I was shooting a .300 Wby. I eventually figured it out, after many hundred rounds and a shot-out barrel.

It would have been much easier if I had availed myself of a teacher or trainer. Learning on your own without help from those who already know how to do it is dumb. It takes way too long to identify and fix your own bad habits.

 

[JoninCO]

I'm a firm believer that a sub-caliber trainer of some sort is a good idea. Find a .223 Ruger M77 or the closest thing you can to your rifle and shoot the crap out of it. Everything but the recoil management translates, which if you have proper fundamentals (i.e. follow thru in this case) and a solid shot process it will be self correcting.

Cowboy action shooting is a great trainer for reloads on a double also. It's all out there, you've just gotta look.

 

[375Fox]

It would have been much easier if I had availed myself of a teacher or trainer. Learning on your own without help from those who already know how to do it is dumb. It takes way too long to identify and fix your own bad habits.

I think it takes people a lot longer to admit they have bad habits than to identify them. A couple of loaded dummy rounds and the video camera on your cell phone will show you your bad habits in a hurry. I’m amazed how many people think shooting more is the answer. Repeating the same bad habit 100x doesn’t make it better. I learn more on a dummy round that goes click when my brain thinks it’s live. Recoil covers up a lot of bad habits in that fraction of a second the trigger starts to break.

 

[JoninCO]

I used to shoot about 3500rds of 9mm a week. I went down to 1000rds with a better plan and made a lot of progress.

 

[mdwest]

there have been a couple of times that its legitimately been "the equipment".. Ive had a few gear failures in my lifetime... use enough stuff often enough, something is sooner or later going to fail you...

but.. admittedly, the overwhelming majority of time when I have experienced a "failure" (whether we're talking about a missed shot, or an improper ranging, or anything else).. its been a user error...

blame it on "buck fever", physical or mental exhaustion, or whatever else is going on at the moment.. but most of the time when something has gone wrong.. its on me.. not the gear..

 

[Doug Hamilton]

We all have to test our gear. We sometimes reload to squeeze the best out of a rifle. We look everywhere for the weak link in our arsenal...except in the mirror. What do you look for to alert you that YOU are the problem, not the rifle? And if that cannot be ascertained, do you even have a reasonable assessment of your equipment?
A PH was quoted in another thread saying that he had rather a client bring a 270 Win. than a 338 Magnum. He stated that the 270 required one shot on average vs. two shots for the 338--that is a recoil management problem, is it not? So maybe the line is not so clear cut, for example, where recoil enters as a factor in accuracy assessment? Then there is the question of form vs. function. Many of us were self taught--to our detriment/bad habits. Some rifles, especially ultra light ones may need a different shooting method, or shots are hard to control.

What have you got to offer in terms of adjusting "the nut behind the bbuttp

Since I will have tested any rifle that I hunt with, my first assumption when I mess up a shot is that I screwed up. Hey, it happens. Anyone that says every shot they fire in the field is perfect is a liar, or they don't actually hunt much. But, there was one time when I had just returned from a safari with my .30-06. It had worked perfectly on a variety of plains game. A friend wanted me to go hog hunting and since the rifle was working well I took it. I snuck up to a little group of pigs. I picked one out that I thought was under 30 pounds and would do well on the bar-b-cue. I promptly blew both hams off of him. I had to crawl in under thick brush to finish him. I figured that I had just blown the off hand shot. Later that day I got another shot at a hog across a canyon at about 300 yards. I was well rested and steady. I saw the bullet splash 7 or 8 feet left of the hog. I did not shoot again. Later I found that I could not zero the scope. First, I couldn't hit the target. I moved it to 25 yards. First the bullet would hit at the far side of the tsrget , then the opposite side.The inside of the scope just fell apart.

 

[Betterinthebush]

@Kevin Peacocke “..have strong thoughts on this - only shoot at animals with what you can shoot well.“

(Bows head..raises hands in the air..) Amen brother! Preach on!

Don’t buy that big magnum Unless you’re committed to train with it. A good coach will spot your flinch or jerk or tensing and coach you through it.

If you could see how small and skinny I am and how well I (now) absorb recoil and smoothly follow through some heavy magnums (and, it ain’t pretty..) when I first started training, you’d swear I’d given up afterwards. I’d give all the credit to an expert coach and hundreds of rounds of practice behind each caliber.

Expensive game, expensive gun, expensive practice. It’s part of our play.

 

[Kalthoff]

The reticle in the scope of my very first hunting rifle, started to come loose at some point during the first 100 shots I fired at the range.

Since I was new to rifle shooting, I presumed that I was the problem, not the equipment. A number of frustrating trips to the shooting range followed.....

Eventually the reticle came properly undone, to the point that the crosshairs tilted thirty degrees or so. Only then did I blame the equipment.

Having replaced that first scope with a flawless scope, "my shooting" improved tremendously

 

[Nevada Mike]

Shooting is all about confidence, which comes from practice and preparation. Practice really increases situational readiness and allows familiarity with our equipment.

Before my safari to Tanzania I
1. Set up targets on my property in brush, on hillsides, gullies, and in areas with broken terrain and trees at distances from 35 to 150 yads. I walked the property with binos, sticks and my rifle setting up quickly, and firing as targets were viewed. I fired over 250 rounds through my 404J for practice. My concerns over recoil faded to nothing and it was a lot of fun. I got familiar with the rifle.

2. Having never used sticks while hunting, I practiced every morning shooting my heavy .22 target rifle off my sticks at a target about 40 yards distant. A couple dozen shots every morning to figure out what worked best for me while shooting off sticks. My speed and accuracy improved greatly within a few months.

3. When not actually shooting I dry mounted my rifle, cycled the bolt, and dry fired. Did this over and over with and without the scope fitted in the QD mounts.

4. I worked out every morning to build leg and core strength. I am on the north side of seventy, but I CAN walk. In Africa I was not embarrassed in the company of my PH and trackers, either walking or shooting.

What did phase me for the first day or two was a sort of daze..."I am finally here... I am buffalo hunting." I was dazed by the country, the animals, the whole spectacle. But I got in the groove quickly and had a great safari.