What have you done, or do, to improve/maintain a consistent shooting score?

[Larry (Omaha)]

Checking in with the gang here on competition prep. I am 75 years old and have seen good days and bad days when it comes to a decent target score. Assuming guns and accessories are in order, you get to the range as often as you can.............. what do you do to for better scores? For instance: does anyone dry fire? If so, how often, and how much? Do you think it helps? How about any physical exercises?
What say you?
Larry

 

[Phil Coffins]

Being a mere 70 year old I struggle to shoot consistently. My best technique is concentrate on the follow threw. When I miss it’s often when I drop the shot to the right. Poor follow threw!

 

[smo]

A Friend of mine always says, this is a sport that rewards practice.....

 

[appalichian hunter]

Shoot as much as you can, when I competed with the un-mentionable revolvers it was not uncommon to run 500-600 rounds a week in practice. As I was a firearms instructor for my home state, had access to ammo, range and all other necessary items. every spare moment I had I was on the trigger.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Yes, its practice. Even just bringing your rifle to your shoulder and holding the aim on a target for 10 seconds. Get physically fit. Do light lifting.

Take your rifle to the range and shoot it.

 

[longcruise]

Some general physical conditioning helps with stamina. Not necessarily specific to shooting, just plain old physical conditioning.

Holding drills followed by a dry fire. Endeavor to hold your front sight within a circle. If you can consistently stay within the circle, make a smaller circle and so on.

Employ a mantra. Boil your shot down to a series of steps. Mentally go through the mantra with every shot. End it with a perfect follow through. Do it every day. Use it when you when you actually shoot for practice or for score.

 

[yonderin]

Upper body workouts and maybe some cardio. Lots of practice holding aim for a time, dry fire and focus on follow through.

If you have the luxury at a competition, take the time to ensure your position and hold have your sights pointing naturally at the target. Minimize pulling your sights onto the target. Something as small as pointing your foot more in or out can make a noticeable difference. Your shot will want to go in the natural direction, particularly if snap shooting. Lots of practice will make adopting the proper position to obtain natural alignment almost second nature.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

A few things, which actually are to keep you active..., even when not going to the range.

First, find a gentle chiropractor. I thought Chiropractic was "snake oil", but got so messed up after several car-impact-events, that I couldn't do much of anything. As part of that, I was sent to a hand surgeon, and was told I had about an 8 month window before my hands would hurt too much to use.... Then I went to a Chiropractor. Took a Doctor of Chiropractic about two months to get me "sorted". That was five years ago, and still haven't had surgery on either hand, and there is no pain. AND look into a triple-arch support for your shoes. There are three arches in the foot, not just the one. They make a huge difference on the rest of your body.
(OH a gentle Chiropractor uses a "table" that has moving platforms and this keeps the doctor from from over adjusting you. )

Second, you can do rifle exercises, or you can substitute weights, but you already own the rifle or gun, right? Get used to the weight. Sure, you've owned them for years..., but as time goes on and you've tapered off on some other activities, you get less daily work from your muscle groups so..., over time the gun or rifle starts to feel heavier. You notice you can't hold it in certain positions for as long as in the past. "I'm getting older", no..., you just need a little exercise. IF you use the same gun or rifle that you shoot, you then train to handle that piece. So try some of what we called Rifle PT.

Third..., walk
The natural exercise of the human is walking. Your grand parents probably mentioned when you were just a kid, about how people used to take their a walk in the evening after dinner, in good weather. There were amazing benefits, and while folks didn't know all that was going on, they did know that people, especially older people, who did this lived longer and weren't as sick. You don't have to go to the woods to do this, but that would be good. It's better to take a lap, of a few blocks, every day, than not.

Lastly, practice the shooting positions that you will use. You don't have to dry fire, but simply holding the rifle or gun in those positions for a set period of time will help you with muscle memory.

LD

 

[Col. Batguano]

Diet is important as well. Try to stay away from caffeine shortly before you are going to shoot. A great big gut bomb of a meal right before will make sitting position challenging too.

Obviously practice. Competitive small bore shooters often practice dry firing as much as live firing.

Keep records. Wind, temperature, humidity, lighting, as well as load data.

