Rifle Shooting, Standing Up
Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:40 pm
Today I decided to try shooting on my feet for a change, instead of from the bench.
I had some military surplus .308 ammunition, FMJ that I had bought for my son's Ruger American bolt gun, but the American didn't like that ammo. - It would chamber it, but only with some effort. - The American chambered regular sporting .308s just fine, though.
The only other .308 around the house is my new BLR... I cycled a couple rounds of the milsurp ammo through it in the shop, and it did just fine, and that's when I got the idea about shooting from a standing position, as the BLR was specifically bought as a hunting rifle.
When I got to the range, it turned out that some kind soul had recently put up a new 100 yard gong, a steel plate 2" thick and about 18 inches in diameter, swinging from a couple of chains.
The old gong had really deteriorated, it looked like Swiss cheese.
I filled the magazine on the BLR and tried some offhand shots with the scope at it's highest magnification, 7X.
I haven't shot a rifle standing up in years, I almost always get hunkered down behind it on a bench, these days.
It didn't take me long to discover that my old silhouette shooting technique did not work out well for the little BLR, and that a firm grip on the fore-end was required.
After a couple of clips the BLR's barrel got pretty warm, and I remembered that I had a second gun in the van, a Mauser in 7mm Rem mag that I had been shooting earlier in the day, trying to burn up some factory ammo so that I would have once-fired brass to reload. The Mauser has a hard plastic butt-plate and had hurt my shoulder a bit on the bench, so I still had plenty of 7mm mag ammo left...
Shooting it standing up though, it was much more comfortable so I alternated between the two rifles, letting one cool while I shot the other.
I considered the idea of sitting, or laying down to shoot, but I had no pad and the goat-head stickers endemic to west Texas kind of nixed that idea... I decided to just shoot from a standing position, today.
It's a good thing that I did. The two guns are my big game hunting rifles, and trying to shoot them offhand reminded me that shooting from a bench does not really prepare one for a hunt.
I developed a hold for both of the rifles that worked for standing up. Next time, I'll bring a pad so that I can try other positions.
For a hunting rifle, the bench is good for getting it sighted-in, but after that I guess it's really best to shoot it like you might do in the field, in various positions.
The new gong hanging on chains worked out OK. If I shot to the right or left, it would rotate instead of just swinging back and forth, so I had an idea about how well I was doing without having to walk all the way out there to hang up a paper target.
It sure was fun!
I had some military surplus .308 ammunition, FMJ that I had bought for my son's Ruger American bolt gun, but the American didn't like that ammo. - It would chamber it, but only with some effort. - The American chambered regular sporting .308s just fine, though.
The only other .308 around the house is my new BLR... I cycled a couple rounds of the milsurp ammo through it in the shop, and it did just fine, and that's when I got the idea about shooting from a standing position, as the BLR was specifically bought as a hunting rifle.
When I got to the range, it turned out that some kind soul had recently put up a new 100 yard gong, a steel plate 2" thick and about 18 inches in diameter, swinging from a couple of chains.
The old gong had really deteriorated, it looked like Swiss cheese.
I filled the magazine on the BLR and tried some offhand shots with the scope at it's highest magnification, 7X.
I haven't shot a rifle standing up in years, I almost always get hunkered down behind it on a bench, these days.
It didn't take me long to discover that my old silhouette shooting technique did not work out well for the little BLR, and that a firm grip on the fore-end was required.
After a couple of clips the BLR's barrel got pretty warm, and I remembered that I had a second gun in the van, a Mauser in 7mm Rem mag that I had been shooting earlier in the day, trying to burn up some factory ammo so that I would have once-fired brass to reload. The Mauser has a hard plastic butt-plate and had hurt my shoulder a bit on the bench, so I still had plenty of 7mm mag ammo left...
Shooting it standing up though, it was much more comfortable so I alternated between the two rifles, letting one cool while I shot the other.
I considered the idea of sitting, or laying down to shoot, but I had no pad and the goat-head stickers endemic to west Texas kind of nixed that idea... I decided to just shoot from a standing position, today.
It's a good thing that I did. The two guns are my big game hunting rifles, and trying to shoot them offhand reminded me that shooting from a bench does not really prepare one for a hunt.
I developed a hold for both of the rifles that worked for standing up. Next time, I'll bring a pad so that I can try other positions.
For a hunting rifle, the bench is good for getting it sighted-in, but after that I guess it's really best to shoot it like you might do in the field, in various positions.
The new gong hanging on chains worked out OK. If I shot to the right or left, it would rotate instead of just swinging back and forth, so I had an idea about how well I was doing without having to walk all the way out there to hang up a paper target.
It sure was fun!