100 Yd + Rifle Exercises/drills

[BigDave]

Let's get some ideas going on medium/long range rifle drills. I ended up with a miss on a 100 yd rifle target, and poor hits on the others I did hit on Saturday and it's got me torqued. I'm very new to the 3-gun game (read: nearly clueless, esp. with the rifle) so I'm all ears.

[Jayson@IGF]

That's a tough one. I practice with some friends of mine and I bet we shoot 100+ yard rifle less than anything.

It takes a lot of time to get to the targets and get them taped.

But the way we usually do it is to shoot at some IPSC targets while someone spots to let us know where we are hitting. And we usually have some steel out too to shoot at after the paper.

Then we walk down tape up the targets, pick up the steel, and repeat.

[kellyn]

Relax and work on the fundamentals. Set up several targets and shoot some groups from the prone. then from sitting. then from the bench. Shooting groups is an essential drill as it will teach you accuracy. Plus you will build a good zero.

Once you can shoot good groups and build an accurate shot, then you can run around with your hair on fire doing faster stuff.

THE SINGLE BIGGEST FAILING OF 3GUNNERS IS THE INABILITY TO SHOOT THEIR RIFLES ACCURATELY.

[George]

Kelly is right on the money. For shooting with any accuracy at any real distance, learn to get into good positions that allow you to shoot precisely and practice getting into a lot of different good positions efficiently. Learn to make a bad position good too! After you can adopt/find a good position on the fly, then practice shooting from bad positions, or the positions that you can''t seem to shoot accurately from. Good positions provide support for the front and rear of the rifle and can be anything that works.

Shooting offhand and shooting around/on barricades with your shoulder unsupported, or from positions that allow the rear of the rifle to move with your breathing are the positions that need a lot of work. IME, the better the support/position, the easier it is to make and call the shot and the less practice that position warrants in the scheme of things. This makes weakhand rifle the position most in need of practice for me ;-)

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Regards,

[BigDave]

  THE SINGLE BIGGEST FAILING OF 3GUNNERS IS THE INABILITY TO SHOOT THEIR RIFLES ACCURATELY.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hence the nature of my quest. Few things in life are worse than being full of $h*t. Not being able to shoot a rifle accurately = me being full of $h*t. Thanks for putting that out there, Kelly.

I've also tossed around the idea of shooting a High Power match or two just simply as a skill builder. Good idea, bad idea?

George - when you talk about the barricade, do you also mean supported or unsupported?

[Paule]

I love to shoot the long range rifle stages. Main reasons for me are:

1- I have no fear because I shoot regularly at typical match ranges (400 yards and less) and know where my rifles shoot.

2- Shooting fast is far less important than shooting accurately. My comfort zone is when I make good hits.

Since I sell precision uppers for a living, I pay a lot of attention to other rifle shooters to see what things give them problems. Once you get past the function issues, (bad ammo and bad magazines are the two biggest hiccups I see), the list of things that trip up rifle shooters is very predictable.

Top of the list is not having a gun really zeroed. A 25 yard zero is a start, as you will not be embarrased by missing at 25 yards. But it will fail you quickly at longer ranges unless you confirm your zero at various distances.

Another common affliction is not understanding the trajectory of the round being shot. I shot a match over the weekend that had steel flashers at 175 - 300 yards. Typical flashers, the plates were 1-2 feet underneath the front deflector plate. yet a lot of rounds were hammered into those deflectors on the 175 and 225 yard targets. These shooters left muttering about never practicing beyond 50 yards, wishing the backstops were dirt so they could see misses, wondering if their scopes had lost zero, etc. I asked a couple guys what they estimated their holdovers to be at 200 yards and both said "a foot or so".

Rifle practice is important, as Kelly and George aptly stated. confidence will be elusive until you see consistent good results. Understanding how your rifle is set up and where it should/will shoot at various distances can shorten the learning curve dramatically though.

[MikeFoley]

I think long range rifle targets shot from standing like those on Saturday are a true test of visual patience. As you know, I had the fastest time on that stage, but when I was shooting it, I took as long as I needed to break every shot, and I was sure it was slow, but I only fired 8 shots on those 4 targets, and nothing worse than a C hit. You were only 1.2 seconds down in time, and the value of your missed shot without the penalty would have moved you to second. Keep in mind that Minor scoring always makes your mistakes look worse.

Knowing the rifle is zeroed, and having the familiarity with shooting it at the given distance with the ammo you intend to use are key. Also confidence with your optic to acquire the target and find the spot you want to shoot can be obtainied by constantly looking through it at objects of varying distances starting from different positions.

