Expectation for off hand accuracy with a Flintlock

[Tony Logan]

Friendship is a must see and do for those that want to see some what a bp gun can really do offhand. I was up there just one day this spring for the first time. I need to take in the whole week. I had reluctantly brought my gun and I am glad I did,, for no other reason than there was nothing but nice guys trying to help me out every way they could.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

For the last 35 years all of the shooting matches I have attended have been off hand. I shoot mainly primitive matches at rendezvous and Friendship. Even the woods walk which is not a costumed primitive match is all off hand. One would think that an off hand shooter could shoot off a rest. I find myself in the same boat as the rest shooters, I can't hit the side of a barn from a rest! I guess if you play one game for many years you kind of get yoked to it. After I retired a couple of years ago, I tried to work on my rest shooting. To date my rest groups are are worse than my offhand groups. What is that old saying about teaching old dogs new tricks?
Woof!

 

[123.DieselBenz]

That would be the second step for most, as getting the best group is usualy the first step and the hardest, drifting filing sights is just a fine tuning of sorts

Yes, I agree, but the purpose of the match is to hit three times as close as possible to the center . . . only hits count! :wink:

 

[HOGGHEAD]

I am lucky enough to live in an area that has a few small ranges and club shoots. A couple of those clubs do a black powder silhouette shoot. They shoot targets out to 100 meters. They shoot the handgun targets if you know what size those are.

IMO it is better to shoot against other shooters. Doing that really makes you concentrate on your shooting.

I don't think a FL is difficult to shoot offhand. You just have to approach it differently. And follow through is the most important characteristic to learn.

I hear alot of guys brag about shooting off hand. Then I will put a sheet of note book paper up at 100 yards and bet them they can't hit that sheet of paper. I have walked away with far more dollar bils than I have paid.

Off hand shooting is like anything else. It just takes practice. And if anyone thinks off hand shooting can not be learned. Well just go to Camp Perry and watch those retired grunts shoot their Garands. You will get a whole new appreciation of off hand shooting. Tom.

 

[jethro224]

Split a playing card at 10-15 yards, dust a charcoal briquette at 25, clay bird at 50, groundhog at 75, 8" gong at 100. When you can hit those most of the time you're doing pretty darn good. :thumbsup:
You're still gonna get out-shot plenty often tho.

 

[wahkahchimaol.com]

I have been a range master for modern service rifle matches for years. We've shot many 100 yard reduced-bull matches. The bottom line is that if a shooter can put all his rounds into less than a 4" group offhand at 100 yards with a completely modern AR_15 match gun and shooting hacket, then he's genuinely skilled, perhaps one to three shooters among a thousand. Consistently shooting offhand to produce less than a 3" group is national class. Now add all of the challenges of a flintlock to that. I'm sure there are people out there who can do it, it's just rare. The best modern gun offhand shooters seem to practice a lot offhand with an airgun.

 

[ODG34]

I can shoot much better offhand with my flintlock than I can with a "modern" gun. With the 38" long swamped barrel the gun is so well ballance it holds like a dream. Add the double set trigger and you have a wicked combination.

 

[Fred_Dwyer]

if a shooter can put all his rounds into less than a 4" group offhand at 100 yards with a completely modern AR_15 match gun

:surrender:
I'm lucky if I don't shoot the toes off the guy next to me. Fortunately it seems everyone has just finished shooting and is packing up & leaving when I arrive at the range.

 

[flintlock50]

As others have stated NMLRA matches are the best places to learn what is possible offhand with our guns,with Friendship being at the top.
With the classification program and new novice programs avaliable at Friendship first time shooters can come and compete against others of matching abilities while having the chance to observe and learn from some of the best. Starting next June we will have a clasification program in place for the lady shooters also. With thier own novice program. To answer your question the expectation of accuracy is 200 points out of 200 on an aggregate to my knowledge it hasn't been done, thats why we keep trying.

 

[matt denison]

To answer your question the expectation of accuracy is 200 points out of 200 on an aggregate to my knowledge it hasn't been done, thats why we keep trying.

So true.

I do a lot of offhand shooting. It's my favorite way to enjoy a muzzleloader shoot. I get bored shooting little holes in paper from a bench rest. To me benching is useful for finding a load and testing inherrent accuracy only. Then the fun begins with offhand shooting, mostly at gongs and clangers on a trailwalk. That is a whole different skill set. You're shooting from a bag, no table full of gadgets and acsessories.(sp) Targets are at random distances, different sizes, odd terrain, changing light conditions etc. Holding steady is everything. Some use the "circle 8" method of swinging past the target and timing the trigger to correspond with sight allignment. I like to hold dead on. If you practice you may be suprised how well you can shoot offhand. I think it makes you a better marksman.

 

[roundball]

After a final check of my .40cal squirrel load this morning (shot from my seated hunting position) I did stand and shoot 5 shots at 25yds out of the .40cal Lancaster and to my total surprise, 4 shots basically clover-leafed and 1 was a couple inches off at 3 o'clock.
Maybe the difference is the longer barrels on these longrifles compared to the shorter barreled T/C Hawkens I'd tried offhand in the past.
Although I have noticed since getting this Lancaster that its extremely fast and accurate...shoots like a laser...but 25yds isn't much of anything so longer distances will be a good challenge to look forward to next year...