 

[William Lincoln]

Different answers depending on rifle, shotgun or pistol. As above, good strength is
important and of course practice. If you shoot a pistol, mainly revolver. You get into
force vectors that cause muzzle rise or hand rock. You need to offset that. A bull
barrel helps, also the target acquisition with muscles lightly tensed to oppose
the muzzle rise. A rest if needed. Find a National forest, or friend's farm, if you can
that allows you, or has a place for target shooting. Bring a small folding table and chair.
Take two or three pieces of 3/4" plywood 2x2 and targets, look for a natural backstop
for your target, a hill, rise or ridge. Be careful and remember that:
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHERE THE BULLET OR SHOT GOES.
Check your local laws on shooting. You will target shoot more if it is free or nearly free.
Older folks on fixed income will not go if it dents the pocket much. If money is not at
issue use your commercial range. Use eye and ear protection.

 

[S.Kenton]

I simply keep everything the same after I work up a good load. Then I follow through with my shots, lastly I swab between shots. I practice my breathing and holding techniques even on off days.

 

[Mulebrain]

I like to pick up various rifles, and practice holding and stance quite a bit. I sometimes have to remind myself, to take my time instead of rushing. The more shooting you can do the better! You also really need to have a rifle you can trust. You know that trusty rifle will hit where you aim it. My last shoot was 25/40, 50/40, 100/30 off hand and no zeros. That is not great, but I am working on it

 

[Artificer]

Diet is important as well. Try to stay away from caffeine shortly before you are going to shoot. A great big gut bomb of a meal right before will make sitting position challenging too.

Obviously practice. Competitive small bore shooters often practice dry firing as much as live firing.

Keep records. Wind, temperature, humidity, lighting, as well as load data.

LOL!! Col. I'm not laughing at you, but that reminds me back in 1975 when they decided to forbid THE Marine Corps Rifle Team from drinking coffee before a match. OMG, the scores were HORRIBLE that day! Grin. THEN they changed it to have your normal coffee in the morning before the match, but not drink more an hour before shooting and none until after shooting. Since they changed over the relays, the guys could then drink some coffee while they were pulling targets.

Our rule of thumb was dry fire at least 10 shots for every 1 shot fired in competition. It was not unusual for our guys to dry fire 50 times a night (or more) on practice days.

I absolutely could not agree more about keeping records when firing and I would add keeping a data book on all your shots, at least in practice.

I shot Expert Rifle and Pistol every year after boot camp, BUT even though I spent as much time around the shooters on the Big Team or near them and our Scout Sniper Instructors, it took me until I went through the NRA Police Firearms Instructors Course for something to really sink in - that they had tried to teach me from boot camp onward. This was:

1. Establish your natural point of aim before EVERY round fired in Slow Fire and especially offhand. This means stand comfortably, raise your rifle and aim, close your eyes for a few seconds until it feels right, then open your eyes to see how far off target you are. Adjust your feet positions and try again while aiming. Repeat until when you open your eyes, you are in the center of the target. Then DON'T move your feet from that position as you load and fire the rest of the shots.

2. Keep Perfect Sight alignment at all times, even as the rifle naturally moves around in your arms, naturally. (This is commonly known as your "wobble area.")

3. Put smooth, consistent pressure on the trigger and let the shot go off when it wants to. IOW, don't jerk the trigger as your sights get close to the center of the target.

4. Learn to memorize where the sights were on target when the rifle fired. This will teach you to "call your shot." That way you will know for certain when you fired a bad shot. Then when you fire a bad shot, forgive yourself and go right back to the previous techniques.

5. Keep aiming long enough so the bullet has time to go through the target, after the shot is fired. This ensures you have good follow through.

For some reason, the "lights finally went on" for me on this during the NRA course mentioned above.

Using these techniques, I went from low Expert to Medium to High Expert with a pistol and from medium to High Expert with the Rifle. Matter of fact the next time I shot the Rifle for re-qualification, I was the 8th Marine in history to tie the All Time Range Record of 249 out of 250 at Quantico back in the mid 1980's. BTW, that record is still current as of a few months ago.

OH, I taught this to my young Marine Armorers when I got it cleared for them to qualify with the Pistol. NONE of them had ever fired for qualification with a pistol, though my NCO's had familiarization fired a few times. Every last one of them at least qualified Marksman and half of them shot Expert. The Range Coaches were stunned, as that was far better than normal and especially since my Marines were doing it for their first time.