[George]

Hi Dave,

I am talking about using the barricade as support for the fore end, but having the rear of the rifle walk around because you aren't able to stabilize the shoulder/butt stock.

As an example, try kneeling on the right knee and resting the fore end on a low wall, it is hard to stabilize for long shots because the rear of the rifle is pivoting on the wall rest point as your body makes tiny movements. Now try the same position on the left knee with the strong elbow down on the right knee. Now you will find the position a lot more stable because the butt stock is supported by the elbow on the knee. You will be able to shoot accurately at distance much, much better/faster whenever the rifle has support at both ends as opposed to just wallowing around at the rear ;-)

Offhand with no fore end support is where the real discipline comes into play. I find it easier to shoot accurately offhand when I don't have any magnification in use. If the shot is reasonable and I have to take it offhand, I will use the 4 minute red dot on my handguard instead of my fixed mag ACOG just to reduce perceived wobble. Seeing less wobble allows me to get the shot off faster and with more confidence. I will use the dot on anything up to 150 yards that has at least a 10 inch hit zone if I have to shoot offhand. A's on a full size IPSC target at 100 yards with the dot are easy offhand.

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Regards,

[Zak Smith]

+1 what Paul said.

For example, at the Tiger Valley 3Gun match, there was a 60-round 300-yard standards stage. The target was a B27, any hit on the black counted. Position was prone on a bipod or your pack. 120 seconds.

There were 17 shooters who had LESS THAN 20 hits (1/3rd), and 12 of those had less than 10.

I had only one miss shooting with iron sights and a 100 yard zero, because I knew my load has 13-14" drop at that distance.

Many of the failures on that stage were because people had a 15-25 yard zero and had no clue about the trajectory.

[EricW]

One thought before I go off to cram for my last final:

Learn to dope the wind!

I had never shot in any type of true crosswind until 2 weeks ago. It was a f-ing disaster. After stage 2, they quit timing me and resorted to carbon-dating to find my stage times. I hadn't read a trajectory table in about a decade, so I had no idea of what to use for windage. We we shooting in about a 25+ mph crosswind (Old Glory was standing out straight), and I finally figured out that I needed about 10" of windage to hit a 200 yard plate.

Next time I go to a match, I'm taping a trajectory card to my stock (so I can't lose it). What an embarassment.

Even with that, I think you actually need to plan some days where you go shoot in heavy wind. Our range is so secluded that we never really get strong crosswinds there, so I'm going to have to travel to do it.

[George]

I figured out by hard experience that trying several different hold-offs as quickly as possible is the only way to dope the wind while shooting if you don't have downrange wind and impact area info available. To do this, you have to be able to call your shots. If you let two fly with a good hold and it doesn't hit, you can then start holding off in different amounts/directions until you get a hit. With some practice you can narrow it to down what is really going on in a moment or two. What you don't want to do is keep drilling the same area over and over thinking you just need a better hold. That is counter-productive, but hard not to do in the heat of the moment,. If you are confident in what you do behind the rifle sights, things like this are no big deal to sort out on the fly.

I have done 200 yard zeroing on a ten inch plate with a 4x optic by holding for a hit, then holding 1/2 and full plate widths off at 9, 12, or 3 and 6 oclock. After a couple passes in X/Y, you can narrow it down so that holding just inside a specific edge gives a hit and holding just barely outside doesn't. bam! Zeroed at 200. After checking on paper, it was dead center perfect ;-)

And yes, ya gotta know the drop at longer ranges (225 yards plus is where the .223 elevator to the basement starts). And you absolutely have to confirm zero at 200ish, not just 40-50ish.

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Regards,

[gl]

One thought before I go off to cram for my last final:

Learn to dope the wind!

I had never shot in any type of true crosswind until 2 weeks ago.  It was a f-ing disaster.  After stage 2, they quit timing me and resorted to carbon-dating to find my stage times.  I hadn't read a trajectory table in about a decade, so I had no idea of what to use for windage.  We we shooting in about a 25+ mph crosswind (Old Glory was standing out straight), and I finally figured out that I needed about 10" of windage to hit a 200 yard plate. 

Next time I go to a match, I'm taping a trajectory card to my stock (so I can't lose it).  What an embarassment.