 

[BrownBear]

Might have nothing to do with squirrels in your woods unless the cover is pretty thick anyway. But here goes, cuzz I have so much fun doing it for practice:

I place my target in kinda broken cover with limbs, grass, leaves and other obstructions in the way, along with clear shooting alleys as you move back and forth in front of the target. Then I just walk around shooting the target from different angles, shooting positions and distances.

"Group" size varies with the day and my attention span, but in the process I have a whole lot of fun forcing myself to overcome shooting challenges and shoot from some pretty weird positions. In truth, pretty quick I'm looking for oddball shots just to see if I can make them.

It's a clear break from standard range shooting, and pays huge dividends with hair under the front sight.

 

[Matt PA]

A buddy of mine and myself were just shooting offhand at 100 yards yesterday afternoon........ we cut out a cardboard deer target yesterday, slapped a little white spray paint here and there and a little sharpie marker and it was a pretty realistic image to shoot at (fun too :grin: )
Anyway this is the second time that we have done this and yesterday we took 20 shots at the target total (10 each) and we both had 9 solid "kill" shots for 18 out of 20.
The other 2 were clean misses,one each that drifted low.
These shots ranged from solid shoulder shots to Liver area......nothing too high or low.

Last time we did this we were 100% kill shots for a total of about 38 out of 40 for the 2 sessions. That seemed pretty darn good to me for straight offhand shooting!?
No 3 or 4" groups but good solid effective shooting that at the very least tells us that a 100yd offhand shot is realistic in the field under good conditions.

 

[wahkahchimaol.com]

Matt, I am thinking that the lethal area on a deer is much greater than the 10 ring of the modern rifle bull. You are completely right: practicing offhand makes you lethal during deer season!

 

[Matt PA]

The best part is that after you bear down on a couple dozen shots at 100 yards when you step up to 50 yards it seems like cheating! :wink:

 

[Flash Pan Dan]

Roundball, may I suggest that if you are at all uncertain of your offhand technique. Make sure you find out what the proper technique is before you spend time practicing. Practicing the wrong method is the worst thing you can do. When I started competing in High Power Rifle I was taken aside by a High Master shooter and taught the correct offhand method of shooting. It took me several months of dry firing to get rid of the bad habits I had been practicing up to that point.

 

[paulvallandigham]

OH. You have found out that most of shooting is mental, not physical once you have your technique and load worked out. If you want to improve your hold, and stance to shoot small groups, at any distance, always practice shooting at longer distance. Then, when you go back to the shorter range, it isn't the kind of "IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE" you thought it was.

I use this same strategy to teach students how to shoot handguns accurately at what many consider long range. They think I am nuts when I put targets out at twice the range, and ask them to shoot those targets. There is a method to the madness, but my students often don't figure it out until they see how much better they are shooting at what they USED to THINK was a long range for their handguns. You would join me, and some of my students laughing at how big an improvement in their scores takes place without only a few hours of practice. :hatsoff:

I have friends who routinely put metallic silhouette targets out at 150 yards, and shoot them, there, to practice to shoot the same targets during a match at 100 yds. This with small bore rifles. They usually clean the 50 yd. targets, when they never came close before I "abused" their minds. :blah: :haha: :shocked2: :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[Robinnz]

Hi , offhand is more of a mental challenge than most shooters and think that holding the rifle dead still is the hard part , but just nobody can hold their gun dead still .. getting your mind around that and getting good coaching and lots of practice with good technique makes things a lot easier and will lead to good scores in no time at all .. As said eslse where on this thread practice with an airgun is about the same as shooting a flinter , but much cheaper , ( a good route to go )you do have to hold through .. I kept a record of my scores for a whole year once and came out with an average of 88 for that period that looks like 10 8's every time and i thought it was pretty good until I practiced for the MLIAC champs where I shot several clean targets .. got me in the team but that is another (bad luck ) story ..Kiwi2

 

[Big John]

The NMLRA targets: 6 bull @ 25yds, 6 bull@ 50yds and 100yd single bull are great targets to learn with. Shooting 45pts. @ 25yds, 45pts. @ 50yds and 40pts. at 100 will leave you at the top of almost any shoot. Two tips for offhand shooting: Shoot the smallest target you can see (aim small,shoot small) and Shoot offhand with your non trigger hand in close next to the trigger guard.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

What was killing me early on was trigger control. At first I used pretty sloppy control, which is what I used on my bolt action and percussion guns, and it was sufficient there at short distances offhand. When I moved to flintlock, the groups went to hell fast. The combination of "pulling" the trigger rather than "squeezing" and flinching pulled me off.

I changed my front hand grip style to a backhanded type of thing rather than open palm. I'd seen a couple old guys doing this. I then changed to a very slow, deliberate trigger control. I would squeeze very gently until I had JUST enough force to make it go off-- no more just pulling it along when I was ready. I also went to a much slower loading process with more care taken.

The groups went from pie plate at best to one ragged hole at 25 yards, on a good set of 3. Goind slow and taking care at all steps makes a difference, even with the little things.