Gus

 

[appalichian hunter]

Artificer, that's why you, me and every other Marine spent a week with our A!! in the grass dry firing at 55 gal. drums with little target shapes painted on them.

 

[Leadball loader]

I try to exercise upper body each morning for about half an hour. I hold and practice mounting my gun during the day and try to get out to shoot at least once a week.
Lately getting to shoot has been a problem. I need to get out on good days and make smoke!
LBL

 

[rich pierce]

Our club has matches varying from 25 yards offhand, 35 yards offhand, 50 yards off cross sticks, 50 yards with 4 shooting positions, 50 or 75 yards off the bench, a 60 yard chunk or over the log match, and 100 yards off the bench. One has to decide which gun(s) to shoot throughout the season. We don’t have separate flint or percussion matches. There’s an advantage to percussion offhand. On the bench or cross sticks, not so much.
Anyway it’s hard to know your aiming point at 25, 35, 50, 60, 75, and 100 yards if using one gun. Now I know all about load development but most guns will shoot well at 25 yards with various powder charges. A great shooter in our club shared that he uses a light load at 25 yards in his offhand rifle to hit dead on at 25 yards when sighted in to be dead on at 100 yards with his most accurate load. Knowing how to aim at all ranges is important.
Learning to never sight your gun in on a windy day is important too. You can chase the balls all over the target while making adjustments. If there’s a crosswind you simply cannot hold dead on at 50 yards plus and hope to finish near the top in a match.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

Our club has matches varying from 25 yards offhand, 35 yards offhand, 50 yards off cross sticks, 50 yards with 4 shooting positions, 50 or 75 yards off the bench, a 60 yard chunk or over the log match, and 100 yards off the bench. One has to decide which gun(s) to shoot throughout the season. We don’t have separate flint or percussion matches. There’s an advantage to percussion offhand. On the bench or cross sticks, not so much.
Anyway it’s hard to know your aiming point at 25, 35, 50, 60, 75, and 100 yards if using one gun. Now I know all about load development but most guns will shoot well at 25 yards with various powder charges. A great shooter in our club shared that he uses a light load at 25 yards in his offhand rifle to hit dead on at 25 yards when sighted in to be dead on at 100 yards with his most accurate load. Knowing how to aim at all ranges is important.
Learning to never sight your gun in on a windy day is important too. You can chase the balls all over the target while making adjustments. If there’s a crosswind you simply cannot hold dead on at 50 yards plus and hope to finish near the top in a match.

With all due respect: What would that be??? I shoot flint 99% of the time. When I shoot percussion, I see no difference except, trying to cap with arthritic hands.

 

[Grenadier1758]

With some, and probably most of us, the lock time is faster with a percussion lock than the flintlock.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Research Pletch's work.

Total barrel dwell time is roughly 3x longer with a flint gun than percussion. Add in the variations in ignition you get some times by using a duller flint from fewer sparks and you have a perfect recipe for bigger groups.

Obviously increasing your skill level and cutting down your wobble area by finding your NPA helps a ton. When I'm jacketed up with my small bore rifle (in standing position) I have about an "8-ring wobble". In street clothes with a ML'er it's more like a 5-ring. Because of the fast lock time in an unmentionable if I time my shot to break as it is crossing in to the 10- ring it is usually a 10. With flint, I have to break it in the 7-ring and HOPE the wobble will cross the 10 for it to go there (if it's a fast light of the charge). If it's slower, it might wind up in the 6 on the OTHER side.

 

[Art Caputo]

Hunting and competing various firearms from flintlocks at <100yards to the unmentionables out to +1000 yards, for over four decades each shot taken follows the BRASS sequence. It more of a mental then physical process.

(B-breath: R-relax: A-aim: S-sight picture: S-squeeze/trigger control.

Over time, this sequence has become sub-conscious.... part of my muscle memory. My exercise is to consciously refresh the sequence during practice and casual target shooting on a periodic basis. For me, the follow-through necessary when shooting a flintlock off-hand is achieved with the “perfect” execution of the S-sight picture and S-squeeze components of the BRASS sequence, with a well fitted, balanced, and weighted rifle. The most effective physical conditioning for my 70 year old bones is shooting and handling my rifle on a regular basis.