Even with that, I think you actually need to plan some days where you go shoot in heavy wind.  Our range is so secluded that we never really get strong crosswinds there, so I'm going to have to travel to do it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

EricW I feel your pain! Living in West Texas I rarely have the opportunity to ever get a true zero on my rifle because we alway seem to have 5-30 mph winds in my area. I get freaked out when it is calm. And then I really worry about my zero!! LOL!! I make a mark with the end of the bullet for my shooting session knowing good and well that the next time I will need to make another fresh mark for my zero. I envy your calm weather!!

Guy Hawkins

[cking]

IF you have access to a range buy a couple of AR500 plates I bought a 8 inch round and 6 inch square rifle hard plates. I made up a two stands that hold the plates but let them rock. Then I bought a 22lr topend. You can hear the hits on the plates. Stand and practice. Once your up to say 80% hits move back to the 223 and work on it.

I place the plates about 15 feet apart and practice movement between the plates and multiple hits on the plates.

Then you can practice using something to lean on, like tree, broom handle, stepladder whatever is available.

22lr at 200 yards is little too far.

That way I can burn 300/400 hundred rounds of 22lr as a warmup for 100 rounds of 223.

If where your shooting doesn't go past 200 yards, and wind is less than gusting don't bother with wind dopping, or for that matter drop.

Tubbs comments help me the most, he said don't wait for sights to settle on the plate get the hang of pushing the gun to the plate and learning when to let the trigger break.

[George]

he said don't wait for sights to settle on the plate get the hang of pushing the gun to the plate and learning when to let the trigger break

AKA Shooting On Approach.

Spending time dressing up an offhand sight picture is usually a losing proposition and will quite often only increase the wobble factor and proportionally decrease your ability to hit anything the longer you hold. Shoot when the target is under your sights. He who hesitates, holds, and holds, and holds, and holds... ;-)

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Regards,

[EricW]

I feel your pain!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Guy,

You might feel my pain, but until your stage time is written down in terms of half-lives, you will never know my shame.

[Paule]

George, you are right on the mark. I like to move the reticle into the shot, and when I do I am rarely disappointed. Trying to hold on a target is a losing proposition.

Wind doping can be a challenge, especially when gusting, or when there are physical obstructions like tree lines, etc. I like to break up the bullet flight into sections for long shots, and make a guess at effect for each 100 yards of flight. A good example was at Area 2 this year. The day I shot the combined pistol/long rifle stage (#11 I think), there was a 20-25 mph cross wind. However, there was a 6 o'clock wind at the shooting position, the cross wind did not hit the bullet until 150-200 yards into the flight (a big hill blocked it). The longest target was just under 400 yards, and the windage was 26" based on the direction, distance and speed. But since the wind only affected the last half of the shot or so the correct hold off was only 8-10 inches.

Even though it is sometimes necessary to walk shots into the target, I am much better when I have a detailed understanding of how the wind is likely going to affect the bullet. At least with that I can be confident when it works (and not just feelin' lucky), and possibly better prepared to make educated adjustments when my calcs are off (or the wind changes suddenly).

[BigDave]

he said don't wait for sights to settle on the plate get the hang of pushing the gun to the plate and learning when to let the trigger break

AKA Shooting On Approach.

Spending time dressing up an offhand sight picture is usually a losing proposition and will quite often only increase the wobble factor and proportionally decrease your ability to hit anything the longer you hold. Shoot when the target is under your sights. He who hesitates, holds, and holds, and holds, and holds... ;-)

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Regards,

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

George - that is exactly the problem I encounted on Sat. shooting offhand/unsupported. On my 2nd target (paper) at 100 yds, I decided to put a 3rd shot on it b/c I wasn't called a miss on shot 2. When I went for the third my dot (4 MOA Aimpoint) was dancing and I let the shot go anyway because I knew the clock was ticking. Take the time for the extra shot out and the points, like Fomiester said, and I finish 2nd, instead of 6th.

[George]

BTW, shooting on approach is another place where a really good trigger pays good dividends.

Where we shoot, we have to set our MGM rifle flash targets all in a row in front of a low berm on the high power range. This makes it pretty easy to drag a bipod across the row while prone. I don't believe I ever stop the sights moving when I shoot an array like this. I just snap the trigger (JP, of course) as the reticle touches plate and register the hit as I am leaving the other side of the plate for the next one. Do this right and the row of flash targets does a real nice wave ;-)

I have been working on my rifle re-loads and recently ran a series of Vice Prez drills at 10 yards. After shooting and taping a number of passes I noticed the hits were clustering in the edge of the left C zone entering the A and again clustered on the right side of the A and just into the C. No centered A's were present in an actual group, just one centered flyer ;-) I realized that I was firing on the way across each target and never actually stopping, just slowing down a mite as I tapped the trigger.

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Regards,

Edited May 4, 2005 by George

[codyb]

Tubbs comments (high power) and a 22 were the best things that ever happened to my rifle shooting. Still just like any thing else in life, for me, pratice, pratice, pratice... Best drills for me involve a combination of steel for increased numbers and distance, but always with some paper to check groups. Cody

[Chris Rhines]

I had only one miss shooting with iron sights and a 100 yard zero, because I knew my load has 13-14" drop at that distance.

Man, did I ever find this out the hard way. At the NC Invitational 3-Gun match, I fired thirty rounds at an MGM flash target out at 200-some-odd yards, and didn't have a single hit. I wanted to dig a freakin' hole and crawl in...

First thing I did when my JP arrived was to drag it out to the IWLA range and get a dead-on 100 yard zero.

Experience is the best teacher, but man, those tuition payments are rough.

- Chris

[kellyn]

I would not use a 100 yard zero. You have to hold too high for 200-300 yard shots. When you hold high (over the target), you can't really see what you're shooting at and you'll have vertical stringing on your shots.

For iron sights, I use a 250 yard zero and Kurt Miller uses a 300 yard zero (holding under for those intermediate shots).

I use the same 250 yard zero for a scope unless the scope has a BDC calibrated to something else or I know in advance what the distances will be at a match.

As for the Tubb approach method, you can't argue with success. There is no better offhand shooter than Mr. Tubb (the TGO of highpower and silhouette). I was taught the "hold" method as a junior and subconciously slip back into it if I'm not paying attention though.

[Chris Rhines]

I would not use a 100 yard zero. You have to hold too high for 200-300 yard shots. When you hold high (over the target), you can't really see what you're shooting at and you'll have vertical stringing on your shots.

A reasonable concern, except that I simply don't have anyplace to establish and confirm a 200-300 yard zero. My home range maxes out at 100 yards. The nearest 200+ yard range is over an hour away.

Also, I use a TA-11, which helps some.

- Chris

[George]

1.34" high at 100 will be a 200 yard zero if you use 55gr ball at about 3100 fps.

If you set it 2.32" high at 100, you will have a 250 yard zero with the same 55gr at 3100ish.

Set it 3.41" high at 100 and you will have correct elevation for a 300 yard zero (not necessarily correct windage though, that needs actual 300 to confirm).

I like a 200 yard zero, but think you should make your own choice based on what distances you will be shooting. If you mostly shoot at under 200 yards, then the 200 yard zero is the best choice IMO because it is pretty much dead on at 40-60 yards and only just over an inch high at 100. You can hold dead on out to about 250 yards without any correction whatsoever.

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Regards

[mike.45]

KellyN,

Hi mate, I am pretty much a rifle virgin, I enjoy shooting it and iron sights is my bag but technical knowelege is not great !!

I have purchased a manual op FAL to practice for He Man class as Pacman is very kindly lending me his L1A1 for the RM3G this year - I was shooting the FAL today, all iron sighted, for the second time, and it is tip top at 100 off hand and 200m prone. I zeroed it at 200 and it is about 3moa with issue UK military ball ammo, it was even kicking some optic bolt guns ass at this range.

I have found both times, that when I move back to 300m, re set the rear sight to 300m and now my front sight completely covers the 14" paper target, I aim at the center and I seem to suddenly start missing. I was advised today to re-set the sights for 400m and aim at the base of the target - is this what you should do ? I did start to again hit the target and my last two were A hits, mono podding off a 20 rnd mag. (30's on way when Kurt gets here in June!)

Why should the zero change when I then go back to 300m ? I adjust the sights for 300m but from your previous post it would appear a 200m zero at 300 isnt great - I may have misunderstood your post - as I said I am brand new to this !

I am trying to re-create a 3 gun long distance rifle stage with what is available but for some reason targets at 250m + suddenly seem hard to hit, last year with a iron sighted 20" AR there was no problem hitting them - I am confused !!

Any help would be great !

[kellyn]

The FAL rear sight is evil.

I would ignore the numbers on it. Set the rear sight at a comfortable height (probably 200, 300, or 400) and adjust the elevation via the front sight to your battlesight zero. Never touch the rear sight again. For your zero, I would have it at either 200, 250, or 300 depending on where your match is.